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Kobo abe good reads12/23/2023 School teacher, and amateur entomologist, Junpei Niki sets off on a holiday he has planned in secret to visit the coast and search for new kinds of insects which could make him famous. All of which drags us (screaming and kicking) towards the actual point of today’s post – and you doubted there was one -, Abe’s classic novel The Woman in the Dunes. The only real positive contribution this phantom made to the discussion was to ask whether anyone had read any Kobo Abe, claiming that he was a great influence and (of course…) a much better writer than Murakami. In fact, any negative comment made by anyone remotely more famous than… well, me, was treated as the final nail in the coffin of Murakami’s reputation. Now, anyone is entitled to give an opinion, but I just got sick of the general, sweeping nature of the comments, the contradictory sense of certain remarks (Everyone in Japan thinks Murakami is a bad writer: he’s only a popular writer…) and the lack of any recognition of the points made in favour of the great man. Why? Well, apart from the fact that I’ve become a tad bored with the superficiality of most Facebook groups, I got fed up of defending Murakami against a nameless (and, judging by their profile picture, faceless) individual who seemed to regard themself as a master of Japanese literature and who didn’t consider Murakami to be a writer of literature at all. To find out a little more about the area, I joined a Facebook group, only to abandon it earlier this year. It is, therefore, his first work that I want to read.įirst things first though – I must obtain a copy of the book.As many of you probably know by now, I quite enjoy the odd Haruki Murakami work (no sniggering at the back), and it is through him that I got into Japanese literature in the first place. Of his novels, The Woman in the Dunes is one that I kept encountering in must-read lists. Wow, I didn’t realize that he has such a long resume! Now I am even more interested. He is a modernist that drew comparison to Franz Kafka. Apart from being a novelist, he is known to be a musician, playwright and inventor. One Japanese author I am not quite familiar with is Kōbō Abe, which I have learn is a pseudonym used by Kimifusa Abe. With the diversity and extent of Japanese literature, I have quite a long list of Japanese works I am raring to read. In this regard, I’m listing works by Japanese authors which are part of my to-be read list. His only companion is an odd young woman, and together their fates become intertwined as they work side by side through this Sisyphean of tasks.Īs you very well know, I am in the midst of a Japanese Literature reading month. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel.Īfter missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. This week’s book: The Woman in the Dunesby Kōbō Abe Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by Page Turners. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it.
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