Oe's most important novel, A Personal Matter, has been called by The New York Ti
mes "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 a
n abnormal child? Bird, the protagonist, is a young man of 27 with antisocial te
ndencies 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 imp
risonment 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 h
onesty with which Oe portrays his hero -- or antihero -- makes Bird one of the m
ost unforgettable characters in recent fiction.
