Can you count the letter "i" in:
“The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away” was described in my edition of the book as “Oe’s most disturbing yet,” but I actually found “Prize Stock” and “Aghwee the Sky Monster” more disturbing. I don’t think I really connected with the main character in”The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away”. “Prize Stock” is about a black American soldier whose plane crashes near a small village in Japan during WWII. The people of the village, especially the children through whose eyes we see the story, dehumanize him and see him as an animal (hence the title “Prize Stock”).
Both “Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness” and “Aghwee the Sky Monster” are about fathers with children who are handicapped in some way, or are at least perceived to be. Ōe’s oldest child, Hikari, was born developmentally disabled, and Ōe has said that having a mentally handicapped son was one of the defining moments of his life and a huge influence on his writing. One reviewer on Goodreads wrote, “Overall, I have to say, I’ve never encountered writing where I feel so drawn in and alienated at the same time. There’s something familiar and human in these works, but also utterly baffling. I don’t know what to make of it at all. I enjoy the stories, but I also feel like I completely don’t understand them.” I think that’s an accurate summary of my reactions to these two stories as well. I felt like I was reading the confessions of deeply flawed people, but perhaps through the murky goggles of the narrator of the first story.
The fact that it’s taken me almost a year to get over (or forget) this collection enough to write about it might mean I shouldn’t read more Ōe, but his Nobel lecture is so humane and vulnerable, I might have to read more and try to understand him better.
user
The given text has one hundred and one "i"s.
assistant