A Personal Matter, by Oe Kenzaburo

Translated by John Nathan

(1964, translated 1969)

Grove Press, 1994

(Novel)

Bird, the hapless, sex-obsessed, and selfish narrator of A Personal Matter must be one of the most repulsive and appealing characters in literature. We first encounter him in a bookstore as he searches for maps of Africa. He’s been obsessed with the continent since boyhood and dreams of going, imagining himself to be one of the great explorers of his age. He wanders about, goes drinking, gets assaulted by a gang of teens,  tries to engage young women in conversation, and calls up an old friend from college to have sex with her. Prone to revealing many, many details of his life that would be better left unsaid, Bird casually drops a bombshell: his anxious conduct this evening might be related to his wife’s difficult, high-risk pregnancy. As it turns out, his wife is giving birth to their first child. Acquaintances eventually cajole or shame him into going to the hospital where he witnesses the birth of his son. His wife loses consciousness as the child comes into the world and the nurses shriek: the head of the infant is monstrously swollen, deforming the skull and twisting the child’s face into an ugly grimace. The doctors explain that the child suffers from a herniated brain. It may not survive the first forty-eight hours, and if it does, it will never live a normal life. The doctors also advise that they keep this news from Bird’s wife. Bird’s initial reaction is to wish with all his heart that the child dies. He speeds back to the apartment of his oversexed, depressed college friend to drink, talk, and fornicate. Before the story is done, Bird runs from distraction to distraction to avoid having to deal with his wife and their child, whom he refers to as a monster. He curses himself for marrying, complaining that the burden of marriage and the duty of raising the monster will prevent him from ever realizing his dream of becoming an adventurer. Eventually, Bird and his lover will conspire to murder the infant.  A Personal Matter is an astonishing work of fiction. With Bird, Oe gives us a frighteningly honest glimpse into the mind of a monstrously immature husband in the grip of a marital crisis. We can say that it is honest in the sense that the story he relates is partly autobiographical: his own son was born with a similar birth defect; the Oe’s kept the child and he has lived quite an extraordinary life, becoming a musical savant and composer — certainly no monster.  The novel is a standout for its characterization of Bird as a portrait of a modern man handicapped by his fear of accepting the responsibilities of becoming an adult and a contributing member of society.

“Bird interrupted himself to pay for the maps, then moved down the aisle to the stairs, passing with lowered eyes between a potted tree and a corpulent bronze nude. The nude’s bronze belly was smeared with oil from frustrated palms: it glistened wetly like a dog’s nose. As a student, Bird himself used to run his fingers across this belly as he passed; today he couldn’t find the courage even to look the statue in the face. Bird had glimpsed the doctor and the nurses scrubbing their arms with disinfectant next to the table where his wife had been lying naked. The doctor’s arms were matted with hair.”