|
|
Article: Roller-coaster rides in hell THE PINCH RUNNER MEMORANDUM Kenzaburo Oe Tr. Michiko Wilson & Michael Wilson M E Sharpe pounds 14 Paul Mackintosh considers the ups and downs of an adventurous Nobel prizewinner
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- January 14, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1995 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
Kenzaburo Oe is the world's greatest living novelist in any
language. The Nobel committee chose well. Oe is a writer of
tremendous depth, productivity and variety of styles: to date he has
produced well over 60 works, more than 40 of them fiction.
In terms of intellectual and emotional power and commitment, there
is no other contemporary prose writer to match him. So it is odd that
the translators of this book have piloted between his towering
masterpieces to light on what is arguably his worst n ovel.
The plot introduces a novelist in his late thirties with a
mentally handicapped son (like Oe himself) who meets a similar father-
son pair at the remedial class; the father is an ex-nuclear ...