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A review by alicegns
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburō Ōe
5.0
Every review I read after finishing Kenzaburō Ōe’s “Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids” mentioned how this was not the author’s best work because he wrote it at 23. Well, I have to say I’m so looking forward to reading his other novels because I thought this one was incredible.
I must admit I knew very little about the author and the book before reading it, but it was a pleasant surprise. The book is so dark it will make many cringe with every turn of the page, but the writing is so masterful you can actually sense its creator is Nobel material.
“Lord of the Flies” immediately comes to mind when reading “Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids.” Nevertheless, Ōe’s rendition of the tale of a bunch of young boys abandoned in a depopulated village in the Japanese forests during World War II is soaked in a sense of gloom and futility that is very hard to surpass.
The extreme child brutality, vivid depictions of animal cruelty, underage intercourse including homosexual encounters may overwhelm the reader at times, to the point of wanting it to end so badly. Metaphors and comparisons abound, sometimes a bit too much, but they all contribute to creating an eerie atmosphere.
“I walked howling like a beast, shedding my tears on the snow. The dirty water coming in through my cracked soles soaked my chilblained toes and made them itch terribly, but I fiercely pushed my shoes into the ankle-deep snow and made no attempt to reach down and scratch them. If I had bent down I couldn’t possibly have straightened up and started walking again.”
The feeling of immersion in the story is so poignant that you actually believe there is no other world outside the unnamed Japanese village where life has lost the will to exist, and death reigns supreme.
Fifteen teenage reformatory boys are evacuated to a remote village in the mountains during the war. The unnamed narrator and his brother are the protagonists, are the unofficial leaders of their delinquent comrades who instill disgust in local peasants. In a Camusian turn of events, a plague breaks out, and the villagers disappear in the dead of night, leaving the boys alone in an empty village together with a young Korean and a local girl who was left behind near the decomposing body of her mother.
From now on the story focuses on the way the group manages to live without any supplies in a deserted village. Horrifying moments abound in the freezing setting, and the imagery is dense, in total contrast with the simplicity and minimalism you would expect to find in a Japanese novel. Ōe was a student of Heidegger and Sartre in college, and their influence is visible in the writing, which makes the novel read very much like Western works.
The ending is a culmination of emotional brutality, and the whole story is memorable in a way that makes “Lord of the Flies” seem tame. Ōe’s book is less allegorical, which translates into a more visceral work that is not for the faint of heart.
I must admit I knew very little about the author and the book before reading it, but it was a pleasant surprise. The book is so dark it will make many cringe with every turn of the page, but the writing is so masterful you can actually sense its creator is Nobel material.
“Lord of the Flies” immediately comes to mind when reading “Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids.” Nevertheless, Ōe’s rendition of the tale of a bunch of young boys abandoned in a depopulated village in the Japanese forests during World War II is soaked in a sense of gloom and futility that is very hard to surpass.
The extreme child brutality, vivid depictions of animal cruelty, underage intercourse including homosexual encounters may overwhelm the reader at times, to the point of wanting it to end so badly. Metaphors and comparisons abound, sometimes a bit too much, but they all contribute to creating an eerie atmosphere.
“I walked howling like a beast, shedding my tears on the snow. The dirty water coming in through my cracked soles soaked my chilblained toes and made them itch terribly, but I fiercely pushed my shoes into the ankle-deep snow and made no attempt to reach down and scratch them. If I had bent down I couldn’t possibly have straightened up and started walking again.”
The feeling of immersion in the story is so poignant that you actually believe there is no other world outside the unnamed Japanese village where life has lost the will to exist, and death reigns supreme.
Fifteen teenage reformatory boys are evacuated to a remote village in the mountains during the war. The unnamed narrator and his brother are the protagonists, are the unofficial leaders of their delinquent comrades who instill disgust in local peasants. In a Camusian turn of events, a plague breaks out, and the villagers disappear in the dead of night, leaving the boys alone in an empty village together with a young Korean and a local girl who was left behind near the decomposing body of her mother.
From now on the story focuses on the way the group manages to live without any supplies in a deserted village. Horrifying moments abound in the freezing setting, and the imagery is dense, in total contrast with the simplicity and minimalism you would expect to find in a Japanese novel. Ōe was a student of Heidegger and Sartre in college, and their influence is visible in the writing, which makes the novel read very much like Western works.
The ending is a culmination of emotional brutality, and the whole story is memorable in a way that makes “Lord of the Flies” seem tame. Ōe’s book is less allegorical, which translates into a more visceral work that is not for the faint of heart.