A five star book in regards to the quality of the writing and in the depth of inquiry into humanity but a 3 star regarding my enjoyment of this book. Would have loved this book 10 or 20 Years ago, and still recognize its quality, but it is a bit grim.

Muchos temas complejos como la identidad, la dinámica familiar, los problemas sociales y lo que significó la posguerra en Japón. También cuestiones psicológicas, las luchas, conflictos y crecimiento personal de unos personajes muy complicados.
 La forma en que incorpora elementos de mitología, folclore y eventos históricos me confundió por momentos. No es mi estilo de lectura pero me gustó conocer a este autor y un poco de literatura japonesa. Su forma de escribir me pareció un tanto rebuscada pero me siento satisfecha de haber terminado el libro con varias palabras más en mi vocabulario!

No me ha gustado mucho la verdad. Ha sido una lectura que no me llamaba a leerla. Quizás sea por mi desconocimiento de la cultura japonesa. Hay partes del libro confusas y que según mi punto de vista no aportan mucho. Los últimos capítulos son los más interesantes quizás, porque en ellos se revela el real drama de la historia. No me gustó el final.

Le iba a dar 2 estrellas porque no entendí muchas cosas, pero luego de conversarlo en el club de lectura me pareció que es mejor libro que mi primera percepción, así que le daré 3.5 estrellas

A man named Mitsusaburo is married to Natsumi, they have a newborn son who is mentally disabled. She is coping with alcohol. Then Mitsu's friend commits suicide (it involves a cucumber) which only further sends the two of them spiraling into uncertainty. Mitsusaburo's brother Takashi returns from America and convinces them to go back with him to their childhood home. Here we learn about the brothers' great grandfather and his brother, the latter a major figure in an 1860 peasant uprising. Takashi wants to inspire a similar uprising and, after creating a football team, slowly builds an army which loots the local supermarket owned by a Korean...

I'd go into more detail (and there is a lot more to go into) but I suspect you've already switched off a little. The fact is the book is very good, wonderfully written (and translated), and delves into as many dark and painful recesses of the human mind that you can imagine (fascinatingly so). But it's very convoluted, very dense, and very oppressive at times. After a while, I felt like I had a bag of stones around my neck. Which is a shame because the writing is indeed great. It just feels like he's put far too much into this (did I mention that Takashi seduces Mitsu's wife Natsumi, that there's a murder, an obese gargoyle, an attempted rape, incest, more suicide, a cucumber

“Now I was just a transient in the valley, a one-eyed passerby too fat for his years, and life there had the power to summon up neither the memory nor the illusion of any other, truer self. As a passerby I had a right to insist on my identity.”

"The Silent Cry" by Kenzaburo Oe is undeniably deserving of its accolades and status as a classic novel.

Set in a rural village, the novel follows two brothers, Mitsusaburo and Takashi, as they return home and confront their pasts. Mitsusaburo, a disillusioned intellectual, becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind a mysterious incident from their childhood, while Takashi, who is mentally disabled, grapples with his own vulnerability and innocence. As secrets are revealed and tensions escalate, the brothers find themselves at the center of a community on the brink of collapse.

The novel's rich exploration of themes such as guilt, redemption, and the clash between tradition and modernity resonates deeply with readers across cultures and generations. Oe's masterful storytelling and poetic prose create a vivid and immersive reading experience, drawing readers into the world of rural Japan and the lives of its complex and deeply human characters. The novel's enduring relevance and universal appeal have cemented its place as a cornerstone of modern literature, influencing countless writers and earning it a well-deserved reputation as a literary masterpiece.

Whether read for its compelling plot, its profound insights into the human condition, or its exquisite craftsmanship, "The Silent Cry" remains a timeless and essential work that continues to captivate and inspire readers around the world.

(This is my pick for the #AsianReadathon2024 challenge prompt: Read a book that feels timeless.)

I’m not certain whether it’s decades of aging, literary style, cross-cultural interpretation, or literal translation issues, but something subtle seems to be lost in translation with The Silent Cry. I would assume it is probably a combination of all of these factors. Ōe has a very obviously unique style and it’s hard to believe that nothing is lost in translation. He occasionally mentions very strange or grotesque observations and the translation of these concepts seems always to dull their point of impact. In fact, it is hard to get any sort of emotional read on the perspective in this story, which is itself so filled with violent emotional reactions explained in such a sterile way. The story itself is somewhat repetitive, bizarre, and literary, more interesting for the characters and treatment of memories, family ties, and discovering of meaning in heritage. The book leans heavily upon hundreds of years of fictionalized Japanese history, including a lot of perspective on WWII. Written in the 1960’s some of the current perspectives of the characters can also hard to interpret.

Mitsu and his younger brother Takashi are the last two members of a large family that was once like royalty in a small forest village in West Japan that is now decaying away in a postwar age of urbanization. Mitsu is a one-eyed college professor mourning both the loss of a close friend to suicide and the birth of a severely mentally handicapped baby that is basically in a vegetative state. He is a depressive himself who is prone to resist action in favor of the role of pessimistic observer. His brother Takashi has just gotten back from a stint roaming in the USA, an action-oriented revolutionary obsessed with heroic stories of rebel leaders from the past generations of their own family. The two could not be more opposite and could not have more different perspectives on their own heritage and the meanings in their memories of their childhood home and they’re deceased brothers and sister and mother. When Taka comes home with the idea of returning to their childhood home to sell of the valuable properties they still own, Mitsu and his newly alcoholic wife agree more out of torpor than anything else. The winter that follows is one of increasingly incredulous chaos and upheaval, in which Taka slowly incites the lazy rural farmers into a rebellion against the foreign owned supermarket which has run every other business in town out of business.

This story revolves around so many complex elements of history and family and economic dynamics. Every one of these elements feels half relatable and half foreign to me. The really compelling parts are the ways we manipulate memories and family history and how we build our own identities based on these factors. As the story goes on it feels both believable and surreal, until it is almost like a waking nightmare spoken in a realistic and monotone style. The biggest unspoken assumption that I thought of as key to interpreting this work is the assumption that everyone just wants to die. There are suicides and rebel leaders and everyone seems to want to die to escape pain or die to make some kind of meaning but the assumption seems always to be that the village and the family and the circumstances and the universe is something between meaningless and painful. In many ways, it’s relatable. In some ways, it’s a horror story.

La muerte, inequívoca posibilidad de expulsar la verdad gangrenada que, incrustada al interior de los personajes convocados por Oé, se metamorfosea en un grito silencioso, desgarrador y sin ecos que le sobrevivan, a menos que sobrevenga el fin de la vida. La vergüenza y la culpa, sostenidos y anudados en personajes que existen entre las ruinas de un pasado mitológico y esencial, y un presente sombrío y confuso, se debaten entre una vida cargada de pesares, o la posibilidad del advenimiento de la liberación de sus tormentos mediante la muerte en cualquiera de sus formas.

Dos hermanos. Mitsu, tuerto, pesimista y desesperanzando, y Taka, fanático e inundado de pulsiones primitivas, constituidos a partir de la singular familia que les une, trazan una historia en donde los límites del pasado se superponen en un presente psicológicamente confuso y convulso. Un pueblo, el emperador de los supermercados, el hijo con discapacidad, el bisabuelo y su hermano, la casa tradicional familiar y un conjunto de mentiras y verdades, todas peligrosamente equilibradas en papeles, sueños y en la memoria colectiva del pueblo, son los engranajes que Oé moviliza para recrear una excelente novela que toca fondo una y otra vez a medida que la historia se desenvuelve mediante lo proyectado por Mitsu, el narrador y protagonista del libro.

Un libro sorprendente y magistral, que señala sin miramientos la corrosiva y triste condición de la vergüenza. Una condición que otorga espacio a la culpa, que Oé, de forma impecable, la moviliza desde lo personal hasta lo esencial en lo humano. Una historia que recuerda irremediablemente a Dostoyevski, Golding, Dazai y Akutagawa.