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    <name><![CDATA[Alex]]></name>
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  <id type="integer">25191</id>
  <isbn>0802150616</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780802150615</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">99</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[A Personal Matter]]>
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  <average_rating>3.97</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>790</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[&lt;DIV&gt;Oe’s most important novel, A Personal Matter, has been called by The New York Times “close to a perfect novel.” In A Personal Matter, Oe has chosen a difficult, complex though universal subject: how does one face and react to the birth of an abnormal child? Bird, the protagonist, is a young man of 27 with antisocial tendencies who more than once in his life, when confronted with a critical problem, has “cast himself adrift on a sea of whisky like a besotted Robinson Crusoe.” But he has never faced a crisis as personal or grave as the prospect of life imprisonment in the cage of his newborn infant-monster. Should he keep it? Dare he kill it? Before he makes his final decision, Bird’s entire past seems to rise up before him, revealing itself to be a nightmare of self-deceit. The relentless honesty with which Oe portrays his hero — or antihero — makes Bird one of the most unforgettable characters in recent fiction. &lt;/div&gt;]]>
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    <author>
    <id>14162</id>
        <name><![CDATA[Kenzaburo Oë]]></name>
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    <average_rating>3.87</average_rating>
    <ratings_count>2390</ratings_count>
    <text_reviews_count>277</text_reviews_count>
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  </authors>  <published>1969</published>
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    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <read_at>Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Aug 30 15:12:56 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Sep 11 19:47:28 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I know that it seems pretty cheesey but this book is very personal.  The author does an excellent job of getting the reader to feel the complexities that the main character has to face and really feel for the decisions that the main character makes. I kept wondering with great angst why the main cha...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5380568">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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