Two Novels: J and Seventeen

by Kenzaburō Ōe, Luk Van Haute (Translator)

"In Seventeen the story of a lonely seventeen year old who turns to a right-wing group for self-esteem and J the story of a spoiled, young, drifter son of a Japanese executive Oe shows us a world where the values that had regulated life had been blown to smithereens along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki: what confronts his heroes now is a gaping emptiness." "Seventeen's lost young man is in the throes of becoming a right wing activist and assassin. He feels his identity for the first time in the enervating rush of murderous violence. The story has enormous topicality and vibrancy for today. In J. our protagonist's erotic excitement comes as a "chikan" one who rubs himself against women on crowded trains rather than participating in the drab everyday world, which he feels would only be self-deception. He can only feel complete while attaining "the absolute ecstasy of total action." Of course this action of sexual assault can bring arrest, disgrace, and imprisonment. As always, Oe treats his subjects not with pity or disdain, but with sympathy." "Kenzaburo Oe is without a doubt the first truly modern Japanese writer. He has managed a feat which even his talented and prolific elder contemporary, the late Yukio Mishima, was unable to accomplish: he has wrenched Japanese literature free of its deeply rooted, inbred tradition and moved it into the mainstream of world literature. Oe's influences and literary heroes are less Japanese than American and European. Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Jean-Paul Sartre rank high among them, and Oe's favorite novel, he confesses, is Huckleberry Finn." Oe grew up on the western island of Shikoku, a place steeped in Japanese rural traditions and wartime propaganda. His early works are regarded as classics of the disillusionment his nation felt on seeing what Japan's leadership had done to the country. His heroes have been expelled from the certainty of childhood into a world that bears no relation to their past.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Short Stories, Literature, Novels, Novella

177 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎) was a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, engages with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism.

Ōe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today."

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seventeen:
A Japanese Screech from 'Saved by the Bell' is full of angst and only happy when masturbating. Then he falls in with rightists and he finds a new life through Nazi uniforms, soapland handjobs and, presumably, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTWNRx-4aFM.

Loved it. Sad that we can't read the sequel.

J:
The first half takes us to that seam of Japanese literature I don't really enjoy. Ennui-ridden twentysomethings aimlessly drinking and having sex with each other. There's always jazz, there's usually foreigners and there's sometimes a black guy providing drugs or playing drums. But Oe mixed it up with some of the mental villagers of his youth, which was a nice change.

The second half takes us through life as a sex offender on the Tokyo underground.

Am I allowed to say that I think Oe's point with "J" is lost a bit with the changes to attitudes to homosexuality?

From the introduction by Masao Miyoshi:
"As far as I know no one has pointed out Mishima's heavy borrowing, if not outright plagiarism, of the young writer's earlier work. At the same time, Mishima's identification with the handsome young boy is embarrassingly ungaurded and unqualified. His pronouncement of the emporist program, too, is so transparent that 'Runaway Horses' is nearly unreadable." Ouch, Masao!

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little more than a couple of novella-curios that show the world two things:

1) the type of author that Ōe would likely have continued to be had his son had enjoyed a healthy birth (just take a look at Nip the Buds for further evidence of this contention)

2) per the above, we would've been denied a true master had that occurred

Lots o' talk about foreskins, cum, revolution, subway-molesters, etc. Plainly: standard stuff for the New Wave of Japanese Lit at the time—transgressive, power-contempt, young, dumb, and full of com-bus-tion (yay...puns). There are worse ways to spend an evening than reading the young, achingly-earnest Kenzaburō, but almost everything after this is, frankly, on an entirely different level of achievement.

That said, don't let me stop you from reading about a 17-year-old kid that ejaculates into his foreskin for sanitation's sake. I mean, that's just good upbringing and manners right there. Damn circumcision...denied a whole universe of possibilities!

[nisemono偽者 · Rating 4 out of 5]

ผลงานเคนซาบุโรที่ได้ nobel prize เนื้อหาแบบ dark จับจิต วิพากษ์การเมืองของประเทศญี่ปุ่น และปัญหาสังคมต่างๆมากมาย รวมถึงพูดเรื่องการร่วมเพศแบบถึงพริกถึงขิง ฉากบรรยายการสำเร็จความใคร่ตัวเอง บรรยายไปสยิวกิ้วแล้ว real มากๆ เรื่องนี้แบ่งเป็น 2 part คือ seventeen & J ตามชื่อเรื่อง ชอบทั้งสองเรื่องเลย แต่ประทับใจเรื่องแรกมากกว่า และก็อิงกับบริบทความขวาจัดของประเทศเรา การเป็น ultra royalist จักรพรรดินิยมได้เป็นอย่างดี

[Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book i can recommend to virtually no one

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

J was too unpleasant. Could not related to it at all or enter into the story. I would give it only one star. Seventeen was also unpleasant, but at least Oe had a purpose in showing the unpleasant character: He was imagining what the seventeen year old who escapes his loneliness and self loathing by joining a right wing political group and assassinating a political leader before committing suicide. I didn't really like the story, but can concede that Oe does effectively show how an unhappy person could become someone who would do terrible things to feel better about himself.

I'm glad that I read A Quiet Life and The Changeling first. I loved both of those books. These two early novellas do not have the thoughtful, philosophical explorations or the likeable characters of his later work. Both novellas were written before he attended and wrote about the Hiroshima antinuclear conferences and before the birth of his son; two events which profoundly influenced his later writing. I have four other Oe novels that I've recently picked up that I'm eager to read.

[Hakan · Rating 2 out of 5]

1994 Nobel edebiyat ödülünü alan Oe’nin 1961 ve 1963’de yayımladığı iki kısa romanının İngilizce çevirilerini birlikte basmış Blue Moon. Sıradışı ve birçok kişiye itici gelebilecek iki metin. 17, mastürbasyona kafayı takmış 17’lik ezik ve kompleksli bir karakterin aşırı sağ bir gruba girerek ve muhtemelen suikastçi olarak kendini bulması iyi hikaye edilmiş. Psikolojik boyutu güçlü olduğu söylenebilir. İkinci metin J ise daha aykırı bir temada. İlk bölümde yozlaşmış bir grup Japon “entel”in şehir dışındaki bir yazlık evdeki tuhaf ilişkileri, bol bir cinsellikle anlatılırken, ikinci bölümde Tokyo’daki metrolarda/otobüslerde gözlerine kestirdikleri kadınlara/kızlara sürtünerek taciz etmekten haz duyan (argo tabiriyle “fortçu”, İngilizce’ye “chikan” olarak aktarılmış) üç farklı yaş ve sosyal sınıftan sapkının bu sapıklıklarının teorisi ve pratiği üzerinde duruluyor. Midesi kaldırabilenler için ilginç bir okuma olabilir.

[Hungrystu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seventeen was s ome good shit, really showcased why Oe had such a famous distaste for Mishima since he basically posits that fascist reactionaries are wholly dependent on base impulses (when Seventeen gets a phat handy and then he talks about the Right being a constant orgasm FTW). J is also cool because I also aspire of being at the center of a sexual microcosm, but resent anyone who would lower themselves into sex with me. That is some damn win

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

right wing brainwashing of the youth + groping on trains = nobel prize in literature. super fast read and super good.

[Michelle Curie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never have I ever wanted to look inside the head of a seventeen year old boy, but here is Kenzaburō Ōe crafting this strange (and horny) tale that made me glad that I'm passed the age of puberty even more.

Seventeen & J actually contains to early novellas by the Nobel Prize winner and while they're different, they do work together. So Seventeen covers the story of a young boy who has a hard time in school, being a misfit and outcast and turns to a right-wing group to feel better about himself. J follows a spoiled drifter who decides that he is a sexual pervert and ... you know what, read this and figure it out for yourself.

Both protagonists are lost souls and people shunned by society, but Ōe treats them with such kindness that I didn't even hate them. In Seventeen, we meet someone who becomes a right-wing activist after all, someone who feels powerful walking around in an uniform that's clearly inspired by something Nazis used to wear. It's gross, but we get to spend enough with this misguided seventeen year old boy that you sort of understand his transformation. We meet him on the day of his birthday, which his parents don't even acknowledge, and follow him as his father confronts him with high expectations that he is unable to meet. The other dudes at his school all seem disciplined and successful and his self-loathing becomes almost palpable. Frustrated and lonely, he only starts to feel accepted when right-wing folks start paying him the attention he's been so desperately desiring.

"Behind the impenetrable curtain of the right-wing uniform I can hide forever the soul of an easily wounded young man. I am no longer ashamed, no longer hurt by the eyes of others. And gradually this sensation grows, to the point where, even when I don't wear the uniform, even when I'm naked, the eyes of others have lost the power to hurt me with shame."

I'm surprised with how Ōe managed to avoid moralisation. It's probably important to note that Seventeen was extremely timely when first published (and to be fair, probably still is) as shortly before this was written the chairman of the Japan Socialist Party was publicly stabbed to death by an ultranationalist. In sight of this horrible event I'm even more surprised with how much empathy this was written. The second story is full of similar conflicts within the protagonist J, though these are of more sexual nature. To be fair, sex and masturbation play big and defining roles in both stories, so you brace yourself for some explicit descriptions if you find these things uncomfortable, but if you're willing to just let this stuff happen, the second story will be a gross, though lively and colourful portrayal of a grotesque and difficult Tokyo.

These stories were strange, bewildering and maybe an odd choice for a first read of Kenzaburō Ōe's work, but it definitely made me think.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Seventeen because reading about how pathetic radical conservatives is always fantastic; I thought the character was well done and idk I liked the disillusionment that strikes him once he hits 17, loses that orgasmic high, and realizes he's still a puny and weak boy, since this shame is essential albeit universal. It's funny that Oe won the Nobel Prize, that Mishima wanted so desperately (at least according to biographies), and yet you can't really talk about Oe without bringing up Mishima, as the back of this book does in a really weird way (claiming something about Japanese literature being previously backwater and inbred or something?). Masturbation and radical conservatism are closely entwined in my mind with Mishima so it's an interesting book to tie with my favorite author that isn't by or specifically about him. I would definitely reread seventeen and wish that the editor decided to put in the sequel; would it really have been so dangerous for Oe for an English edition to be published?

J was kinda weird. Part one dragged, and dragged and dragged. I preferred part 2 much more which is odd considering my gut reaction to eliminate any and all chikan, well I guess I am a part of society, but also just female. Similar to Mishima these books take on a very masculine perspective to the point that it eclipses any regard the feminine beyond a body and perhaps beauty, so maybe it's sexist (well it definitely is) but I'm not a man, and despite my education being made by and for and mostly about men, there's still a lot about masculinity I don't understand that I feel Mishima and Oe explore in ways I haven't found in Western novels (or perhaps I'm already all too turned off by them). Chikan is similar to Lolita, though the language is simply not there as Nabokov's, because you almost kinda start feeling for the poet and J. Speaking of language, I'm going to place my bet on the fact that this is a pretty poor translation of an early work by Oe. The stories probably do have their own flaws, but I think a lot of it was the translation; the story telling was clunky, unbelievable (especially dialogue), and some of the weirdest words were used. I would love to see if, when the actor in part 1 is complaining about not taking a shower after sex, the like....scientific? word for the gland that produced pussy juice is actually used in the Japanese text. From what I understand (kinda/????) there isn't as much variety in language for some things like that in Japanese, but I don't believe they would use like...Bartholomew's gland or whatever it was, at a sex party. who knows. But back to J, I really liked the poets Oe created and leaves one to wonder what kind of respect or role he felt poetry had, based on the poets he created.

If you're into postwar Japanese lit, ya I'd say definitely read it. Even if not, seventeen is a good story in dialogue with america today.

[Carl Waluconis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Putting these two early works together in one volume creates a great set. They both came before the author's "A Personal Matter", which made him famous in the world. In these two works he is much more edgy. The works explore two sides of those discontented by society, and the two sides are still dominant today. In "Seventeen" we have the right wing, discontented and violent youth. Oe, with the talent of a Nobel-prize winning author, puts us inside his head. We come to some understanding of him, but still have a disturbing portrait, made more disturbing by the thought, "My God, what if Trump was this guy's president?" In "J" is his extreme opposite, a dissolute rebel experimenting with the new and different experiences. Again, we get inside his head as he grants himself total sexual license. Both of these young men despise middle-class morality and social normality. The title of "J" is also translated, "Sexual Humans", which is more appropriate. It is the stronger work because of the way J pursues his undefined "goal" by befriending a few others taking their solitary path rejecting society. This book has many events you will not forget as you experience the journeys these two characters pursue. Each is privileged, especially J, but the same journeys have been followed by many who have rejected society in the second half of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century.

[Rise · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's my introduction to Ōe and he certainly had an interesting take on the interplay of sex/politics and private/public life. The two novels deal with sexual perverts and how they become entangled with the politics of the day. They were said to cause a sensation when they were first published in Japan in the early 60s. They still maintain their shock value in terms of graphic descriptions. I'm hoping that Ōe will allow the publication of "A Political Youth Dies", the sequel to Seventeen, which he apparently suppressed because it angered extreme right-wingers and he was uncertain about the style and content of the book. He was like Murakami Haruki in the self-censorship aspect, but they have different motivation for censoring their own works. Haruki's motivation was aesthetic (he thinks his two early novels were too juvenile) while Ōe's was aesthetic and political (the rightists threw stones at his house, the leftists accuse him of betrayal).

My full review of this book can be found here:
http://booktrek.blogspot.com/2010/05/...

[Thane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Similar to Murakami’s Pinball 1973 and Hear the Wind Sing. There’s a certain style that no other Oe novel seems to possess. Seems unlikely that the sequel would ever be published by alas gotta hold out hope

[emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vile. Kind of hated this

[Brett Glasscock · Rating 5 out of 5]

in 17 & J, ōe is an absolute prophet of sexual politics. a master class on the sex and sexuality of fascism.

[Richard Janzen]

Hard to criticize a Nobel Prize writer, but it didn't do much for me. A masterful look at the motivations behind a political activitst youth in one story, and a train groper in the other. Neither one was compelling for me.

[Karla De Greeve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jongeren op de dool en goddelijke orgasmes

Seventeen (1961) en Homo sexualis (1963) behoren tot het vroege werk van de Japanse auteur Kenzaburo Oë (1935), die in 1994 de Nobelprijs voor Literatuur ontving.

De oorspronkelijke uitgave van Seventeen in een Japans tijdschrift ging gepaard met controverse en doodsbedreigingen. Oë schreef het boek als reactie op een politieke moord, die in Japan enorme deining veroorzaakte. Vooral het tweede deel lag gevoelig, omdat fictie en feiten hierin nauwelijks te onderscheiden zijn. Dat het hoofdpersonage zijn seksuele obsessie voor de Japanse keizer niet onder stoelen of banken steekt, heeft er ongetwijfeld ook mee te maken. Voor een integrale publicatie in boekvorm was het wachten op het Verzameld Werk van de auteur in 2018. Nu is de novelle voor het eerst ook volledig in het Nederlands beschikbaar. Vertaler Luk Van Haute geeft in een verhelderend nawoord duiding bij de woelige uitgavehistoriek en maakt de lezer wegwijs in de maatschappelijke achtergronden van het naoorlogse Japan. Hij geeft ook toelichting bij culturele nuances uit de Japanse taal, die zich moeilijk laten vertalen naar het Nederlands.

De verder naamloze ‘Seventeen’ viert zijn zeventiende verjaardag met een langgerekte masturbatiescène. Hier is een zielige jongen aan het woord die walgt van zichzelf en de wereld. Tijdens een toespraak door een rechtse leider ontdekt hij ‘zijn innerlijke stem’, die vijandigheid en haat bij hem aanwakkert en hij treedt toe tot de Partij van het Keizerlijke Pad.

‘Ik heb het gevoel dat ik mijn zwakke, nietige zelf in een stevig pantser heb ingepakt en voor eeuwig afgeschermd voor de ogen van de anderen. Het pantser van Rechts.’

In lange hoofdstukken, met doorlopende tekst en polemieken die de lezer geen adempauze gunnen, blijft die ‘stem van de openbaring’ nagalmen, in groteske bewoordingen die de kinderlijke naïviteit van deze ‘uitverkoren tiener met de ware Rechtse ziel’ benadrukken. Krachttermen die zijn handelen voortstuwen staan in het vet en worden als een mantra herhaald. ‘Toewijding en zelfzucht gaan niet samen’ luidt het credo dat de jongeman begeleidt in zijn opoffering voor het hoger goed. De orgastische, heerlijk zinderende vervoering die de visioenen van de goddelijke Keizer telkens weer bij hem oproepen, doen denken aan hoe zelfmoordterroristen dromen over hun beloofde maagden in het paradijs.

‘Mijn lid is het zonlicht. Mijn lid is een bloem. Het genot van een intens orgasme overvalt me. Weer zie ik het gouden wezen, zwevend aan de donkere hemel. Ah, oh, Zijne Majesteit de Keizer! De schitterende Zonnekeizer! Ah, ah oh!’.

Een vergelijkbare ontlading komt terug in Homo sexualis. Daar zoeken jonge mensen geen politieke, maar seksuele extremen op. Hoofdpersoon J. copuleert, terwijl hij zich in een overvolle metro tegen vrouwen aanwrijft. Hij wenst een seksuele microkosmos op te bouwen met zichzelf als middelpunt. Dit boek heeft een andere sfeer, met een verteller in de derde persoon die registreert wat de personages denken en hen beurtelings op de voorgrond brengt, zonder een oordeel te vellen. De polemieken gaan over wat het betekent om een perverseling te zijn. Opwindende taferelen levert dit niet op, de mechanische seksuele handelingen werken destructief en worden in klinische termen beschreven. En het eindigt eveneens in een orgasme, weliswaar zonder goddelijke inspiratie.

In beide verhalen duiken buitenissige metaforen op, zoals ‘Zweetdruppels parelden op zijn voorhoofd als visseneieren’ of ‘De vloer was droog als een muizenrug’. Verder zijn de invloeden uit de westerse populaire cultuur onmiskenbaar. In Seventeen zitten tekstflarden uit Oh Carol van Neil Sedaka verweven in het discours, terwijl in Homo sexualis de verwijzingen naar merknamen, films en kunstenaars legio zijn.

Een jeugdige Kenzaburo Oë voert in deze twee stoutmoedige novellen stuurloze Japanse jongeren van de eerste naoorlogse generatie op, die nieuwe zekerheden najagen. De mechanismen waarmee slimme manipulatoren dergelijke jongeren met een laag zelfbeeld hersenspoelen en het gevoel geven dat ze belangrijk zijn, heeft zestig jaar later nog niets aan actualiteitswaarde ingeboet. Maak je op voor een indringend leesavontuur, dat uitnodigt om het oeuvre van de Nobelprijswinnaar verder te exploreren!

Deze recensie schreef ik als Hebban recensent voor Hebban.nl

[Šimon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seventeen: 3⭐️
Sexuální bytosti: 2.5⭐️

Seventeen: Dobová parodie na Mišimu a do jisté míry předzvěst moderních incelů. Novela sleduje vývoj křehké psychiky čerstvě sedmnáctiletého mladíka se zaníceným vztahem k masturbaci. S frustrací ze svojí lhostejné rodiny a ústraní ve školním kolektivu nalézá útěchu svých tužeb v ultranacionalistickém politickém hnutí, nacistických uniformách a mlácení levičáků ve jménu císaře. V jeho přechodu od nejistého levičáctví čistě za účelem vzpoury proti společnosti k agresivnímu pravičáctví jako manifestaci dravých, pokřivených sexuálních tužeb je krásně ilustrováno tehdejší bilancování japonské společnosti na rozcestí vřavy divokých 60. let – tehdejší Japonsko evokuje společenskými náladami právě puberťáka hledající své místo ve společnosti. Strhávám hvězdičky za několikrát se opakující pasáže o orgasmu do předkožky, incestuální narážky, a podobné perverzní blbosti. Chápu, že to je možná trochu prudérní v knize co pojednává o vztahu sexu a společnosti (a co má vyloženě název Sexuální bytosti), ale už čistě kvůli těmhle povyražením bych už na knihu znova dobrovolně nesáhnul.

Sexuální bytosti: Trochu delší a míň intenzivní než Seventeen. V první části vidíme party tokijské filmařské skupiny na přímořském japonském venkově, druhá část se soustředí na hlavní postavu J-e, dekadentního chlápka na sklonku svých dvacítek a jakýsi jeho mikrokosmos exhibicionismu v metru. První část mi námětem trochu připomněla o cca deset let mladší dílo Nekonečná, téměř průzračná modř od Rjúa Murakamiho – zobrazuje paralelní soužití nově příchozí americké kultury plné jazzu, nezávazného, nemonogamního sexu a alkoholu a japonské venkovské kultury tradicemi, o které stoupenci první trochu blahosklonně hádají, že snad tribálně odsuzuje ženu za cizoložnoctví. Druhá část nás tematicky vrací obloukem opět trochu blíž novele Seventeen, která popisuje výstřední sexuální avantýry J-e v metru a jeho malý spolek exhibicionistů třech věkových kategorií. Sexuální bytosti mě trochu zklamaly – první část mě alespoň trochu navnadila, protože narozdíl od Murakamiho to nebyla jen bezbřehá hedonistická jízda bez děje, dokonce to byla asi nejméně sexuálně zvrácená část knihy, ale druhá část jakoby byl úplně jiný příběh. Jakoby nějaké volné pokračování, které zapomnělo, čeho je pokračováním. O glorifikaci sebestředného sexuálního napadání ve vlaku radši ani nemluvě.


Bylo by asi pošetilé kritizovat na knize z Óeho transgresivního, záměrně provokujícího, chaotického new-wave literárního období před Soukromou záležitostí její perverznost a naturalističnost. Ústředním motivem souboru novel je osamělost a místo jedince ve společnosti ve spojení se sexuální rovinou. Adolescentní protagonista Seventeen dorůstá z osamělosti do pokřiveného ideálu vyvoleného vojáka císaře, zatímco protagonista Sexuálních bytostí střízliví ze své polykuly krátce před svými 30. narozeninami. Oba hrdinové si snaží v nehostinné, odosobněné a upjaté společnosti najít svou osobní, intimní vztahovou bublinu kontrující ubíjejícímu společenskému ennui – teenager ze Seventeen dosahuje věčného blaha a uspokojení jako císařův služebník, J v druhé části Sexuálních bytostí utápí své rozpadající se vztahy v poutu soukromé kliky dvou dalších exhibicionistů. Z provokativního způsobu psaní, jakým se snažil Óe šokovat japonskou veřejnost, ale po 60 letech zůstává spíš jen frustrace obalená hlenem hnusu a perverzní odpudivosti. Jestli jste ochotní se za příběhem o hledání místa ve společnosti brodit popisy ejakulace do předkožky, masturbací nad vším včetně zářícího japonského císaře, onanií v přeplněných vlacích a sexuálnímu obtěžování, asi může být knížka pro vás. Mně bohatě stačilo jediné přečtení na celý život.

[Gijs Huppertz · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://ongeduld.com/2021/11/10/seven...

Seventeen & Homo Sexualis (セヴンティーン) van Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎) uit 1961. Een boek dat omringt wordt door bijzondere gebeurtenissen. Het boek zelf komt voort uit de moord op de socialistische fractievoorzitter Inejirō Asanuma door Otoya Yamaguchi. Otoya Yamaguchi was in korte tijd geradicaliseerd tot het aanhangen van een extreemrechtse en ultranationalistische beweging. Zijn radicalisering motiveerde hem uiteindelijk de socialistische Inejirō Asanumate doden voor het grotere goed van Japan. Deze gebeurtenis was zeer ingrijpend voor Kenzaburō Ōe en motiveerde hem om het verhaal Seventeen te schrijven.

Toen deze werd uitgebracht kwam dat echter gepaard met wekenlange bedreigingen en protesten van extreem rechtste groeperingen. Waarom? Kenzaburō Ōe beschreef in het boek de radicalisering van een jongeman genaamd Seventeen wiens leven gebaseerd was op Otoya Yamagu. Dit maakte in eerste instantie niet veel uit, maar Kenzaburō Ōe maakte nogal een duidelijke beschrijving van het rechts extremisme dat gepaard ging met seksuele frustratie. Dit zorgde er onderander voor dat verschillende extreem rechtse groepen in opstand kwamen en het boek uiteindelijk niet gepubliceerd kon worden, sterker nog de uitgevers boden de excuses aan.

Deze twee bizarre gebeurtenissen gingen vooraf aan het uitgeven van dit boek. Hoe loopt het boek dan precies? Het eerste verhaal volgt het hoofdkarakter Seventeen. Een sullige jongen die onzeker leeft en zich eigenlijk alleen gesterkt voelt bij het masturberen (hoewel dit direct daarna gepaard gaat met schaamte en een gevoel van nutteloosheid). Deze jongeman word uiteindelijk blootgesteld aan Het Keizerlijk Pad, een extreemrechtse organisatie. Hij omarmt deze organisatie en vult zijn identiteit met het denken van deze ideologie. Sterker nog hij draagt het rechts zijn als harnas om zich te beschermen van de eerst zo vijandige wereld.

Zo volgen wij volgens Kenzaburō Ōe hoe deze jongeman verder radicaliseert, vecht met communisten en zelfs enkele mensen tot de dood bedreigd tot hij uiteindelijk de moord verricht. Net als Kenzaburō Ōe zijn inspiratie, Otoya Yamaguchi, word seventeen opgepakt en evenals Yamaguchi pleegt ook uiteindelijk seventeen zelfmoord in de cel voor het grotere goed.

Het tweede verhaal Homo Sexualis vond ik zelf lastiger te volgen en te begrijpen. We volgen een groep jongeren die nogal hedonistisch leven en weglopen van enkele verantwoordelijkheden. Echter springt het verhaal redelijk snel over naar het hoofdkarakter J dat perverse trekken heeft. Hij randt vrouwen aan in de tram en heeft een kleine groep met andere perverselingen opgericht om elkaar te beschermen van de politie. Uiteindelijk blijkt J een homoseksuele man die niet uit de kast kan komen en zich hier enigszins voor schaamt, verder gaat J zijn vrouw vreemd en scheidt hij uiteindelijk van haar. Het verhaal eindigt met J die de tram in gaat en tijdens het aanranden tot een orgasme komt, waarna hij word opgepakt. De boodschap van dit verhaal, buiten moreel verval, vond ik lastig te herleiden en deed naar mijn inzicht een tikkeltje tekort na zo’n werk als Seventeen! Desondanks heb ik mij wel vermaakt met de verhalen (voornamelijk Seventeen) en raad ik het werk van deze nobel winnaar van de literatuur aan. Echter denk ik wel dat hij betere werken heeft en ben ik benieuwd naar andere boeken van hem.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite his Nobel Prize win, Kenzaburō Ōe rather suffers from patchy translation. Very few of his recent novels have been translated and his earlier works are available from a wide variety of translators by a range of publishers and in a series of now often difficult to obtain editions.

This English edition was published, by Blue Moon books, in 1996, so just after the 1994 Nobel win, and contains two relatively early Ōe novellas, both translated by Luk van Haute (better known for translations from Japanese into Dutch).

Seventeen, published in January 1961, is inspired by a real life incident from 1960, when a seventeen-year old right-wing extremist stabbed to death the chairman of the Socialist Party, following a period of political turmoil over the Japan/US Mutual Security Treaty.

A month later, Ōe wrote a follow up story, A Political Youth Dies, which was so controversial that it has never been reprinted in Japan, or, at Ōe's request, translated into English, since. In a helpful introduction, Masao Miyoshi explains the story of A Political Youth, and intriguingly hails it as a more mature, ambiguous and rounded work than the "hyperbolic caricature of a fanatic adolescent" that is Seventeen.

It's obviously hard for me to comment on A Political Youth but unfortunately Seventeen does rather live down to Miyoshi's summary, perhaps told too closely to the turbulent events of the time to allow Ōe proper authorial distance.

The story, told in the present tense, starts on the first person narrator's seventeenth birthday. Initially he is more preoccupied with masturbation than politics. Full of self-loathing he seems more angry generally than of any specific ideology, indeed his anger is initially aimed at the right:

"The day will come when I'll stab the enemy to death with this Japanese sword. The enemy who I, like a man, will skewer.

That sudden realisation comes to me with a premonition that's brimming with fierce confidence. But where is this enemy of mine? My enemy, is he my father? Is my enemy my sister? The American soldiers from the base? The men in the UDF? The Conservative politicians? Wherever my enemies are, I'll kill them. I'll kill them, I say with the same low cries."

His world is populated with similarly unpleasant teenagers - a classmate who "enthusiastically notes the names of the girls who watch from the sidelines. He keeps a chart of the menstrual cycle of every girl in school. He knows who's safe according to the Ogino rhythn method, and he makes a point of telling them what days they can do it. 'I'm available any time,' he adds."

Through this student, the narrator is hired as a rent-an-audience (a "Sakura") for a right-wing activist, Sakakibara of the Imperial Way Party, ranting outside a commuter station, and he finds a new target for his hostility:

"My hostility and hate I turn solely on the real world, solely on the Others. Always I've been blaming myself, always attacking my weaknesses and covering them with the mud of self-loathing ...

Before long, like it's a dream, my ears start to pick up the words of malice and hate which I myself am slinging at the others of the real world. In fact, it is Sakakibara who's speaking these words, but his expressions of malice and hate are exactly the same as those in my own heart. Sakakibara is my soul screaming."

He joins the Imperial Way, where he discovers oratory skills are not in high demand amongst the rank-and-file: "[Conservative party members] thrash us with words, but we answer by glaring at them in threatening silence, and it soon becomes obvious we're in the right. It never does us any good to associate with those garrulous creatures."

He gradually becomes a rising star of the movement, the most fanatical and violent of the members (at least in his account), and the story appears to be heading for a bloody climax. But without its sequel "A Political Youth", which goes on to describe the narrator's personal and political development, culminating in assassination and suicide, the story is rather unfulfilled.

The Japanese title of the second novella, J, would translate as Sexual Humans, although the translator made the old call that this is "as odd in Japanese as to be nearly untranslatable, hence in his volume altered to J, the protagonist's name." [end of pet peeve]

The first half of the novella describes the 29 year-old J (his nickname), son of a steel company president, and his bohemian acquaintances; Mitsuko, his film-director wife, his sister (a sculptor), a 27 year old actor called "Boy", a middle-aged cameraman, a 25 year old poet and Keiko, a 18 year-old jazz singer and J's lover with a penchant for nudity - who go to J's vacation house to shoot scenes for his wife's short film.

It's a more rounded story than Seventeen, but exactly what point Ōe is trying to make, in describing their tangled love lives, is unclear.

The second half of the novella is set some months later.

J is on the Tokyo underground system, with a 60 year old friend, and sees an 18 year-old "chikan" (a man who gropes women on crowded public transport - albeit normally chikan are older) in the act. He is far from subtle, but intervening they save him from the angry passengers on the pretence that they will take him to the police, but then reveal themselves as fellow chikan.

The boy claims to be a poet:

"'For a long time I've been planning to write a great poem called "Solemn Tightrope Walking,"' the boy said with passion. 'It's a poem like a tempest, with perversion as its theme. So there's a chicken and egg relationship between the poem and me as a pervert.'"

Although when asked if he'd written any lines he responds "Poetry isn't like that. At least mine isn't. One day I know I've finished the necessary preparation to write this poem."

"A Solemn Tightrope Walk" is also the name of an essay Oe himself wrote discussing Seventeen and J, and he explained that "solemn" referred to the fact that acts which for the observer appeared to be absurd balancing acts, were dead serious for the performer. The young boy attributes this quality to the Chikan (which rather ignores the effect on the victim).

Of course a tightrope walk also implies danger, and the danger for the chikan is being caught. And but for that danger, there is no thrill. When one victim willingly goes to a hotel with J, he loses all desire for her.

"Doesn't the idea of a safe Chikan bother you?' the boy repeated.

'You're right it does. But if it is really the destiny of the deviant to be caught and to experience the ultimate humiliation and taste the greatest danger, there's no need to hurry it is there?"

The second half of J is ultimately the strongest part of the two novellas, even if the subject matter is rather unpleasant.

Overall - early and immature works, for Ōe completists but certainly not where I would recommend anyone to start.

[Munehito Moro · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Seventeen" is the most overtly political work by Oe. A bitterly satirical critique of the Japanese right-wingers.

Its sequel, "Death of the Politicized Boy," had been banned in Japan for years. I remember digging into the library's underground storage room in my university (which happened to be the same one Oe attended), making photocopies of the original magazine that carried the story.

Oe satirized the right-wing movement around 1960, around the time Japan decided to form the US-Japan Security Pact, which the novella mentions. Because of this, Oe was kidnapped and tortured by Yakuza gangsters later, which he gave an account of in his Changeling.

There's one thing that might confuse international readers. At the beginning, the protagonist learns that his grades are not good enough to get into the University of Tokyo. That disappointment drives him into extreme politics

The school was Oe's alma mater. Oe remained very critical of modern Japan, but he never criticized the academic institution (Tokyo University) he was allowed into. He was a country boy, who studied very hard to get into the most prestigious academy in Japan. The protagonist of Seventeen becomes a demagogue terrorist because he didn't make the cut that Oe did. Because the boy was academically inept.

It's exactly for this reason that I've had mixed feelings toward him. Though brilliant in examining the right-wing psychology, Oe failed to examine the power structure that buttressed it. In other words, he could not see the bigger picture, despite his literary genius.

"Seventeen" is one of the most important works by one of the most important Japanese writers. Still, I sense a hint of smug-faced, phallic elitism.

He was a brave genius, and I never liked him.

[Mr.oolongtea · Rating 4 out of 5]

เป็นเรื่องที่น่าเสียดายมาก เพราะต้องมาเสียเพราะการแปลที่ไม่ค่อยดีอีกแล้ว แรกๆ ไม่เท่าไหร่ แต่หลังๆ นี่แทบอ่านไม่รู้เรื่อง โดยในเล่มจะแบ่งเรื่องสั้นออกเป็นสองเรื่อง โดยทั้งสองเรื่องนั้นจะเล่าผ่านคอนเซป์ที่เกี่ยวกับรสนิยมทางเพศและความโดดเดี่ยว ซึ่งตัวผมชอบมากพอควรทั้งสองเรื่อง แต่ส่วนตัวจะชอบเรื่องที่สองมากกว่า แต่ก็นั่นแหละ เป็นหนังสืออีกหนึ่งเล่มที่ต้องมาเสียเพราะการแปลอีกแล้ว

โดยเรื่องที่หนึ่งนั้นจะเกี่ยวข้องกับเด็กวัยสิบเจ็ดที่เพิ่งฉลองวันเกิดไปหมาดๆ เล่าความว้าวุ่นของเด็กในวัยเปลี่ยนผ่าน ทั้งเรื่องของรสนิยมทางเพศ การเมือง การเรียน และนิสัยส่วนตัว ซึ่งเรื่องนี้พิเศษสำหรับผมมากเลยคือ คุณเคนซาบุโรสามารถยัดหัวข้อทั้งหมดเหล่านั้นเข้ามาในเรื่องสั้นเรื่องหนึ่งได้ยังไง แล้วแถมมันยังสุดยอดมากในทุกด้านเสียด้วย ชอบจริงๆ ครับ

ส่วนเรื่องที่สองนั้นจะเกี่ยวข้องกับกลุ่มผู้คนที่เดินทางไปถ่ายหนังยังบ้านพักตากอากาศ โดยในเรื่องที่สองนี้คุณไม่ควรรู้อะไรที่เกี่ยวข้องกับมันเลยจะดีกว่า เพราะมันบิดไปบิดมาจนคาดเดาไม่ได้เลยว่ามันจะเล่าเกี่ยวกับอะไรกันแน่ แต่แน่นอน หลักๆ มันก็ยังคงพาคุณลงลึกเข้าไปยังจิตใจของผู้คนได้อย่างดี และที่ขาดไม่ได้ เซ็กซ์

โดยทั้งสองเรื่องนั้นธีมหลักๆ ก็คือการพาคุณสำรวจลงลึกไปยังนิสัยส่วนตัวของตัวละครหลัก พาคุณเข้าไปสำรวจความบิดเบี้ยวและวิปริตเล็กๆ ในจิตใจของตัวละคร โดยทั้งหมดทั้งมวลนั้นก็เป็นภา���สะท้อนของสิ่งที่อยู่ในหัวของมนุษย์ปุถุชนทั่วไป ไม่ว่าคุณจะเป็นใครก็ตาม ก็คงมีสักครั้งที่ตัวของคุณจะพบความคิดอะไรที่บิดเบี้ยวและแปลกประหลาดบ้าง

[PunJaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

พอมาอ่านเล่มนี้ก็ได้เข้าใจอย่างถ่องแท้ถึงความรู้สึกที่ได้อ่านหนังสือของหนังสือของเคนซาบุโร โอเอะ เล่มที่ผ่านๆมา ว่าความรู้สึกกลื่นไม่เข้าคายไม่ออกไม่ใช่สิ่งที่มีโดยทั่วไปในนิยายที่เคยอ่าน แต่มันเป็นการจงใจในการเขียนของนักเขียนผู้นี้ ที่พยายามสร้างสถานะการณ์นี้ขึ้นมา ให้เราได้ตระหนักรู้ถึงสิ่งที่ลืมเลือนหรือแสร้งลืมไป

17
และความอึดอัดคับข้องใจใด จะเท่ากับความอึดอัดคับข้องใจภายในครอบครัว ที่ต้องเจอกันอยู่ทุกวี่วัน โดยเฉพาะการเอาประเด็นทางการเมืองมาพูดในครอบครัว ทำให้เกิดภาวะ กลืนไม่เข้าคายไม่ออก อย่างสุดขีด


J
ตัวเรื่องไล่ระดับความตึงเครียดและระเบิดออกมาตูมเดียว แสดงให้เห็นความสัมพันธ์อันเปราะบางของมนุษย์ที่ขาดสะบั้นเพียงชั่วข้ามคืน และเมื่อมันด้านมืดในจิตใจถูกเปิดออกมาแล้วยังไม่ถูกแก้ไข มันก็จะปิดกลับเข้าไปเช่นเดิม และครานี้มันจะปิดเน้นลึกยิ่งกว่าเดิมนัก
การที่ตัวเรื่องมีสองช่วงแล้วทิ้งสถานการณ์ตอนจบช่วงที่หนึ่งให้คลุมเครือนั้น ก็เพื่อจะมาใช้ขยี้ให้ในตอนพีคของช่วงที่สองซึ่งมันทำให้ว้าวมาก สำหรับการที่ตัวเอกเลือกที่จะหลอกตัวเองต่อไปแล้วใช้ชีวิตต่อไปอย่างเอื่อยเฉย หรือหันมาสู้กับความจริงๆแล้วพุ่งชนมันตรงๆ

โดยรวมแล้วเป็นการเล่าช่วงเวลาที่โดดเดี่ยวที่สุดของมนุษย์ออกมาได้อย่างเปลี่ยวเหงาเหลือเกิน อีกทั้งยังพูดถึงความเป็นปัจเจกชนกับการกลมกลืนกับสังคมที่ทิ้งความเป็นตัวเองไว้ เพื่อให้กรอบทางสังคมมาปกป้องตัวเอง

[Tijl Vandersteene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Drie sterren is het gemiddelde: vijf sterren voor Seventeen, slechts één ster voor Homo sexualis. Het verschil is opmerkelijk.
Seventeen is een compact en helder verhaal. Een kleine brok graniet die je recht tegen de tanden gesmeten wordt. Zonder franjes en uiterst efficiënt, zuinig zelfs, wordt een hard en droevig verhaal verteld over existentiële eenzaamheid die resulteert in schitterende haat. Het werpt een verhelderend licht op maatschappelijke fenomenen, op de drang tot een groep te behoren, op extremisme, op het ego als god. Kort en confronterend.
Homo sexualis lijkt daarna een slappe, smaakloze anecdote. Nergens bereikt het verhaal, voor mij althans, een pointe, doel, richting. Om een of andere reden werkt het niet, geloof ik het niet, ervaar ik zijn verhaal als metageleuter, te veel verklarende zinnen, geen tempo... ik weet het niet. Pervers is het wel maar helaas niet op een perverse manier. Beetje langdradig en zonder impact.
Ondanks het mindere Homo sexualis is nobelprijswinnaar Kenzaburo Oë een aanrader. Een goede start om hem te leren kennen is de bundel De hoogmoedige doden.

[Georgina Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tender, weak, vulnerable, unshapely creature inside is invisible to others. When people looked at me before, I’d blush in fright. I was captured by a timorous, miserable self-loathing. I was bound hand and foot by self-consciousness. But now, instead of seeing what’s inside me, others see the uniform of the Right. More than that, it instills them with fear.

Seventeen and J allowed me to see a different, younger Kenzaburō Ōe from the more mature writer of A Personal Matter. Both novellas point to the struggle of identity and conformity and wanting to fit in a group or society when that means rejecting your individual self or hiding your unacceptable inclinations. There is safety in belonging to a group or espousing certain dogmas or beliefs but it may never be enough to completely annihilate your individuality and personal failings so the devotion needs to be taken to the extreme. In any case, this transformation is never guaranteed and there is always the possibility of the facade breaking down and being exposed.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly shocking novels for their times. It's often said that the Japanese are a button-down culture, but these pair of novels show that they were busting out the kinds of raw novels that American obscenity laws of the time would have cracked down on, and hard.

"J" tells the story of a disaffected young man, bisexual (though at the time referred to as homosexual for his desires for men, despite being married and having sex with his wife and mistress and several other women) who doesn't know what he's doing with himself and seems to be directing events, only to have everything come undone. The first half of the novel has a promising set up as a horror story, but then ends abruptly, while the second follows J as he begins a weird partnership/friendship with a pair of frotteurs. Definitely weird stuff.

"Seventeen" tells of a compulsive masturbator who eventually realizes he's a right wing psycho. Go figure. A tale for our current age, no doubt.

[Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

J 3/5
This novel is more hedonistic than anything, so there isn't much there to chew on. The second half definitely has a better tale to tell, but it just really wasn't for me.

Seventeen 4/5
An excellent look at the mind of a real incel turned rightwing extremist in 1960s Tokyo, Japan. The fact that the political right was so frustrated by this novel, and subsequently prevented the sequel to ever be translated, makes it all the more ring true. They are, mostly, a group of insecure, secluded men who have no outlet for themselves. So in turn they lose themselves in a blood and soil ideology to not feel like an "Other". In some ways, I think the Cult of Trumpism has similar themes working for it. Many men of the world are lost and, frankly, not intelligent enough to want to work for the betterment of society. Instead, they'd rather pour their malice and disgust for the "Other" into something they see as meaningful. All because a demagogue spoke "truth" to them.

[Thomas Hale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two novellas by the Nobel Prize-winning author, both written in the early sixties but published together in '94 in the edition I have. The first novella, Seventeen, is a grotesque and disturbingly plausible story of a disaffected and sexually frustrated teenager who is indoctrinated into extreme rigt-wing politics. The second and longer one, J, is not as punchy but almost more unpleasant in the way it explores the protagonist's amoral sexual fixaions. I don't know enough about the Nobels to judge how wothy Oe is of the prize, but it's clear that these stories were powerful enough when they were written to still resonate thirty years later.

[Veronika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vtipně mi bylo jasné, co se stane s protagonistou Seventeenu jakmile jsem byla za čtvrtinou. O skoro šedesát let později pořád podobné jedince potkáte v ultrapravicových hnutích, rasistických kultech a podobných společnostech, kde si vynahrazují pocit marnosti a osamělosti. Scéna s masturbací k japonskému císaři byla třešničkou na dortu politické provokace.
Sexuální bytosti mi připomněly nakolik muži umí být absolutně asociální a antisociální. Klub exhibicionistů byl přesně klubem lidí, kteří mi jeden víc než druhý lezli na nervy. A taky: dodnes podobné magory jako mladíka z toho klubu můžeme vidět ve zprávách a tragédiích.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unsettling in both cases; the first novella was eerily relevant to the modern political age in the U.S. The second felt like a Bret Easton Ellis story, almost, with a slightly surreal cast to much of the story, particularly in its first half. In between the two novellas, I also read Steve Shultz's (excellent) bootleg translation of "Death of a Political Youth" (findable with a bit of Internet sleuthing), which is the deliberately unpublished sequel to "Seventeen" -- the rating here accounts for this, though the book would feel somewhat incomplete without it.