Reading Notes W16: Kenzaburo, Part B

"The Clever Rain Tree" - Kenzaburo

• The narrator stands beneath the eaves of the porch of a large New England-style building (1117)
• Agatha says the tree is a particularly clever rain tree (1117)
• Kenzaburo compares this writing to contemporary Japanese novels (1117)
• He was attending a seminar sponsored by the University of Hawaii's East-West Center on the issue of "Reappraisal of Cultural Exchange and Traditions" (1117)
• He could hardly pay attention the American poet since they became friends (1118)
• He's hard of hearing (1118)
• "I imagine the leaders of the movement still think of me as a spy" (1118)
• The young American was distraught over the rumor of him being a spy. He ended up being put in a private institution for the psychologically disturbed. (1118)
• The tree Krishna was under was most likely a bo tree (1119-1120)
• Agatha shares a portrait of herself called "A Girl on Horseback" (1121)
• "Yes, this is me... before the truly, frightful, unhappy things began to occur" (1121)
• The only people drinking beer at the party were the seminar participants (1123)
• The attacker's argument began with "you are a passionate lover of boys and young men" (1124)
• The poet enjoyed the debate (1124)
• The architect delivered a lecture about the special features of the facility of the mentally ill (1124)
• "The naked, wounded soul in America today is not even guaranteed a private dwelling place" (1124)
• His workshop is in the basement garage of the building (1124)
• "I am launching an architectural movement to place young people everywhere in 'positions' on stairways of ascent" (1125)
• The wheelchair was just a device to manipulate his external appearance. The narrator seems to think that because of how the architect positioned himself on the wheelchair (1125)
• The beatnik poet stayed silent (1127)
• The Jewish Indian poet commented on the stench (1127)
• The architect positioned himself on the wheelchair in a way that made him appear to be double his normal size (1127)
• The narrator can still picture Agatha, but he doesn't think he'll ever know what kind of tree her clever rain tree was (1128)

Kenzaburo, Oe. "The Clever Rain Tree." The Norton Anthology World Literature, edited by Martin Puchner, Third Edition, vol. F, W. W. Norton 2012, pp. 1115-1128