A review by erasmios
The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada

2.0

Having read The Hole right after Abe Kōbō's The Woman in the Dunes, the parallels between the two were interesting, yet Oyamada's novella felt somewhat half-baked for me. Her prose has been praised and she won the Akutagawa Prize for The Hole, so I might have to reread this in Japanese in case my disappointment was due to the translation. The Hole wasn't bad at all, just a little artificial; I would've preferred a deeper hole—one where you can't see out from. I'd still recommend reading this, especially back to back with the above-mentioned classic by Abe.