A review by jes3ica
The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe

3.0

An amateur entomologist sets out to the sand dunes, obsessed with discovering a new species of insect so that it will bear his name - proof that he lived and accomplished something and left a legacy. Instead, he is captured and forced to live in a sand pit with a woman, shoveling every night to keep the sand from covering the house. The book follows his winding, increasingly unmoored existentialist meditations on what a meaningful life actually as he breaks apart under the weight of his Sisyphean task.