The Pinch Runner Memorandum

by Michiko N. Wilson

Book Overview

This novel offers a contemporary and explosive picture of the nuclear family, which pivots on the bizarre odyssey of a Japanese father and son. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1563241846
• ISBN13: 9781563241840
• Release Date: December 1993
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Oe Fan

I read Pinchrunner Memorandum in the fall of 2001. It was the final book for the assigned reading for a class taught by the translator, Professor Michiko Wilson. After reading the novel I became a single goose bump as the significance sunk in. I later found out that this book was the final in a series often called the Handicapped Son, and I have read the rest of the series that has been translated. It is comparable to Mishima's tetralogy, except that it is much less trite and self-indulgent. Oe encompasses all of humanity in Pinchrunner Memorandum by delving into the marginal world and explicating how it reveals the darker side of society led by a force seeking chaos through subliminal tyranny. Similar to Oe's parody of Mishima in One Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, Oe takes the role of court jester and reveals the panting, self-destructive struggle of humanity through his use of grotesque realism as a man and his son attempt to save the world from the annihilation it so desperately seeks. They brave savage riots of students from the left and right, nuclear terrorists, and maniac capitalists. One common trait among all these people is that suicide is a foregone conclusion for victory. Those who are not willing to die condemn themselves to defeat.