TY  - GEN
AU  - Ogai, Mori
AU  - Watson, Burton
TI  - The wild goose
SN  - 9780939512713
U1  - 895.6342 
PY  - 1995///
CY  - Ann Arbor
PB  - Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan
KW  - General
KW  -   Medical students - Fiction
KW  -  Women - Japan - Tokyo - Fiction
KW  - Tokyo (Japan) - Fiction
KW  - Medical students - Fiction
KW  - Women - Fiction - Japan - Tokyo
N2  - One small incident CAN be made into an entire novel, as Ogai Mori shows us here. The actual action in The Wild Goose is quite small, even insignificant. But the way Ogai informs us of every thought of every character more than makes up for it. What I found to be truly compelling was the point of view -- the narrator is the best friend of Okada, one of the main characters. Just when it appears that the narrator knows way too much about what Otama (the girl) was thinking, he goes and leaves us with a mystery at the end that brings about what I thought was excellent closure. I would say that the main theme of this novel is "zero reciprocity" -- those of the characters who are in love are never truly loved back, like Otama, who silently longs for Okada, or even Suezo, the man who has taken Otama for his mistress. In this novel, people lie, people cheat, people hide the truth. And people never say what they truly feel. Just like real life. An excellent story.
ER  -