The Silent Cry is a novel with not the best title. At least in the English translation, that is, for were I to just encounter this title without the Nobel winning stamp upon it, I would have quickly passed over it. That said, it is still not a good title, Nobel winner or not. This sort of reminds me of Hungarian writer Sandor Marai’s great novel Embers, which doesn’t have the best translation of title either, but Embers is better than The Silent Cry — both in title and in book. The title actually puts me in mind of that anti-abortion propaganda film I was forced to watch my freshman year in Catholic high school — The Silent Scream…or something. According to Wikipedia, the title’s translation from its original Japanese is Football in the First Year of Man'en. Ok, right, I can see that connection. Whatever. The Silent Cry, as a title, still sucks.
Having said that, this is not the best Oe book I have read. It is in fact an incredibly dour novel with no happiness whatsoever, and I have to wonder what sort of person can deliver so many words in nearly 300 pages and not manage to tell a joke. We have sibling rivalry, a grisly suicide involving a hanging and the shoving of a cucumber up the dead person’s ass, (ok maybe that’s sort of funny, I guess), alcoholism, rape, and so on. I’m not going to bother giving a plot summary because much of it I have forgotten already. You can just read for yourself, should you be interested.
But let me set this straight, of the Oe works I’ve read, A Personal Matter is excellent — definitely one I recommend. I also reviewed a book of Oe’s short fiction (a collection of four novellas), which was also very good. The Silent Cry has good moments, certainly, but the text felt long, unnecessarily deflating and I can’t recall much afterwards. So you’re thinking, “What’s wrong with a dour and depressing sort of story? You’ve just described the entire film output of Ingmar Bergman.” Well, true, and nothing is wrong when there is the psychological and philosophical complexity to back it up. The Silent Cry has moments, but it reads more like a lesser Bergman film than one of Bergman’s best. Catch my drift? It is by no means a bad book, but when you have disaster after disaster and tragedy after tragedy, after a time, it loses its dramatic effect. Again, this is no criticism upon tragedy, just that, if you’re gonna write it, either 1) have the profundity and depth to back it up (and even the title itself is trite) or 2) make light of it via jokes, sort of the way Vonnegut does in Slaughterhouse Five.
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