Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oé – A book review

Kogito Choko is a renowned Japanese author (like Kenzaburo Oé) and most of his books have been turned into plays by Masao Anai, a theatre virtuoso.  Choko has been longing to write a novel about his long dead father but not before accessing a red leather trunk which his father had carried along to his mysterious and controversial death by drowning. He has a recurrent dream from witnessing the scene when his father ventured in the middle of a storm on a small boat to his death. Kogito’s imaginary doppelganger Kogii who no-one else can see was on the boat too. This shadowy Kogii, who had been his only real playmate during his growing up years departs mysteriously too.  Kogito feels trapped in the blurring lines between reality and dreams.

The novel’s main theme revolves around these lines from T.S.Eliot’s poem ‘The Wasteland: IV – Death by Water’ which feature in the novel repeatedly.

‘A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.’

Kogito doesn’t get access to this elusive trunk for about three decades or more until his mother dies and when he does lay his hands on it, to his dismay, he finds that most of the materials he had supposed could give him more details of his father have been destroyed by his mother.

Masao Anai and his theatre cadre, for his next play, are heavily depending on Kogito Choko writing the much awaited ‘Drowning Novel’ which is supposed to be an apt summation for Choko’s earlier novels and characters. However, to everyone’s dismay, Choko abandons the idea after the disappointing revelation of the contents of the red leather trunk. And then the story hops from one hackneyed subject to another such as the troubled relationship with his brain-damaged grown-up composer son Akari (Oé has a developmentally disabled son named Hikari who’s a composer too), the Occupation war, the end of an emperor’s era, the plight of farmers in the countryside, references to the spirit world, and finally meandering to other serious social issues like rape and abortion.  

There are many ways to kill a person. You can spend a bullet and shoot him in different parts of his body, strangle him, stab him a few times, even choke him under water. And then you can also use a harmless looking weapon and batter someone to death, beat him to a pulp and keep doing so even after the soul has left him. Kenzaburo Oé seems to strongly approve of the latter.

Imagine this:

Me telling you – I bought khaki coloured shorts today.

My brother telling you – Do you know he bought khaki coloured shorts today.

My mother telling my father – He bought khaki coloured shorts today. They look good.

My father telling me – You bought khaki coloured shorts today from that shop.

Neil Armstrong telling Edwin Aldrin – That man bought khaki shorts today. Amazing, isn’t it.

WHO telling the world, an earthworm informing a centipede, a spider whispering to a fly – SOMEONE BOUGHT KHAKI SHORTS TODAY.

Did you not wince every time you heard about my khaki shorts after the first mention? I did too – badly, every time I heard about the red leather trunk and the ‘drowning novel’, then at the hackneyed mention of an experimental yet irritating (I really thought so) ‘tossing the dogs’ concept of drama, and then reading/listening to ten different people telling each other how badly Choko had behaved with his son Akari, and then about Meisuke’s mother and the insurrection! Oh, and did I forget to mention witnessing Choko’s father on the night of the storm aboard a small boat with the red leather trunk and his doppelganger Kogii. It’s like Jackie Chan teaching ‘The Karate Kid’ each move a zillion times so it is ingrained in the brain and is sort of automated when it is to be executed in real life. Oé treats each theme in a similar fashion; particularly the drowning of his father is a tiring leitmotif in the novel. The author should have known that it is a story we are reading and not an art we’re trying to master; the reader must have the freedom to remember or forget, and not be battered by hackneyed descriptions of the same subject.

I don’t normally quit a book midway, but there were times I almost shouted out ‘One more mention of the red leather trunk and I’m going to take a devilish pleasure in painting each page red; one more time someone describes the scene of his father’s death and I’m going to tear out each page and sink it into the bucket.’ Death by words, by banality!

Nonetheless, a few things from the novel stood out strongly for me and I realize they are to do with culture. Firstly, I felt the Japanese culture’s acceptance of death is sublime. In a way, it seems they ready themselves for it, which to me is an extremely brave thing. Throughout the book, different characters including his wife, sister and daughter talk openly and elaborately about Kogito’s death in his presence and he listens calmly, a death that isn’t known when it’ll come. All throughout the book, family members and other characters blame Kogito Choko for not preparing or readying Akari, his son for Akari’s death when it comes. They are quite comfortable, rather happy having morbid discussions. In contrast, in the Indian culture, from where I belong, people don’t like talking about it; they generally fear death and inadvertently fight for life till the last gasp. I’m sure in both and most cultures, life is valued as much. And the acceptance of suicides is also daunting. Yes, there’s not much you can do but accept it eventually but the peaceful acceptance and the glorification of it made me uncomfortable.

The other prominent feature I experienced was the act of being straightforward; it’s exaggerated to a new dimension. Even if one has committed a stupid act, one wouldn’t be comfortable or stolidly be a mute audience when reminded repeatedly of the unpleasant behavior. In most cultures, it would come across as rude. Tolerance and patience probably derive their meanings from the phlegmatic characters of this book and this richness is definitely a lesson to be learnt if one can and is willing to.

Kogito Choko in one of the chapters, when talking to Unaiko, the new theatre virtuoso, says why he doesn’t write fantasy – probably because he’s not capable to do so; so he relies on imagination which has some basis in reality. Kenzaburo Oé takes a lot from his real life and refers freely to his previous novels.

T.S. Eliot’s lines are echoed in the few lines written by Kogito’s mother and completed by Kogito:

“You didn’t get Kogii ready to go up into the forest
And like the river current, you won’t return home
In Tokyo during the dry season
I’m remembering everything backward
From old age to earliest childhood.”

And all characters from then on find comfort in repeating these lines and stating the same meaning to each other like a chant. Probably, through repetition, they keep things alive in their minds and maybe strive to find new and different meanings.

It would have been a much nicer story had the author been harshly concise with it.

My rating: 4/10

Image copyrights

Kenzaburo Oe - © https://groveatlantic.com/author/kenzaburo-oe/

Book cover - © https://www.amazon.in/Death-Water-Kenzaburo-Oe/dp/0857895486