By Nayla Huq
Japanese writer and nobel prize winner, Kenzaburo Oe's latest novel, Somersault, immediately draws the reader in with its compelling plot, intriguing characters and poetic language, but this copious novel drags you through what seems like a well-conceptualized story to a remarkably flimsy ending. Oe weighs the reader down with painfully, unnecessarily detailed descriptions of furniture arrangements, landscapes, sex acts and repetitious monologues centering on the controversial theme of the novel, the Somersault.
“Chuugaeri,” the Japanese word for “somersault,” also means to ‘change your way of thinking; to switch opinions,' as my Japanese-American friend explained to me. The cult that commits the Somersault resembles Aum Shinrikyo, an extant Buddhist cult, led by Asahara Shoko, widely known for its March 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo subway trains.
Patron and Guide are the characters who committed the Somersault ten years before this novel is set. They have been comically dubbed as saviors of humanity by the press. The purpose of the Somersault, debated in the second half of the novel, was to foil the plot of the church's radical faction to blow up a nuclear power plant, their plan to expedite humanity's repentance. The followers of Patron and Guide felt abandoned and insulted, but the more devoted members of the church carried on with their beliefs in their own ways.
The opening scene of the novel takes place at a technological expo in Tokyo where a children's model-building competition and ballet performance are held. Kizu, a talented artist takes notice of a small, muscular boy awkwardly carrying his model backstage to its display area. A defining moment happens when his clumsy move lodges a protruding part of his model city into the most poetic part of a little dancer's tutu. Beyond comprehension, she sustains her position in order to protect the structure from breaking. However, in his frustration, the boy with the “beautiful eyes in a doglike face” defiantly destroys his work, presaging his tendency toward violence.
Kizu's fascination with the boy's physicality and behavior predict their homosexual relationship that will take place in fifteen years, but on a deeper level. Kizu is unaware of his homosexual, pedophilic desire at this point, which couldn't be any more obvious to the reader.
Fifteen years later Kizu, Ikuo and Dancer, as she is known throughout the book, reunite and the men come into contact with Patron and Guide. Dancer is their personal secretary. This introduction becomes of the utmost importance to Ikuo. He once heard the voice of God, and needed to hear it again - the God that Patron, falls into trances to communicate with.
After their decade-long seclusion, Patron and Guide emerge to revive their movement, until Guide is killed by members of the radical faction and Patron decides to create a new movement with his loyal followers and new converts in The Church of the New Man. The revival/new-fangled movement is the biggest disappointment. If humor is the aim here, it is really just base absurdity: the final departure of the “refined ladies” is prevented by the inducement of severe diarrhea.
The reader chases after the tempting prospect of a profound storyline, but constantly stumbles into mired, tangling detail, and redundant debates to witness an absurd climax and a very haphazardly concluded plot. In this pursuit of intellectual fulfillment, the reader expects the characters to be further fleshed out, but finds shortcomings there, as well as finding that almost all of the female characters play stereotypically supportive roles, mostly played out in the manner of servitude. Even though Japanese culture is known for valuing tradition, this novel is too Westernized to present such flattened female roles. There is no significant insight into Dancer, the most prominent female character. We go in depth into Ikuo, the most intriguing character, but find him thrown into convention at the end.
Despite these shortcomings, there is enough literary beauty (particularly the philosophical discussions and analyses of poetry) and seemingly engrossing characters to make you progress through this verbose oeuvre. Even with this unscrupulously effortless ending, a much more concise novel would have received more applause.