Yuragi ’s Reviews > The Silent Cry > Status Update

This book is finally starting to hit hard, like a strong slap to my face. We talk about what brings common people to violence, and the idea is somehow very simple - prejudice, it is THAT simple to make people hate. And once you hate, you can naturally be violent. Revising history is a dangerous game, and that's something which is very beautifully explored here; this is something we currently need to understand.

The main character I've read about in the last few chapters is essentially violent. It is ultimately a crucial part of human society and human history, but what I felt was a bit weird was to see Takashi's relationship with violence. That has been the central question that I've been constantly asking. Why and where does Takashi source his violence from? I think understanding this will help me understand life better.

There we have it! The first major conflict of the story, and it was a very painful read. It's like a slow, ice-like poison coursing through your veins, you know it does hurt you but still the process is comforting. You can see that Oe in his setting always makes jabs on capitalism and elitism. This is the turning point of the book, or so I fell.

Each page I read, I seem to feel very despondent, this is simply because the setting is very grim, and the overall atmosphere is just uninspiring. But it brings up some nice questions that I’ve been wondering about - can we ever have a non-traumatic catalyst to change ourselves? It seems that all our calls to change always refer to some hidden trauma inside. The imagery is very profound, makes you feel something.

The same old brutal exposition to fragile concepts of death, suicide, mental health. Self-image and how and why something leads people to feel uncomfortable with themselves. Interesting muse I got is the dilemmas b/w knowing oneself vs preserving oneself.