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hux 's review for:
The Woman in the Dunes
by Kōbō Abe
Nightmare fuel for those who think there's a way out.
A schoolteacher named Niki Jumpei interested in insects goes to the dunes to seek out beetles. Having spent longer there than he intended he needs a place to stay. One of the older villagers recommends a house owned by a woman but it's beneath a vast pit of sand, surrounded on all sides. What follows is a claustrophobic horror story of a man being unable to escape this house, the sand impenetrable, the villagers (and the woman) seemingly unmoved, having trapped him there deliberately for reasons unknown. He tries to climb up the sand but cannot, he threatens the woman but she seems either ignorant of what is happening or resigned to their circumstances; he screams at the villagers who laugh at him from above. Mostly, he plans his escape because there must be an escape. Surely, there has to be a way to escape.
Having read a few pages of Abe's Box Man a long time ago and found them painfully dull, I was a little worried about reading this. But the first half of the book absolutely had me gripped. I was turning pages rapidly, fascinated by the man's dilemma, trying to work out if he was indeed being held against his will, or if there was just some huge misunderstanding that had not yet been revealed. I'm tempted to describe the book as Kafkaesque but that probably isn't accurate since Kafka dealt with the oppressive weight of bureaucracy (even in Metamorphosis, his change into an insect is not as important as how he will explain it to his employers, support the family, etc). I also don't think it's an accident that the main character here is interested in insects. But this book is more allegorical in nature, the themes focusing on the relentless struggle of existence, the inability of ever escaping the daily drudge of work and sexual instinct, the constant search for a literal way out. The book is saturated in oppressive heat, constant sand, and lack of water. I could almost taste it at times, the gritty texture in my mouth, until I had to swallow some saliva and clear my throat. The book is just relentless.
And that's where my main criticism comes in; after the halfway point, I was slightly losing interest. It just goes around in circles and overwhelms you with more sand, more woman, more sand. Even when he momentarily escapes, the book had somewhat drained me by that point. I just wanted the nightmare to end. I knew what was happening. I knew where it was going and, worst of all, I knew how it would be resolved. Because there is always something to keep us attached to life, always some pointless thing which we imbue with meaning so that we can justify persevering with a delusional sense of hope. Work and sex. They both make life seem like it's worthwhile (though Abe's descriptions of sex were intensely abstract and vague, perhaps very Japanese, and I did need to reread a few sections just to confirm... yep, they're having sex).
So not without its flaws but a fantastic entry into the existential nightmare genre. This one was as dense as the claggy sand itself and after a while, I wanted out. I wanted out of this book as much as he wanted out of that sandpit.
A schoolteacher named Niki Jumpei interested in insects goes to the dunes to seek out beetles. Having spent longer there than he intended he needs a place to stay. One of the older villagers recommends a house owned by a woman but it's beneath a vast pit of sand, surrounded on all sides. What follows is a claustrophobic horror story of a man being unable to escape this house, the sand impenetrable, the villagers (and the woman) seemingly unmoved, having trapped him there deliberately for reasons unknown. He tries to climb up the sand but cannot, he threatens the woman but she seems either ignorant of what is happening or resigned to their circumstances; he screams at the villagers who laugh at him from above. Mostly, he plans his escape because there must be an escape. Surely, there has to be a way to escape.
Having read a few pages of Abe's Box Man a long time ago and found them painfully dull, I was a little worried about reading this. But the first half of the book absolutely had me gripped. I was turning pages rapidly, fascinated by the man's dilemma, trying to work out if he was indeed being held against his will, or if there was just some huge misunderstanding that had not yet been revealed. I'm tempted to describe the book as Kafkaesque but that probably isn't accurate since Kafka dealt with the oppressive weight of bureaucracy (even in Metamorphosis, his change into an insect is not as important as how he will explain it to his employers, support the family, etc). I also don't think it's an accident that the main character here is interested in insects. But this book is more allegorical in nature, the themes focusing on the relentless struggle of existence, the inability of ever escaping the daily drudge of work and sexual instinct, the constant search for a literal way out. The book is saturated in oppressive heat, constant sand, and lack of water. I could almost taste it at times, the gritty texture in my mouth, until I had to swallow some saliva and clear my throat. The book is just relentless.
And that's where my main criticism comes in; after the halfway point, I was slightly losing interest. It just goes around in circles and overwhelms you with more sand, more woman, more sand. Even when he momentarily escapes, the book had somewhat drained me by that point. I just wanted the nightmare to end. I knew what was happening. I knew where it was going and, worst of all, I knew how it would be resolved. Because there is always something to keep us attached to life, always some pointless thing which we imbue with meaning so that we can justify persevering with a delusional sense of hope. Work and sex. They both make life seem like it's worthwhile (though Abe's descriptions of sex were intensely abstract and vague, perhaps very Japanese, and I did need to reread a few sections just to confirm... yep, they're having sex).
So not without its flaws but a fantastic entry into the existential nightmare genre. This one was as dense as the claggy sand itself and after a while, I wanted out. I wanted out of this book as much as he wanted out of that sandpit.