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spacestationtrustfund's review
3.0
A collection of various essays of varying quality written over the course of Abé Kôbô's life. Some were absolutely incomprehensible, while others were absolutely fascinating. One interesting detail that I particularly liked was from the introduction, which discussed the fact that Abé was often motivated by criticising the concept of nationality as a form of categorisation, particularly in regards to writers, i.e., Abé himself was a "Japanese writer," but his argument was that to think of someone as such is to assume or even outright imply that there is such a thing as a universal quality amongst all Japanese writers (or Japanese people in general). This is something I myself agree with, so it was pretty cool to see reflected in the opinion of someone I admire greatly.
archer_sloane's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
More theory than essay in places, though that's not a complaint. There are a lot of really novel ideas in there that I reference in my day to day life, such as the concept of dimensional unfolding. This is probably Abe's "lightest" book, and I recommend it especially to those who are averse to the content presented in his novels.
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