宙返り 下

棄教ののち、リーダーが「地獄降り」を共にした腹心はテロに倒れ、教会の各セクトそれぞれの企ての進むなか、四国の森のなかに根拠地は作られた。…悲劇がすべて終った後、しかし、次のようにいう新しい世代は生き続ける。―(たとえ神なしでも)私たちの教会は、「魂のこと」をする場所です。

a novel after having won a Nobel Prize for Literature must be even more daunting than trying to follow a brilliant, bestselling debut. In Somersault (the title refers to an abrupt, public renunciation of the past), Kenzaburo Oe has himself leapt in a new direction, rolling away from the slim, semi-autobiographical novel that garnered the 1994 Nobel Prize (A Personal Matter) and toward this lengthy, involved account of a Japanese religious movement. Although it opens with the perky and almost picaresque accidental deflowering of a young ballerina with an architectural model, Somersault is no laugh riot. Oe's slow, deliberate pace sets the tone for an unusual exploration of faith, spiritual searching, group dynamics, and exploitation. His lavish, sometimes indiscriminate use of detail can be maddening, but it also lends itself to his sobering subject matter, as well as to some of the most beautiful, realistic sex scenes a reader is likely to encounter. --Regina Marler