Next up in my run through of the great Post-War Japanese literary giants, is Kōbō Abe. (You can check out my review of Shusaku Endo’s Silence here).
I actually discovered Abe not through his books, but through the films of Hiroshi Teshigahara. The Face of Another, which was adapted by the director from Abe’s novel, is an eerie film, with Tatsuya Nakadai doing a stellar job as the businessman who loses his identity (and his moral self in the process). I then moved on to The Woman in the Dunes, but didn’t think the film worked as well as The Face of Another. The repetition of the lead character’s isolation dragged the film down rather than creating suspense.
The book however is another story…
Abe’s short novel is as gritty as the ever-present sand that permeates the tale, in spite of having no typical aspects of a crime or suspense novel.
To be sure, the story does involve a kidnapping, namely one Jumpei Niki, a schoolteacher and entomologist who travels to a small remote village to collect rare insects from amongst the sand dunes. Having missed the final bus out of town, the locals offer to let him stay the night. They lead him to a deep pit within the dunes, wherein is small wooden cottage and the young widow who lives there. Niki climbs down the roper ladder and like a fly in the web, so he is trapped.
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