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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
This was certainly a book
What in the holy hell did I just read?
Great story, honestly. Great writing. Just one you close that cover and go “uhhhh, what?”
What in the holy hell did I just read?
Great story, honestly. Great writing. Just one you close that cover and go “uhhhh, what?”
It’s called the woman in the dunes but the sand (1/8 mm in diameter) is more developed as a character than she is. The sand is relentless, permeates all aspects of daily life, and wears even the reader down.
The woman passively shovels it without complaint. Endlessly working on an arbitrary problem easily solved by not living in a hole, she ultimately accomplishes nothing. Yet if she does not participate then she will be drowned by the sand. (Sounds like middle management) Somehow, it fulfills her and she dreams only of a radio. We are envious of her contentment yet scared of her submissiveness.
Initially, the man resists the task of shoveling the sand, instead envisioning the house riding the drifts. The sand deteriorates not only the house but his mind, and he goes through the stages of grief, from anger to bargaining. Using a trap named “hope,” he discovers a way of extracting water from the sand to prepare for an escape that, by his own choosing, never comes. He has finally accepted the entrapment and adapted to the inhospitable conditions, much like the insects he sought to study. (He’s already got the hairy arms after all)
It’s a metaphor for work/life, and submitting to the “machine” (Pink Floyd) or the “factory” (Sayaka Murata). We can work so hard but get nowhere.
The woman passively shovels it without complaint. Endlessly working on an arbitrary problem easily solved by not living in a hole, she ultimately accomplishes nothing. Yet if she does not participate then she will be drowned by the sand. (Sounds like middle management) Somehow, it fulfills her and she dreams only of a radio. We are envious of her contentment yet scared of her submissiveness.
Initially, the man resists the task of shoveling the sand, instead envisioning the house riding the drifts. The sand deteriorates not only the house but his mind, and he goes through the stages of grief, from anger to bargaining. Using a trap named “hope,” he discovers a way of extracting water from the sand to prepare for an escape that, by his own choosing, never comes. He has finally accepted the entrapment and adapted to the inhospitable conditions, much like the insects he sought to study. (He’s already got the hairy arms after all)
It’s a metaphor for work/life, and submitting to the “machine” (Pink Floyd) or the “factory” (Sayaka Murata). We can work so hard but get nowhere.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a tough, tough read. I know I said I lost the book a year ago after I started reading it, and I did, but I wonder if part of me unconsciously misplaced it to spare myself.
A man goes into the dunes to continue his research on insects, after which he is taken prisoner by the people of a destitute sand-blown village in order to lessen their workload. Specifically, a lonely woman takes him in. The man is so miserably trapped in this new life that it's hard to read. You feel miserable and claustrophobic with him.
Worse, this man makes it hard to root for him. The amount of near-rapes in this book are fairly astonishing. I understand that the woman is essentially his kidnapper, and I was also expecting a certain amount of misogyny from a male Japanese author, but the man's treatment of the woman is pretty deplorable. For example, in one attempted plan to get the villagers to let him leave, he decides to stop working on digging the village out of the sand, despite knowing that they will stop bringing water. He holes himself and the woman in the house until they both nearly dehydrate to death, and revels in her suffering despite knowing exactly what she is going through.
Moreover, the ending was exactly what I was expecting, and as such it was inherently unsatisfying. The suffering was worth nothing in the end. It paints an intricate picture of a trapped life, and then draws parallels between normal life, deciding that normal life isn't any more free than a life as a prisoner in the dunes.
Just because it was a strain to get through, doesn't make this book bad. It's excellently written, and perfectly conveys what the author intended. It is, as such, exactly the book that it was meant to be. That said, it's not a book I could in good conscience recommend to anyone. Just because it is a beautiful work doesn't make it an experience that everyone needs.
A man goes into the dunes to continue his research on insects, after which he is taken prisoner by the people of a destitute sand-blown village in order to lessen their workload. Specifically, a lonely woman takes him in. The man is so miserably trapped in this new life that it's hard to read. You feel miserable and claustrophobic with him.
Worse, this man makes it hard to root for him. The amount of near-rapes in this book are fairly astonishing. I understand that the woman is essentially his kidnapper, and I was also expecting a certain amount of misogyny from a male Japanese author, but the man's treatment of the woman is pretty deplorable. For example, in one attempted plan to get the villagers to let him leave, he decides to stop working on digging the village out of the sand, despite knowing that they will stop bringing water. He holes himself and the woman in the house until they both nearly dehydrate to death, and revels in her suffering despite knowing exactly what she is going through.
Moreover, the ending was exactly what I was expecting, and as such it was inherently unsatisfying. The suffering was worth nothing in the end. It paints an intricate picture of a trapped life, and then draws parallels between normal life, deciding that normal life isn't any more free than a life as a prisoner in the dunes.
Just because it was a strain to get through, doesn't make this book bad. It's excellently written, and perfectly conveys what the author intended. It is, as such, exactly the book that it was meant to be. That said, it's not a book I could in good conscience recommend to anyone. Just because it is a beautiful work doesn't make it an experience that everyone needs.
If you like existentialist works, this is one of the best I've ever read and certainly the best Japanese work in this genre. The plot is engaging and entertaining while still managing to convey a particular message.
So much to unpack in book club, a speedy, tense, claustrophobic read.
Wow. This was a slog for me. The 2 stars are not a reflection of the writing, but of the way I felt when I read the book. It's a very philosophical, allegorical story, and that's just not my jam.
I don’t like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
To me, Abe’s Woman in the Dunes reads like an allegory for life in industrialized society. Trapped in a pit with no means of escape and forced day after day to endure mindless work for the benefit of those that live outside the pit, Niki Jumpei spends a vast majority of this book trying to escape the work and romantic partner chosen for him. It’s an interesting concept that was marred (at least in the edition I read) by some - hopefully - clunky phrasing that was lost in translation and a section in the middle where the protagonist gets lost mediating on his sex life and penis, which culminates in an awkwardly written sex scene.