Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe

Death by Water Reviews

• 
  Jim Fonseca

  In many of this author’s novels he uses a literary alter ego – an author of his age (early 70’s in this book) who has a brain-damaged son (as does the author). In his older years, looking for a topic for his final novel, the writer returns to his sister’s house in his home village to look through documents. The documents are in a suitcase and supposedly they relate to his father’s last actions prior to his death.
  
  
  
  Right after the end of WW II his father hosted at his home a group of ex-soldiers who were angry at Japan’s surrender. While they worshiped the emperor they also discussed wild plans to kill him by stealing a plane and bombing the palace. Why would a group of emperor-worshippers want to kill the Emperor? In the way of classical myth: that of ‘killing the living God’ as a way of bringing rebirth and prosperity to a country.” Death and regeneration are linked.
  
  The writer really wants to tell the story of his father’s fatal drowning. Why did he go out in a small boat during a torrential storm and into a raging river?
  
  While the writer is examining the contents of the suitcase he works on play scripts with a group of actors: an avant-garde theater troupe, young men and women. The troupe has dramatized his earlier novels. It seems a bit of a stretch to see how much they revere him and hang on his every spoken and written word. The troupe is gaining fame for its use of theatrical ploys such as ‘tossing dead dogs,’ which involves the audience in pelting the actors with stuffed animals.
  
  Since the author in the book constantly dreams the same dream of helping his father push off the boat prior to his drowning, dreams are a big part of the story. “…the big question seems to be whether your dream is based on something you actually experienced, or whether you first dreamed about the scene you described, then came to believe it actually happened and, later on, began to dream about it again in a new and different form.”
  
  It’s also a story of family stresses. The writer has had a fragile relationship with his mother and sister for ten years. His mother banned him from seeing the suitcase because she thought he revealed family secrets and disgraced the family in one of his novels.
  
  Meanwhile the author in the book has also seen his relationship with his brain-damaged son deteriorate. The son will hardly speak to his father after his father called him an ‘idiot’ – twice over the same minor incident. His son is 45 and while he needs help in physical tasks such as dressing, he is a savant in music and has even had some compositions produced. His relationship with his wife is also deteriorating because of his unwillingness to patch things up with his son.
  
  A good part of the novel is in the form of letters from his sister to him while the author is living in Tokyo.
  
  The ending also seems to me to be a stretch. A young woman is going to stage a play about rape and possibly implicate her uncle in her own rape. Her uncle was a high-level national education official, now retired. A group of men kidnap the woman, the writer and his son so that the play can’t be staged. I don’t know anything about Japanese law, but It seems farfetched that the legal difficulties from a rape years ago could outweigh the implications of kidnapping multiple people. Indeed two people end up dead after this escapade.
  
  So, a good story although I did find it a bit repetitive in places – we must have read about his dream six or eight times and there seems a bit much on the performances by the troupe. And, as I mentioned some things seem to be a stretch – the adoration with which the troupe holds the author and the near-fantasy ending. And I thought it dragged a bit in places – but all in all a good story with good writing, so I rounded it up to a 4.
  
  
  
  The author (1935- ) won the Nobel Prize in 1994. I also enjoyed his much shorter book, A Personal Matter, about a Japanese scholar in Paris after WW II.
  
  Photo of Japanese theater from wikipedia commons
  Photo of the author from
  qt.azureedge.net/resources/authors
• 
  Barbara

  3+
  
  Kenzaburo Oe is considered one of Japan's finest authors since WWII. In 1994, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world where life and myths condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today". He was also long listed for the International Booker Prize.
  
  This novel could be summed up by the very description given above. As with many books that mix life and myth, this book was perplexing, often leaving me baffled, unsure, questioning. Adding a different culture to the mixture only increased that aura of mystique. Yet even with the veil of fog that prevented me from understanding all the nuances, I enjoyed the book.
  
  Kogito Choko, nicknamed Cogi, is the narrator and alter-ego of author Oe. Like Oe, he is an older man famous for his many novels. He returns to his remote boyhood home with the hope of being able to write his final novel, his masterpiece. He envisions the book to be about the drowning death of his father when he was ten years old; the circumstances of this death continue to haunt him in a recurring dream. Could he have saved his father? Was it a planned suicide, a way his father could disguise his involvement in a planned attempt to assassinate the Emperor at the end of WWII? Suicide was preferable to disgracing the family.
  
  This story within a story also describes the aged novelist's tense interactions with his mentally impaired though musically brilliant son. Oe also has a son with similar handicaps and abilities. The young Cogi and his father too, had a difficult relationship. Even more essential to the novel is an experimental theatre group that has dramatized many of Cogi's earlier works, often in bizarre ways. The group has moved into Kogito's country home at the invitation of his sister and are collaborating on this planned new novel. Many themes develop and much is divulged about the members of this group and their work. Young women dress differently; they are more assertive. Sexual assaults, long kept quiet, are now spoken of and vilified. Serious disagreements between conservative and progressive factions become evident. The Japanese culture is changing faster than the aging novelist realized.
  
  In researching Oe and his work, I learned that this novel probably wasn't the best place to jump into his books. Many reviewers indicated clarity comes with reading his entire oerve; the novels are interwoven with many of the same themes and characters. I look forward to fitting the Oe puzzle pieces together, that 'aha" moment when something clicks. Even that lost puzzle piece, as frustrating as it is, can be coped with if the writing is great and the story unique.
• 
  Elyse Walters

  Kogito Choko was called Kogii when he was a child. He grew up along the river, (a proficient swimmer), .....in 'A Forest House' with his parents and sister, Asa, in the town of Shikoku... surrounded by friends, relations, and community.
  He attended Tokyo University as a literature major. Thinking at the time he would become a French literature scholar....
  It was his mother who planted the seed saying..."if he can't find a regular job, then he'll most likely become a novelists!"
  His mother had made a joke saying, "there's more than enough raw material for a novel in the red leather trunk alone!"
  
  "The fact that Papa felt the need to fill the red leather trunk with all the papers pertaining to the
  insurrection seems to indicate that he thought those materials were too important (or too
  incriminating) to leave behind. It's as if he felt it would be disastrous for any outsiders to see what he was plotting, but yet he also put a flotation device in the trunk so the papers would
  eventually find their way back to us. At least that's what I believed for many years after he
  drowned. But why on earth would he set up an outcome in which his folly would be exposed?"
  
  Kogito, who idolized his father, wanted to open that red leather trunk to gather information needed to write a book - "The Drowing Novel", to honor his father's heroism. His mother didn't want him to have the red leather trunk when he first asked for it as she wanted a chance to weed out contents that would have broken his heart to learn about the truth about his father. Plus, his mother didn't relish having their dirty laundry aired in public.
  As a result, Kogii and his mother were estranged for years.
  After she died... His sister, Asa, called him to come back home and go through it so he may consider writing his 'drowning novel'.
  
  By this time he is in his 70's, he has written other work.. Novellas.. Yet never gave up on this dream.
  He's married with two children...living in Matsuyama, not far from Toyko. It's been ten years since his mother died at the age of 95, and he is going to fly home to Shikoko....(the island he grew up on).... back to the forest house.... excited to begin writing, to celebrate his father.
  
  Chikaski, his wife doesn't go with him.. but supports him. They have two kids: Their son Akari and daughter Maki. Akari was born disabled with a skull defect.. but has taken to music. Listening to classical music, creating and composing is his domain
  
  When Kogito arrives back home.. First time in many years. (His dad had died more than sixty years ago), he meets theater directors Unaiko, Masao Anai, and "The Caveman Drama Group".
  Kogito may be wanting to get closure on his father's death...needing material from the red leather trunk.. But the drama directors and thespians are excited to have him contribute to the play they are doing also. But when Kogito discovers there is no useful material for his book.. he feels like a failure having hit a brick wall.
  
  This story begins to take an interesting turn around this time when we see & feel the disappointment - deep letdown. It's at this point.. I was aware.. this is an old man... And aging writer...who says himself he wakes each morning with pessimistic thoughts.
  
  So...Kogito flies back home. His sister, Asa, and theater group remains on the island.
  After Kogii is home for awhile, it seems.... troubles just begin. He and his son are both dealing with depression.. "Two giant mounds of Depression"...
  Chikaski's brother, Goro, has committed suicide, by jumping off a building.
  Kogito has a huge attack of Veritgo leaving him with ongoing chronic dizzy spells,
  Chikaski gets sick, ( Maki, her daughter takes care of her)...
  
  AND... Kogito 'still' can't let go of his failed novel and his childhood memory of what happened the night his father went out on the boat...(obvious he was running away), but died before he reached a destination.
  
  So, he returns to his island home a second time. The young theater people are still at the forest house...
  Hoping "Mr. Choke" will write his drowning story.
  On this trip he takes his son with him..(who is now 45 years himself). There is tension between their relationship ...
  But between, his son's disability, and now sometimes seizures, and his own challenges with Veritgo symptoms....Kogito's reoccurring dream from childhood is coming back.
  
  "His recurrent dream reflected the idealized perspective of the young boy who believed
  Wholeheartedly that his father was on his way to commit a doomed act of heroism when he drowned"........THAT WAS THE STORY HE WAS GOING TO TELL.
  
  However, secrets were kept. Plus, it's possible little Kogii... had heard information when he was only ten years old that was too difficult or radical for him to process. It's possible his conscious mind could suppress it. He may have over-heard about his father being involved with a political scheme... too confusing her little ears.
  Young children in Japan are rooted in emperor- worshiping nationalism in their schools.
  
  There are other characters I have not mentioned.. other stories.. themes..told..(I couldn't possibly review everything), and as long as this review is,... (forgive me), I don't think I've come close to expressing the magnitude of this novel. It's an extraordinary accomplishment.
  It's a novel that could be broken down and discussed for months...the richness in the storytelling is top notch.
  The Japanese family culture itself is beautiful and fascinating: the power of generations....pride....ritual suicide--(junshi), correspondence communications as a way of connecting, murky relationships, taboo topics, etc.
  
  The moon shines.... Vegetable gardens are built...the river flows....
  But what is the cold hard truth as to what happened years ago when Kogii's father set off in his
  little boat...(with the red leather trunk)...and ended up being drowned?
  
  And... does Koggii write his drowning novel? ( I'm not sayin)
  
  Thank you to Grove Atlantic, Netgalley, and author Kenaburo Oe.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Odai Al-Saeed

  لكل من يعشق شخص كنزابورو سوف تروق له هذه الرواية بشكل أو بآخر حيث أن نمطها السردي يمزج السيرة الذاتية لشخصه بالقولبة الروائية المتخيلة
  سوف تتوالى الأحداث بشكل عميق لكنه بطيئ جداً يتطلب صبر وروية تتخللها بعض الرتابة والممل ..جيدة بالنسبة لي
• 
  Paul Fulcher

  "So one of my main literary methods is “repetition with difference.” I begin a new work by first attempting a new approach toward a work that I've already written—I try to fight the same opponent one more time. Then I take the resulting draft and continue to elaborate upon it, and as I do so the traces of the old work disappear. I consider my literary work to be a totality of differences within repetition."
  
  Kenzaburō Ōe in an interview with the Paris Review:
  
  http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
  
  水死 (Suishi) by Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎), published in 2009, has been translated into English as Death by Water by Deborah Boehm.
  
  The narrator is the authorial alter-ego Kogito Choko that Ōe has used in four previous novels, starting with the Changeling in 2000 (the three intermediate novels are yet to be translated into English), and now in his seventies. And while Death by Water was originally billed as Ōe's last novel, he has since published, an as yet untranslated sixth, "In Late Style" (2011).
  
  Kogito Choko shares many similarities with Ōe e.g. his family including his mentally handicapped son, now middle-aged and a savant composer, his political views and the opposition they attracts from ultra-rightish factions and, at times a little confusingly, his literary works.
  
  But the biographical detail on which Death by Water hinges differs from Ōe's own, as the novel is centred on Kogito Choko's attempts to finally write the work that has been on his mind since his father drowned just after the end of World War 2, when Kogito was a boy. (Whereas Ōe's father was killed in military service in the war itself). Kogito's father had got involved, as a mentor, with a group of young army officers horrified at the Emperor's surrender and plotting potential revenge, and died while attempting to navigate a swollen river by a makeshift raft. Ever since Kogito has been haunted by the question of whether his father was the instigator of the plot or a follower, and whether his father was fleeing the soldiers or attempting a journey to aid them, including a recurrent dream of the events of the night which he increasingly finds hard to separate from what actually happened.
  
  As an author, he naturally attempt to answer the questions via his works and tells us:
  
  "I did make a stab at writing the drowning novel once, when I was in my mid thirties. I had already published The Silent Cry, which seemed to prove that I had attained a certain degree of proficiency, and that accomplishment gave me the confidence to dive in at last."
  
  But that original attempt failed when Kogito sent a first draft to his mother, requesting she give him access to a red leather trunk of papers that was rescued after his father died. Instead she destroyed his draft and refused him access to the trunk. Kogito responded by writing a more allegorical and exaggerated account. "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away" (mirroring a real life book written by Ōe), which incenses his mother further and she even stipulating in her will that he not be allowed to access the papers for ten years.
  
  The novel is set when that moratorium expires, and Kogito is finally able to look inside the trunk and, he hopes, complete the novel that will be the culmination of his life's work.
  
  "With these concrete clues in hand, maybe if I just kept digging - and if I could manage to incorporate the long-held ideas I'd expressed in The Silent Cry and had overlaid, in that book, with the area's popular folklore - perhaps I might be able to chronicle my father's life and death as it paralleled and reflected this dark period in Japanese history,"
  
  [as an aside, a key point as to how the trunk survived the drowning - Kogito as his father's request inserted an inflated bicycle inner tube into the trunk as a floatation device - suggests Ōe is a better writer than he is a physicist!]
  
  He also gets involved with a theatre troupe, who are basing their, highly imaginative, dramatic productions on his works. As he struggles to write the novel, the group see a mutual opportunity for him to work directly with them instead:
  
  "I'd love it if we could give one last chance at creative fulfilment to the ageing author who's still tormenting himself after all these years, asleep and awake, because he wasn't able to save his father from drowning!"
  
  As with many of Ōe's books, it is centred on the work of a particular poet (previous novels have used ideas from Blake, RS Thomas and Kim Chi-Ha) and philosophers (Edward Said being his favourite), "The ideas in my novels are fused with the ideas of the poets and philosophers I am reading at the time."(Paris Review interview). Here the poet is TS Eliot and the English title (the Japanese is closer to "drowning"), "Death by water" comes directly from a part of his "Waste Land"
  
  "DEATH BY WATER
  ...
  A current under sea
  Picked his bones in whispers.
  As he rose and fell
  He passed the stages of his age and youth
  Entering the whirlpool."
  
  Another poem plays a key role, that etched on the stone commemorating Kogito's winning of a "major literary prize" [paralleling Ōe's Nobel], the first two lines written by his mother and the last three by Kogito in response.
  
  "You didn't get Kogii ready to go up into the forest/
  And like the river current, you won't return home/
  In Tokyo during the dry season/
  I'm remembering everything backward/
  From old age to earliest childhood."
  
  The poem is used to explore the theme of family conflict but also of Kogito's need, as he approaches the end of his life, to put his own affairs in order, particularly the future of his handicapped son.
  
  An interesting reading of "The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion" by Sir James George Frazer is used to explain the plot in which his father became enmeshed, and Edward Said's "On Late Style" is another important reference. The novel contains lot of critical comments on Kogito's (and by extension Ōe's) "late style", and a key theme is that of an elderly novelist, no longer as popularly acclaimed as he once was, and particularly regarded as less relevant by a younger generation (talking of a younger man who does still take an interest in Kogito's work, another young character tells him "a more typical member of his generation might have dismissed you as an irrelevant fossil from the past (no offence)").
  
  Perhaps the most damaging implicit self-criticism comes towards the novel's end:
  
  "For Mr. Choko, this probably is a 'serious novel,' both in terms of structure and literary style. However, the thing is, over the past ten or fifteen years all of Mr. Choko's long works of fiction have more or less been cut from the same cloth, most notably in terms of the protagonist (who is often the first-person narrator as well). Not to put too fine a point on it, but the author's alter ego is nearly always the main character in his books. At some point, doesn't it become overkill ? I mean, can these serial slices of thinly veiled memoir really be considered genuine novels ? Generally speaking, books like this will never win over the people who want to read a novel that's actually novelistic: that is, an imaginative work of fiction. So at the risk of seeming rude, I really have to ask: Why do you choose to write about such a solipistic and narrowly circumscribed world?"
  
  The narrative form a little forced at times, much of the book consisting characters telling each other things ("as you know...") about Kogito's life history and works, largely for the reader's benefit, and can get a little convoluted in the middle e.g. at one point we are presented with a letter to Kogito from his sister describing a play which itself is a critical exposition (rather than dramatisation) of a book which isn't even Kogito's (Natsume Soseki's Kokoro). The English-speaking reader also cannot help but be less than 100% familiar with Ōe's (and hence Kogito's) works given they haven't all been translated.
  
  The translation itself feels generally successful, besides a few jarring Americanisms ("out in the boonies"). Boehm copes well when the novel relies on Kanji, even reproducing some in the text. She also appears to have chosen to insert extra context directly into the text, that others may have omitted, footnoted or explained in a translators introduction, but her decision is the right one here as it fits Ōe's strongly expository style.
  
  And just when one is wondering how Ōe will end such a digressive novel, or whether it will simply peter out, the final pages pack a real emotional punch.
  
  By no means an easy read, and given how it builds on his life's work, someone new to Ōe would be better starting with, say, A Silent Cry (Per the Paris Review interview "It is a work from my youth and the faults are apparent. But I think it’s the most successful, faults and all."). But nevertheless extremely impressive.
• 
  Andrew

  It pains me to think that Kenzaburo Oe, one of the most wildly inventive authors of the past 50 or so years, has run out of steam, but this was frankly something of a slog. Sure, there were some really interesting parts, especially towards the end, but the whole thing just felt like a bit of an aimless ramble without many interesting stops along the way, and none of the dark, moody setpieces that made Oe's novels such a pleasure to read in years past. Feel free to skip this one.
• 
  Khol0d Atif

  أحب كنزابورو اوي وأحب كل ما يكتبه..هنا تمتزج السيرة الشخصية بالرواية وتشعر بالحيرة حيث لا خط فاصل بين الخيال والحقيقة.
  ومع ذلك أفهم لو القاريء غير المهتم بكنزابورو وسيرته وجدها مملة عكس رواياته الأخرى المترجمة
• 
  Lisa

  Death by Water – perhaps the last novel by Nobel Laureate Kenzabure Oe is a fascinating book. A book to provoke both conversation and consternation, offering insights from the personal to the political.
  
  The narrator Kogito Choko is an ageing author, reflecting on his life as a writer, and facing not only his own mortality but also the slow death of his books in the modern age. As the parent of Akari, a disabled child, he must ensure this son’s care into the future as well. While the women of this novel are demanding change in gender relations, it remains his responsibility to manage transition for the most vulnerable one in his family.
  
  Kogito is surrounded by people who have overcome the stereotypical Japanese reserve in order to tell him bluntly what his failings are. This character shares with the author the distinction of winning that big international prize i.e. the Nobel Prize for Literature, but his unabashed critics include his wife Chikashi, his younger sister Asa who invokes his dead mother’s criticisms as well, and an entire chorus of young people who want to use his books for their own purposes – but haven’t necessarily read them. His family is empowered to say what they think because, to their dismay and embarrassment, he has mined their lives and their history for his books; and the young actors are empowered to transgress because they don’t share the psychological and behavioural boundaries of the past. As Asa says, with envy for their outspokenness:
  
  

  I’ve noticed young women nowadays don’t appear to have any regrets about anything, or any awareness of the possibility that their present actions might be sowing the seeds for future regrets. That’s perfectly natural, of course, since they probably haven’t had time to do anything they regret. They seem to feel completely fine about everything: clean and true and pure of heart. (p.83)

  
  
  There is a universality about these indignities of old age which even a Nobel Laureate cannot evade…
  
  Mindful of his legacy and wary of writing a work not up to his previous standards, Kogito intends to write just one last book ....
  
  To read the rest of my review please visit
  http://anzlitlovers.com/2016/02/10/de...
  
• 
  Neil

  Strangely hypnotic.
  
  I know very little about Japanese literature apart from having read nearly all of Haruki Murakami's books. Murakami's books fall into two categories for me: the first is the group of weird ones that I really love and the second is the group of stories about maudlin, introspective people whose heads I want to bang together telling them to just get on with life. This book felt a bit like this second group a lot of the time. But then I found myself hypnotised by the text and being pulled through the story despite the fact that there isn't really much of a plot.
  
  Although there isn't much of a plot, there is quite a lot going on and I'm not sure I made the connections between the different scenes. It's a story about an author's relationship with an avant-garde theatre group and it has the feel of a play with different scenes being acted out. I'm not sure if people cleverer than I am will join the dots between the different scenes, but I think several of them may have passed me by.
  
  I am not sure that this should be the first of Oe's books that a person reads. I have the feeling that reading the others first would make this one a completely different book. But it's too late for me to find out about that now!
• 
  erica

  I gusti saranno gusti, ma io non riesco a capire come questo libro possa piacere a qualcuno.
  Do 1 stella perché lasciarlo senza valutazione non renderebbe l'idea.
  È terribile, noioso, davvero brutto. Il libro più brutto che ho letto negli ultimi anni. Succede più nelle ultime 10 pagine che nelle prime 460. Anche i temi importanti che tocca, li tocca in modo così brutto che rende questo libro privo di alcuna utilità. Le uniche parti che ho letto con più interesse sono quelle del rapporto del protagonista con il figlio.
  Per il resto noia.
  Lo sconsiglio a chiunque. Anche al mio peggior nemico.
  
• 
  Conor Ahern

  Sorry Kenzaburō, but if you haven't grabbed me after 200 pages, I don't think it's going to happen...
• 
  Roger Brunyate

  Déjà, Déjà, Déjà Vu
  
  I have now read three books by Oe: the comparatively early
  Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (which I greatly enjoyed), this one, and its immediate predecessor,
  The Changeling. In my review of that, I compared it to a fractal image, in which any one part contains references to every other, not just within the novel itself but seemingly revisiting most of the author's oeuvre. For the first third of this latest novel, I felt I was reading The Changeling all over again. The first-person protagonist may have a different name, Kogito Choko (known as Kogii), but the novels he has written have the same titles as Kenzaburo Oe's, he is the same age, has had precisely the same career, he is obsessed with the death of his father, and he is also the father of a brain-damaged son who is something of a musical genius. Whether Choko or Oe, he gazes obsessively into a mirror as he writes.
  
  The self-referential quality is built into the plot premise. Choko goes back to his village in the mountains where he was born, intending to open a red leather trunk containing (he believes) documents that will enable him to complete a long-postponed novel about the death by drowning of his father, who may have been connected with an ultra-right-wing group protesting Japan's surrender after WW2. He goes under the aegis of a theatrical company, the Caveman Group, who have already mounted dramatizations of many of his earlier works, and now want to stage themes from his entire oeuvre, held together by his work on the new "drowning novel," which is to be the summary of all that has gone before. This is déjà vu raised to the level of an art form.
  
  Not that Oe is unaware of this. Late in the book, he has a young admirer visit him, who lays it out: "Over the past ten or fifteen years all of Mr. Choko's works of fiction have more or less been cut from the same cloth, most notably in terms of the protagonist […] the author's alter ego. At some point, doesn't it become overkill? I mean, can these serial slices of thinly veiled memoir really be considered genuine novels?" [translation by Deborah Boliver Boehm]. The young man has a point, yet the repeated turning over of the same materials has a curious fascination—for a while. [I am struck, incidentally, by how many Nobel laureates seem to turn to this autobiographical self-referentiality in their later work: Grass, Coetzee, and Modiano, to name three others. Is this something the Nobel committee goes for, or what writers tend to do after winning the prize?]
  
  I am enthralled by this obsessiveness in the short novellas of Modiano, but the trouble with Oe is that he does it at such length. Two dozen pages are spent, for example, analyzing a five-line poem inscribed on the stone celebrating Choko/Oe's prize. And each time, the poem is quoted in full. Whole paragraphs of argument are repeated almost verbatim, with only the smallest changes. There is a scene where the director of the theater company asks if he can pose some questions, but the whole thing is basically a five-page monologue for the director, with the author merely putting in brief answers like "I suppose that's right." Entire chapters consist of letters from Choko's sister Asa, describing the same theatrical performance in excruciating detail, only to repeat much of that detail in the next and the next.
  
  About one-third of the way through, fortunately, Choko and the Cavemen abandon this particular project, and the novel begins to address other subjects. Kogito says something unforgivable to his son, causing a breach between them, mirroring perhaps the death of Kojii's father and his rift with his mother. The thirty-something actress Unaiko, who had been Kogii's principal liaison with the Caveman Group, breaks off to start a project of her own, and the novel takes on a quite interesting feminist thrust. This links to a film that Choko had written earlier (film also plays an important role in The Changeling) about a half-mythical heroine from his region. Gradually various linking themes become visible behind the thicket of orbiter dicta: the problem of coercion, whether by the state or personal; the power and victimization of women; the role of suicide; and above all the fact of old age and the handing-over of wisdom and authority from one generation to another. It may well be that even the personal themes have political resonance also. Oe is a major writer with major ideas, no doubt about it, but it takes real effort for a non-Japanese reader to separate his insights from his obsessions.
• 
  Mobyskine

  Terlalu banyak perasaan-- suka dan tidak, letih dan kasihan. Ini tentang seorang penulis tua yang mati ilham untuk tulisan terbaru, ingatan lama yang datang semula tentang that old abandoned unfinished manuscript tentang ayah yang mati lemas. Dalam ingatan Kogii si ayah adalah seorang hero, mimpi-mimpi di malam hari tentang kepergian ayah dan hal waktu kecil yang sering mengimbau di hadapan mata.
  
  Naratif dibiar dalam isu dan konflik yang berpanjangan, entah kenapa saya rasa setiap karakternya punya emosi tebal yang deep dan poetic tetapi secretive dan kadang terlalu mengikut perasaan. Namun, satu hal utama yang buat saya kagum tentang tulisan Oe adalah susunan deskriptifnya tentang topik bualan setiap watak, kadang ia melankolik dan cantik sekali. Surat-surat buat Kogii daripada Asa dan Chikashi yang berjela-jela panjangnya, diskusi tentang tulisan-tulisan Kogii yang ingin dipentaskan oleh Caveman Group yang bawa saya mengenal tentang karya Soseki Natsume (terlalu banyak spoiler tentang Kokoro)-- ia satu hal yang menarik walau agak draggy.
  
  Terlalu lama saya tunggu sama ada Kogii boleh terus sambung tulis tentang that drowning novel ataupun tidak, tapi nampaknya konflik persekitaran dan keluarga lebih difokuskan dalam naratif-- tentang Unaiko, Daio dan Akari, Chikashi yang tiba-tiba jatuh sakit dan kisah sebenar pada malam si ayah mati lemas. Fragmen ingat semula yang terlalu banyak. Terima kasih untuk sisipan hal perang dan Meiji era. Tragedi akhir yang tak disangka dan ending yang sangat unexpected.
  
• 
  Stephen Rowland

  The repetitive ramblings of an once great old man. It pains me to bash Oe, but this novel is terrible.
• 
  José Manuel

  Cuatro días me han hecho falta para no poder sacar más de aquí, aburrido es decir poco, que si, que puede ser que sea yo, que puede que esta no sea mi taza de té, pero yo... me bajo.
• 
  Tonymess

  The title “Death by Water” is taken from a phrase for drowning used by T.S. Eliot in the poem “The Waste Land”
  
  Our novel focuses on the ageing famous writer, Kogito Choko (Kenzaburō Ōe), and opens with his return to the family home, ten years after his mother’s death, at his sister’s request. This reconciliation of family now gives Choko the, long deferred, opportunity to finish his novel that is about his father’s drowning death. As we explore more of this time it is also a reflection by Choko on his family relationships, his childhood memories and his imaginary friend Kogii. When our narrator returns home he meets up with a theatre troupe, the Caveman Group, who is planning to adapt all of his writings for the stage, a devise for the author to discuss his previous works with the theatre group whilst researching his “drowning novel”. The reflection on other works by Ōe are interspersed with interviews with Choko and (of course) the author’s internal musings.
  
  One of the key prompts for Choko’s upcoming novel, apparently his last, is a family heirloom, a “red trunk”, hopefully it contains his family’s history, letters, feedback on his first draft of the ‘drowning man’ novel that he sent to his estranged (now dead) mother and further riches.
  
  When Kogito Choko opens the red trunk his first discovery is three volumes of the English book “The Golden Bough”…later we learn “the myth of the Forest King of Nemi is one of the underlying themes of the whole ‘Golden Bough’, from beginning to end. The archetypal myth about the new king who kills his aged predecessor, thus engendering a renascence of fertility in the world.” Is this a reference to post-war Japan and the rule of Emperor Hirohito? Is this a reference to the passing on of the patriarchal role from Choko senior to Choko junior? Are these anthropological and folkloric principles a metaphor for modern Japanese politics? You’ll have to read this book yourself to find out….
  
  However I jump ahead of myself, very early on in the novel do we learn of our narrator’s (and writer’s) fate, when he states: “what if the novelist himself ended up being sucked into the whirlpool in a single gulp when he was finished telling his story?”
  
  
  As the inner sleeve explains this is “an interweaving of myth, history and autobiography…a shimmering masterpiece. Reportedly the last novel that Kenzaburō Ōe will ever write, this is an exhilarating ending for the great literary character of Kogito Choko and a deeply personal denouement for one of the world’s most important and influential living authors.”
  
  There are many many layers to this work however for this exercise of reviewing the work I will primarily focus on the character of Kogito Choko as a mirror for Kenzaburō Ōe. For example when reflecting upon a theatrical representation of his work “The Day Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away” (written in 1972, published in English in the collection “Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness”) which features Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata ‘Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56’, Choko’s sister says
  
  For my full review go to
  http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
• 
  Smiley

  A 3.5 star novel.
  Around the first one-third of its length I found his story a bit slow on a theme on his life as an acclaimed author embittered by his father's tragic demise when he was a young boy. Eventually he planned to write a novel related to this incident tentatively entitled "Death by Water" (like this copy). Soon an important character named Unaiko has seemingly run into him in a park till he fell and she kindly helped him and thus become acquainted via their talking. Soon his son in his 40's named Akari has entered subtly as his responsibility due to his brain defect since his birth but he has proved himself a genius in classical music.
  
  His readers, I think, would need patience regarding focusing on reading this 424-page fiction, many episodes are in the guises of long letters from his sister. By the way, I can't help wondering if his rare mildly erotic scene surprisingly initiated by Unaiko makes sense (she has her reasons as written to him, Kogito Choko, but I don't quite follow her, maybe, it's her sense of joking humor); however, it is not obscenity, we could accept that as a kind of 'soft porn'. Another thing worth mentioning is about Unaiko sexually assaulted by his uncle, a top bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education, when she was 17. After that for 18 years, fate has dictated her to meet him and her aunt (who took her to get an abortion after the tragedy) once again. I also wonder why her uncle still makes an advance toward his niece again after such a long time, Unaiko herself should have been wiser than that instead of being his prey. However, her uncle later shot dead seems to deserve his karma.
  
  In a word, this novel is relatively readable depending on your faith on Kenzaburo Oe, the second Japanese Nobel Prize awardee in Literature, as well as your reading all or nearly all of his numerous works in which some novels are partially based on his direct experience especially on how to cope with such unthinkable plight related to his brain-defected son till the Oslo committee have observed and mentioned in their appreciation.
• 
  Knigoqdec

  Книгата не е предназначена за нови читатели на Кензабуро Ое, поне според мен. До 130 страница героят се опитва да напише роман и после се отказва, което тотално проваля линията на историята, и без това доста крехка. Писателят в романа е изключително отблъскващ образ, другите са безинтересни. Смятам, че като цяло това е книга сборник с мисли и анализи върху по-ранни произведения на автора и дори върху чужди. Сухо повествование и много лошо скалъпени диалози. Иначе изданието на "Лист" на български е много добро и преводът е качествен.
• 
  Eliz | multiversi.letterari

  Sembrava di stare dentro una bolla. Tutto ovattato e lento, con personaggi piatti e monodimensionali.
  Sembra un continuo mordersi la cosa, senza una vera e propria trama sviluppata.
• 
  Alan Chong

  I'm going to chalk this one up to me just not getting it. It is a frustrating read, with very few rewarding moments. I kept on listening to the retelling of the same stories over and over again, thinking it would go somewhere, but it never did. And it is a terribly "literary" novel, in a sense the culmination of a productive and important writer's career, and very much about that. Of course, I hadn't read any of his other books and knew nothing about him, and so was detached from the material. Also, it turns out I have very little penitence for the "literary" now. Even the ventures into mythology weren't particularly compelling for me, and the reading became a chore, which I finished only to say that I had done so.
• 
  Kasa Cotugno

  Heavily symbolic novel by Nobel Prize winner in contention for International Booker Prize. Beautiful and thought provoking.
• 
  Jerry Pogan

  Kenzaburo Oe is still one of the best writers out there. He tends to use himself and his family as characters in his books and it always leaves me wondering where reality ends and fiction begins.
• 
  Ken Martin

  Would have given it no stars if that was an option.
• 
  Manu Db

  Mi sono fermata a pagina 200. Troppo pesante e noioso.
• 
  Buchdoktor

  Kenzaburô Ôes lässt sein Alter Ego, den Schriftsteller Kogito Choko, circa 1985 gemeinsam mit seinem erwachsenen Sohn auf seine Heimatinsel Shikoku reisen, um am Roman über seinen Vater und dessen ungeklärten Tod zu arbeiten. Als Leser könnte man dem zukünftigen Roman praktisch bei seiner Entstehung zusehen. Die Figur Kogito wurde als Kind Kogi genannt und kommunizierte mit einem imaginären Gefährten Koogi. Jahre nach dem Tod der betagten Mutter will die literarische Figur nun für dieses Romanprojekt Unterlagen des Vaters aus einem roten Lederkoffer auswerten. Wie der Autor Ôe hat auch sein Alter Ego einen behinderten Sohn, im Roman Akari (Ôes Sohn Hikari wurde 1963 geboren). Wie Ôes Sohn zeigt auch der fiktive Akari Zeichen von Autismus, darum duldet er keine Abweichung von der täglichen Routine. Bei dem Besuch auf der Insel schreit Kogito Choko (rund 70 Jahre alt) seinen Sohn zum ersten Mal - überfordert - an und muss sich der Grenzen seiner Kräfte bewusst werden. Die Auseinandersetzung mit seinem Vater müsste demnach zur Reflektion des eigenen Alterns führen und in Pläne münden zur zukünftigen Versorgung des behinderten Akari. Im Laufe der Handlung stellt sich heraus, dass zuhause in Matsuyama Chokos Frau an Krebs erkrankt ist und die Reise von Mann und Sohn auch ihrer Entlastung dient.
  
  Choko arbeitet an einer Inszenierung mit der Theatertruppe Die Caveman (Die Theaterszenen fand ich wenig interessant, daher der Punktabzug) und vollzieht in Rückblenden Erlebnisse seiner Kindheit nach. Für westliche Leser interessant sind hier Szenen, wie der Großvater Seidelbast züchtete zur Papierherstellung, weil er mit schlechten Zeiten rechnet, oder der Einfluss einer Freundin der Mutter, der „Tante aus Shanghai“. Da Chokos Vater mit der Ultrarechten Japans sympathisierte, hätte ich mir eine tatsächliche Auseinandersetzung des Sohnes mit der politischen Einstellung seines Vaters gewünscht. Soll das 70 Jahre nach Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs alles gewesen sein? Statdessen beschränkt sich der Text auf eine kurze Szene im Yasukuni-Schrein und setzt voraus, dass Leser mit der japanischen Geschichte vertraut oder bereit sind, sich in sie einzuarbeiten.
  
  Kenzaburô Ôe schildert einen alternden Schriftsteller, der sich in seinen vermutlich letzten Roman mit seinem Vater auseinandersetzen will. Sein eigenes Altern und seine Ängste vor dem Scheitern werden überschattet von Krankheiten, Todesfällen und dem aufreibenden Leben mit einem behinderten Sohn. Die Figur Vater eines Behinderten entwickelt sich in Ôes Werk nicht linear zur Wahrnehmung von Behinderung weltweit. Wurde Ôe mit der Veröffentlichung von „Eine persönliche Erfahrung“ noch zur Leitfigur betroffener Väter, weil er die Behinderung seines Sohnes nicht vor der Öffentlichkeit verbarg, warfen „Stille Tage“ und „Licht scheint auf mein Dach“ in westlichen Ländern u. a. die Frage auf, warum aus Ôes Sicht allein Mütter und Schwestern von Behinderten ihr Leben zu opfern haben. Im vorliegenden Roman ist es folgrichtig die schwer erkrankte Mutter, die darauf drängt, dass sie sich über Akari „Gedanken machen“.
  
  „Der nasse Tod“ schließt an die biografischen und halbbiografischen Werke Ôes an, u. a. sollte man zum Verständnis in der Reihenfolge der Veröffentlichung lesen:
  Eine persönliche Erfahrung (1994) (Kojinteki na taiken, 1964)
  Stille Tage (1994), (Shizuka na seikatsu, 1964), 1995 verfilmt
  Licht scheint auf mein Dach (2014), (Kaifukusuru Kazoku) (1994)
• 
  Huw Evans

  Kenzaburo Oe is a Nobel prize winning author and this is his 'last' book. I started reading it because I wanted to find a Japanese author to compare with Murakami and Mishima, both of whom I have enjoyed (see previous reviews). It was a curious experience and not a little frustrating
  
  The writing is quiet and precise, like Murakami, and it compels you to read on. Riverlike it appears to be drifitng until it hits the final rapids overturning everything, leaving you wet and confused. Like Mishima there are heavy political overtones and repeated opportunities for the powerful to throw their weight around, in the way that they always have, everywhere. As an aside at this point, there were references to post 1945 politics in Japan about which I know nothing and therefore allusions were missed. There appear to be autobiographical elements throughout and it becomes difficult to know how much is the writer telling a story, rather than his story.
  
  The central premise of the novel is that a succesful, now elderly writer who has a disabled son wants to write his final book. He wants it to be a narration of the events leading to the death of his father, using the papers in a trunk that his mother has allowed him to have ten years after her death. He is unaware until he opens the trunk that his mother and his sister have filleted the documents, leaving him to deal with the disappointment of not being able to write his book. His relationship with his disabled son suffers as a result of his low mood and they are sent back to the family home to try and restore this whilst his wife is in hospital with cancer.
  
  Throughout the book there is a feeling of emasculation, a sense that the protagonist is being actively impeded from doing what he thinks is necessary by his mother, his wife, his sister and the star of the local theatre group. He is almost entirely passive, a pawn who is moved from square to square at the whim of the other players. It is not until the final chapters, the maelstrom, that you understand why.
  
  This book made me feel very uncomfortable whilst reading it, I will admit. It is beautifully translated into smooth flowing English. I enjoyed the prose but feel I would gain more by knwowing more about its context in terms of the political situation that evolved in Japan after 1945 to the present. The most dangerous position to take is the one that says, "Ah, but that's Japan and it can't happen here in the enlightened West".
• 
  ZiaFenice

  Questo romanzo è tutt'altro che semplice, sicuramente non perfetto (soprattutto per quanto riguarda il coinvolgimento emotivo).
  
  Però signori, leggerlo è stato un viaggio incredibile. Le similitudini che solo dopo, ricercando la vita dell'autore, ho riscontrato sono davvero così preponderanti che per un momento ho creduto di aver letto la storia stessa dell'autore, la moglie con il figlio affetto da una grave disturbo celebrale e la condizione di scrittore "affermato" arrivato a sfidare se stesso fino allo stremo per scrivere "l'ultimo lavoro".
  
  C'è tantissima storia giapponese, a partire proprio dalla vicenda principale che da inizio alla storia, ossia uno scrittore ossessionato fin nei sogni, dalla morte prematura per annegamento del padre (ha a che fare con una vicenda storica ben precisa).
  
  La vita del padre e l'episodio della sua morte lo riporteranno, in vecchiaia, a ripercorrere la strada familiare, i silenzi della madre e della sorella.
  
  Contrariamente a quanto si possa pensare leggendo la trama esso è un romanzo freddo, celebrale, scritto per elaborare non solo una vicenda dolorosa ma anche per "risolversi" in qualche modo.
  In questo ci ho visto tanto della scrittura giapponese in generale. Ossia un tipo di scrittura scarna, lineare, riflessiva e a tratti ambigua.
  
  Appunto: Ho personalmente odiato tutte le parti che riguardano la compagnia teatrale impegnata nel portare in scena tutta la produzione letteraria del protagonista (che ho già detto essere uno scrittore affermato in Giappone quanto nell'internazionale).
  Ho inoltre trovato fastidioso l'invadenza dei personaggi femminili che in qualche modo "scelgono" fin dal principio al posto del protagonista senza interpellare quest'ultimo.
  
  Insomma, sicuramente non è una lettura adatta a tutti ma io sicuramente recuperò altro dello scrittore (pur sempre un premio Nobel per la letteratura)
• 
  Kunal Sen

  This is my second book by Kenzaburo Oe. The first one disappointed me, and I felt I was in the minority considering his reputation and his Nobel. Therefore, I wanted to try again, but the results were still the same. Perhaps this is not for me.
  
  As with the previous book, the author mixes his personal life experience with fictional elements to build this novel. I once again felt that the author decided on a clear path and is manufacturing characters and situations to get there. Of course, that is probably the method behind many works of fiction, but I prefer when I cannot catch the intentional design, and things look more natural. That is, I don't like when everything looks so contrived. The ending of this one is particularly forced and unconvincing.
  
  One intriguing feature of the novel is how the author uses the process of developing a theatre production throughout the story as a literary vehicle for going beyond reality into an abstract zone.
  
  The entire book is built out of long, uninterrupted monologues. There is no attempt to make them sound like real dialogues between people, with short sentences and interruptions. This strongly reminded me of Dostoyevsky's novels. Alas, they did not have the philosophical depth that I found in the Russian classics and just sounded unnatural and long.
  
  When I do not like a translated work, there is always a nagging thought that it could be the translation. However, there is no way I will know if a better translation could have had a different impact on me. As it stands, I think this is a novel that I will forget soon.
  
• 
  Lisa Guidarini

  [Originally published: New York Journal of Books]
  
  Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe brings the novelist career of his literary alter-ego, Kogito Choko, to a close with the publication of his new novel, the most recent in the series, Death by Water. This installment explores the intensity of interconnectedness between parents and their children, particularly, but not exclusively, between fathers and sons.
  
  Its themes of regret and loss saturate the book with a heavy sense of sadness it’s difficult to shake, flirting with the point of wallowing. Oe doesn’t shy away from the bald illustration the sins of the fathers are often visited upon the sons, the mistakes of one generation teaching subsequent generations little about averting the same disastrous behavior.
  
  Choko is a writer haunted for a lifetime by the sudden and violent death of his father, when Choko was a child, a death obscured by secrecy and silence. As a result of his loss, grief and guilt infuse all his relationships, threaten to destroy his mental state, and stunt his career. The specter of his father’s last moments torture him, to the extent happiness in any other aspect of his life is severely compromised. Oe has created a man damned by his own regret, a character nearly impossible to sympathize with due to his single-minded intention to see all his life through a prism of self-imposed, exaggerated mourning.
  
  The adults in the protagonist’s life made matters far worse for Choko by remaining closed-mouthed, shrouding the already traumatic event in forbidden mystery, leaving him to think the worst. Reeling, all he knows for certain is documents locked inside a red leather trunk, an object he will spend the greater part of his life coveting, can explain all. Little else is said, next to no effort made to comfort the child, to help him move beyond his sadness. Small wonder he found himself stymied.
  
  A later rift with his mother denies Choko hope of exploring the secrets contained in the trunk, his one link to revealing the past. Having published a novel speculating on one possibility explaining his father’s death, his mother becomes so irate at what she sees as a weak and pathetic characterization of her husband she cuts off her only son, disowning him.
  
  It’s only later, when Choko’s son is born with a defect in his skull—mirroring a situation in Oe’s own life, leading him to create Choko’s story—that she relents. Even then, by the time he’s allowed possession, ten years later, he finds his mother has decimated the contents, burning the most damning documents.
  
  What she did leave, however, was an audiocassette containing an explanation of the truth. Ironically, this truth leaves Choko with little useful information for use as the framework of his final novel. It had been his dream to end his career by writing his father’s story, through the lens of T. S. Eliot’s poem “Death by Water,” from which poem Oe takes the title of this book. In one final punch to the stomach, Choko sees his dream slip away. For better or worse, his mother has won.
  
  Fortunately for the novelist, a company of actors known as the Caveman Group has dedicated itself to the revival of his by now languishing canon. Through the determination of a young actress and budding director, Unaiko, as well as the theatre’s manager, Masao, his deflated dream will be revived, the story’s focus changed from his father’s death to the imaginary friend he created as a child, named Kogii, a name his family had chosen as a fond diminutive of his own. This creature of his imagination, always a larger than life figure to him, takes center stage in the dramatization of his works.
  
  For the first time in his 70 years of life, focus is shifted from his loss to a much more positive childhood experience. In an unexpected reversal, the curse of disappointment suffered from the empty trunk becomes a blessing.
  
  For all Choko’s newfound renewal, he fails to notice how his great hypocrisy toward his own son is perhaps an even more grievous and abhorrent transgression than any perpetrated on him. His justification for his behavior, that his son is a great disappointment, reflects frustration in the face of his failed quest. Despite the lift he feels from his exciting new project, he remains unable to change the landscape of his life, neglecting to turn lessons learned from traumatic childhood experiences into the chance for happiness with his own family.
  
  Once again Choko has suffered a loss, this time one he can’t seem to recognize, in the way of estrangement from his son. Nearing the end of his life, he has become a very selfish, hardened man toward all but the members of the theater company who stroke his ego. But, in yet another twist, life swiftly delivers a strong reprisal, a consequence so severe it can’t help but change him. At last, things have come full circle.
  
  Death by Water is ostensibly the prolonged keening of a son for his lost father, running parallel with the story of a mother’s grief for the son whose fixation with her husband’s death threatens to destroy his relationship with his own son. While it does have the redeeming grace of interesting sub-plots, the whole of it is fixated on often-repetitive expressions of misery. This, as well as the often simplistic, occasionally pedestrian prose is a large flaw. Whether the prose failings are a result of translation is difficult to say. In any event, the novel could have stood deeper editing.
  
  Not having read the previous novels in the series may be a hindrance; I can only speculate on that. Still, knowing more of the backstory of Kogito Choko would do nothing to rectify the shortfalls in the prose.
  
  Overall, the story is a moving one. Regret and loss are powerful forces in a life, the loss of large parts of childhood a travesty. Oe does a masterful job expressing these themes through his characters. Unfortunately, the novel is alternately so stylistically over-wrought and stilted as to jerk the reader out of the tale, inhibiting its flow and power.
  
  Pruned to a leaner work, Death by Water may have been a thoroughly impressive book. As it is, the story is weakened, its truths strained. If this is the last we see of main character Kogito Choko, it seems a sad farewell.
  
  After seven novels, the reader can’t help believing this semi-autobiographical character deserved so much more.
  
  - See more at:
  http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-...
• 
  Nicole Entin

  The title of this novel drew me in with the Eliot allusion, and Kenzaburo Oe certainly delivered on writing a book which continually meditates on the Waste Land-esque themes of drowning and rebirth. I’ll certainly be considering the parallels between Eliot’s poem and the novel for the next few days – there was a definite Sosostris/Tiresias moment towards the end that caught my eye. As a translated work, Death by Water also provides a unique insight into the ways in which English works like The Waste Land are considered outside of English-speaking countries, which I think would be another promising line of thought to pursue.
  
  But the central Eliot allusion is only the tip of this literary iceberg. As in the Japanese literature I’ve previously read, Oe creates a harmonious interconnection between the real, earthly world and the spiritual and natural worlds in his prose. I also was thoroughly intrigued by the metatextual layers of the novel’s structure – my only previous encounters with autofiction have been in French literature, so Death by Water provided an interesting counterpoint.
  
  Overall, plenty to take away from this book, and an ending that left me with many questions.