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A personal matter
Format:
Book
Title:
A personal matter
ISBN:
9780802150615
Publication Information:
New York : Grove Weidenfeld, 1969.
Physical Description:
x, 165 pages
Summary:
Oe?s most important novel, A Personal Matter, has been called by The New York Times?close to a perfect novel.? In A Personal Matter, Oe has chosen a difficult, complex though universal subject: how does one face and react to the birth of an abnormal child? Bird, the protagonist, is a young man of 27 with antisocial tendencies who more than once in his life, when confronted with a critical problem, has?cast himself adrift on a sea of whisky like a besotted Robinson Crusoe.? But he has never faced a crisis as personal or grave as the prospect of life imprisonment in the cage of his newborn infant-monster. Should he keep it? Dare he kill it? Before he makes his final decision, Bird?s entire past seems to rise up before him, revealing itself to be a nightmare of self-deceit. The relentless honesty with which Oe portrays his hero? or antihero? makes Bird one of the most unforgettable characters in recent fiction.
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