Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids

This novel by 1994 Nobel Laureate for Literature, Kenzaburo Oe, is one of my favorite books. A fictional account of how the (relative) innocence of a group of unnamed delinquent boys was lost during their predicament in the mountains where they were banished when a plague stroke a small town during the last days of WWII, the novel succeeded in masterful weaving of words that created vivid images that would linger for quite a while in my mind (or, consciousness?). By vivid images I mean disturbing or nightmarish.

This is one of my best read so far. The novel is as great as Lord of the Flies (William Golding).

BTW, the story is not based on true events. You might get confused with me referring to it as a fictional account.

In my future posts, I might be writing about my thoughts on the other Kenzaburo Oe books that I've already read or might have read. In my library I have Oe's Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness, which I have already read, A Silent Cry and A Personal Matter.

A Side Story

I became acquainted with Oe's works while I was in Columbus, Ohio doing my dissertation at The Ohio State University (OSU). That year the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature was Dario Fo, an Italian poet. I didn't have much interest in poetry. But still, I googled his works. Honestly, I don't remember if indeed Google was the search engine I used. Or, was it Yahoo? Doesn't matter. That was exactly a decade ago now. Anyway, none of his (Fo's) works seemed to interest me. That was rather expected. As I said, I was not much into poetry. Then I found myself in front of a list of past Nobel Prize Winners. The only names familiar to me were William Golding, Toni Morrison, Rudyard Kipling and Boris Pasternak. That Rudyard Kipling was a past winner was indeed news to me. I was familiar with only one of his works - The Jungle Book. The name Kenzaburo Oe in the list caught my attention. For me the name looked like it was really destined to be in the list. Ha ha ha. Next scene: I was reading synopses and reviews of his works from different links. The titles that really lured my appetite for reading after reading other people's views on Oe's works were Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids, Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness and J. Maybe the titles looked cool and easily aroused my curiosity. I was so lucky to have chanced upon a copy of Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness for $2.98 at a half-price bookstore near OSU. Some months later, I felt luckier when I got a brand-new copy of Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids (on) sale for 75 pesos in Powerbooks Megamall. I was already in the Manila that time. I read it as soon I got home and was immersed into a really satisfying experience.

How about a film version of the book? Anyone?