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.

I didn't necessarily hate this but I have never been happier to finish a book in my entire life.

96th book of 2022.

3.5. Feels like a mishmash of Mishima, Faulkner and Dostoyevsky. Sweet, bleak nihilism. At times like a dystopian novel. At its core, it's about our ancestors, history and how we can lie to ourselves and others. It's filled with suicide, incest, rape, adultery and murder. The writing in my edition was Bible-sized which made the density of it far worse. There are a number of oddball characters, hermits, "Japan's Fattest Woman", the memory of the narrator's friend who hanged himself with his head painted red and a cucumber up his arse. The brother, Takashi, feels like Mishima's Isao, with his radicalised views and expectations. The memories of an 1860 uprising taint the present day for all the characters involved. Though not always enjoyable, Ōe has incredible command and authority on the page. This is considered his masterpiece.

Finito nel 01/gen/1970 00:00:00

an insidiously unnerving novel, one that i've been thinking about relentlessly since setting it down hours ago. the silent cry is at once both complex and contradictory, resisting simple categorisation as an allegory for post-war disenfranchisement in japan, or a hackneyed commentary of the cyclical nature of violence and ritual-sacrifice.

the novel pits two brothers with radically different outlooks on meaning against each other, shirking any easy reconciliation between the two. while both fundamentally seek to rise above the stasis and meaninglessness of their village's tendency to communal violence, the narrator does so by detachment and attempting to derive some transcendent, all-encompassing truth analytically, while his brother seemingly embraces the uncommunicable nature of an "absolute" truth, the motives for his shocking acts of violence ultimately remaining ambiguous, held in the grip of an impossible confession desperately trying to be set free.

ōe has been said to echo sartre in his work, and while i personally found nausea ultimately underwhelming in its tortured attempts to relate strictly epistemological skepticism to the larger disintegration of societal constructs, i think the silent cry succeeds in its dense, ambiguous but ultimately convicting portrayal of the complexity of the human condition (how cliché and redundant that term has become in literary discussion, but it truly does apply here), and the elusiveness of an overarching ideal by which the relativity of history, death and perception can be conveniently explained away. it forces the reader to confront something unknowably terrifying about takashi's humanity, and whether his symbolic sacrifice for the redemption of his bloodline and community is a successful one or a futile act of cowardice.

ultimately, while the silent cry is hardly a conventionally "enjoyable" read due to its convoluted and multi-layered narrative, and the density of expositional knowledge demanded of the reader to process, it's endlessly thought-provoking and worth reading. it got me writing this long clusterfuck of a review, at least.

I don’t fully understand what it is that I like so much about Oe, but reading this book after Shoot the Kids was very interesting. They are both very clearly his stories; melancholy - even depressing - and yet always with a touch of humor