THIS IS A REVIEW OF "AGHWEE THE SKY MONSTER," THE LAST NOVELLA COLLECTED IN TEACH US TO OUTGROW OUR MADNESS

This was as insistent as the other stories in this volume about the inevitability of sad weirdness that displaces you from your own life and makes it seem like a foreign country, and as well put together, and as reliant on Ōe's frequent themes of family and the "shocking event," and it was a pretty bagatelle in the way it wore its wound, but not quite as rich for me as the other stories. We suffer unbearable pain, and then we get to see Aghwee the sky monster? It's an intentionally inadequate catharsis, but I was looking for something that sustains. ( )