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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident - a man who has lost his face and, with it, connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him. His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self - a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity, and the social contract, THE FACE OF ANOTHER is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.
About the Author
Kobo Abe was born in Tokyo in 1924, grew up in Manchuria, and returned to Japan in his early twenties. Before his death in 1993, Abe was considered his country's foremost living novelist. His novels have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been bestsellers in Japan. They include THE WOMAN IN THE DUNES, THE ARK SAKURA, THE FACE OF ANOTHER, THE BOX MAN, and THE RUINED MAP.
Kaori Nagai graduated from the University of Tokyo and obtained a doctorate in Postcolonial Studies from the University of Kent, UK, where she currently teaches. She is the author of Empire of Analogies: Kipling, India and Ireland (forthcoming: Cork University Press).
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
At last you have come, threading your way through the endless passages of the maze. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
At last you have come, threading your way through the endless passages of the maze. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
I read this book having read one other Abe book (The Ark Sakura) and having seen the movie Face of Another by Hiroshi Teshigahara. Perhaps this helped me persevere with the effort that is admittedly required in getting through some of the more obscure philosophical passages in this book. The longwindedness of these musings seems to serve more than the immediate purpose of philosophy; it also portrays the mental torture that the protaganist inflicts upon himself through his over-analysis of his condition.
Abe was surely a genius and I have rarely read a book so provocative regarding personality. In that sense it seems to have something in common to, say, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I would not claim to fully understand the book of course but I do think that it is much more about personality than being some sort of allegory about post-war Japan as has been suggested.
Abe was surely a genius and I have rarely read a book so provocative regarding personality. In that sense it seems to have something in common to, say, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I would not claim to fully understand the book of course but I do think that it is much more about personality than being some sort of allegory about post-war Japan as has been suggested.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I initially found this novel hard to respect since the central theme of a man and his mask seemed trite and a cliche. However this setup does allow the novel's main character to seduce his wife, posing as a stranger; a strange social situation which was described with much empathy and insight by Abe.
2 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After reading the superb Woman in the Dunes, I wanted to read more Abe Kobo, but so far this has led to disappointment. This is better than Inter-Ice Age 4 but it spends far too much time philosophising and far too little time on the action.
The best bit by far comes at the end of the novel, in which something from earlier on, initially presented as incidental, is revealed. The meaning of the novel is expanded, and the narrator's scarred face becomes a metaphor for a Japan ravaged by WW2.
The best bit by far comes at the end of the novel, in which something from earlier on, initially presented as incidental, is revealed. The meaning of the novel is expanded, and the narrator's scarred face becomes a metaphor for a Japan ravaged by WW2.
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