Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! (OE, Kenzaburo)

by Kenzaburo Oe (Author), John Nathan (Translator)

• New

  Paperback
  2003

  $15.32

  Wise and illuminating, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is a masterpiece from one of the world's finest writers, Kenzaburo Oe -- winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. K is a famous writer living in Tokyo with his wife and three children, one of whom is mentally disabled. K's wife confronts him with the information that this child, Eeyore, has been doing disturbing things -- behaving aggressively, asserting that he's dead, even brandishing a knife at his mother -- and K, given to retreating from reality into abstraction, looks for answers in his lifelong love of William Blake's poetry. As K struggles to understand his family and assess his responsibilities within it, he must also reevaluate himself -- his relationship with his own father, the political stances he has taken, the duty of artists and writers in society. A remarkable portrait of the inexpressible bond between this father and his damaged son, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is the work of an unparalleled writer at his sparkling best.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $13.54

  ROUSE UP is a virtuoso novel of extraordinary power that returns to the themes that haunt so much of Oe's work: family, responsibility, writing and the experience of being a parent to a disabled child.K lives in Tokyo with his wife and three children. Eeyore, his eldest, is mentally ill and during one dramatic outburst brandishes a knife at his mother. Rather than confront the situation, K's reaction is to sit and read in his study. Eventually Eeyore's problems force K back into family life, where his sympathetic readings of William Blake are no longer an escape route, but a vital way-in to understanding his own son.