Read Online A Quiet Life by Kenzaburō Ōe - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kenzaburō Ōe
Tags: Fiction
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told me now, I wonder if he's going to end up…”
“Hanging from a branch of California live oak, one just right for hanging—spurred to the act by taking things too seriously, and everything compounded by the depression of encroaching old age … isn't this what Oyu-san is fearing?”
“Mr. Shigeto, I can understand you being upset out of worry for K-chan, and because of Eeyore's music,” his wife said inadmonition, imparting an even stronger expression around her eyes, which, instead of a smile, were lined with severe wrinkles. “But you're only intimidating Ma-chan with the things you're saying. If K-chan's in a ‘pinch,’ what you ought to do is explain to her how you think he could get back on his feet. Ranting like that won't get anybody anywhere. If you know K-chan so well that you can say he might hang himself and all that … you could do better by saying, for example, that he could use this opportunity to take up religion….”
“I can't know about other people, really,” Mr. Shigeto retorted. “The same obviously goes for my understanding of K,” he parroted, while repeatedly blinking, and turning red with a flush that was different from before. “… Speaking of faith,” he continued, “I think it would be harder for K to embrace a faith than to hang himself. For all these years, he's done his best to distance himself, as though with out-thrust arms, from people who have faith.
“I know he'd be offended if he heard me say he'd done his best. I think the question for him is, how is a faithless person to cope with life, staying on this side of the fence? This is where he believes he can find something upon which to establish a literary career. You know, don't you, how often he talks of Yeats? This goes way back, to when he was very young. You hear him mumbling this to himself from time to time, don't you? ‘The intellect of man is forced to choose / Perfection of the life, or of the work, / And if it take the second must refuse / A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.’ Raging in the dark: that's what it is. But right after he entered the French department in Hongo, he got hung up on the heavenly mansion; he got the Christian paradise into his head, and so fervently sought for his place there that he even volunteered to do menial chores at a monastery. As I've said a number of times, hisparadigm of faith is built upon his childhood experience of having imagined St. Francis of Assisi bidding him to devote himself to matters of the soul. This means that, unless he abandons everything, and possibly enters a monastery—one that's not too highly institutionalized—he'll never be able to arrive at a faith that gives him true peace of mind. But what he'll have to do then, more than anything else, is to abandon Eeyore! Eeyore's correct in sensing the anxieties of an abandoned child.”
“Come, come, Mr. Shigeto. Ma-chan's already nonplussed, and she's all but crying. Is this what gives you pleasure? Making a poor, helpless girl like her cry?”
A redder flush appeared around Mr. Shigeto's blinking eyes and on the tip of his nose, which made him resemble a liquor-loving tailor or cobbler in a European fable—which, in fact, is what I thought about to stifle rny tears.
“K is basically of a halfway character. The trouble is, on the more conscious level, he can't stand halfwayness. That's the kind of odd guy he is. By this I mean … he believes that he could never enter into a faith only halfway. But being halfway about it, he can't keep from contemplating what it means to pray. Worse yet, he's unscrupulous in talking about it. So in the end this ‘pinch’ of his is something he himself invited.
“Oyu-san told me that soon after the lecture was televised, K quite unexpectedly received a letter from a Catholic priest he'd held in high esteem. Coming from such a person, it must have been a very serious letter. The priest wrote that he deemed K already a member of the flock. This was a
“Hanging from a branch of California live oak, one just right for hanging—spurred to the act by taking things too seriously, and everything compounded by the depression of encroaching old age … isn't this what Oyu-san is fearing?”
“Mr. Shigeto, I can understand you being upset out of worry for K-chan, and because of Eeyore's music,” his wife said inadmonition, imparting an even stronger expression around her eyes, which, instead of a smile, were lined with severe wrinkles. “But you're only intimidating Ma-chan with the things you're saying. If K-chan's in a ‘pinch,’ what you ought to do is explain to her how you think he could get back on his feet. Ranting like that won't get anybody anywhere. If you know K-chan so well that you can say he might hang himself and all that … you could do better by saying, for example, that he could use this opportunity to take up religion….”
“I can't know about other people, really,” Mr. Shigeto retorted. “The same obviously goes for my understanding of K,” he parroted, while repeatedly blinking, and turning red with a flush that was different from before. “… Speaking of faith,” he continued, “I think it would be harder for K to embrace a faith than to hang himself. For all these years, he's done his best to distance himself, as though with out-thrust arms, from people who have faith.
“I know he'd be offended if he heard me say he'd done his best. I think the question for him is, how is a faithless person to cope with life, staying on this side of the fence? This is where he believes he can find something upon which to establish a literary career. You know, don't you, how often he talks of Yeats? This goes way back, to when he was very young. You hear him mumbling this to himself from time to time, don't you? ‘The intellect of man is forced to choose / Perfection of the life, or of the work, / And if it take the second must refuse / A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.’ Raging in the dark: that's what it is. But right after he entered the French department in Hongo, he got hung up on the heavenly mansion; he got the Christian paradise into his head, and so fervently sought for his place there that he even volunteered to do menial chores at a monastery. As I've said a number of times, hisparadigm of faith is built upon his childhood experience of having imagined St. Francis of Assisi bidding him to devote himself to matters of the soul. This means that, unless he abandons everything, and possibly enters a monastery—one that's not too highly institutionalized—he'll never be able to arrive at a faith that gives him true peace of mind. But what he'll have to do then, more than anything else, is to abandon Eeyore! Eeyore's correct in sensing the anxieties of an abandoned child.”
“Come, come, Mr. Shigeto. Ma-chan's already nonplussed, and she's all but crying. Is this what gives you pleasure? Making a poor, helpless girl like her cry?”
A redder flush appeared around Mr. Shigeto's blinking eyes and on the tip of his nose, which made him resemble a liquor-loving tailor or cobbler in a European fable—which, in fact, is what I thought about to stifle rny tears.
“K is basically of a halfway character. The trouble is, on the more conscious level, he can't stand halfwayness. That's the kind of odd guy he is. By this I mean … he believes that he could never enter into a faith only halfway. But being halfway about it, he can't keep from contemplating what it means to pray. Worse yet, he's unscrupulous in talking about it. So in the end this ‘pinch’ of his is something he himself invited.
“Oyu-san told me that soon after the lecture was televised, K quite unexpectedly received a letter from a Catholic priest he'd held in high esteem. Coming from such a person, it must have been a very serious letter. The priest wrote that he deemed K already a member of the flock. This was a
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