- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (22 Oct 1987)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192820923
- ISBN-13: 978-0192820921
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 13 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,172,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Woman in the Dunes
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Abe follows with meticulous precision his hero's constantly shifting physical, emotional and psychological states. He also presents...everyday existence in a sand pit with such compelling realism that these passages serve both to heighten the credibility of the bizarre plot and subtly increase the interior tensions of the novel."
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Some of Kobo Abe's readers will recall Kafka's manipulation of a nightmarish tyranny of the unknown, others Beckett's selection of sites like the sand pit...as a symbol of the undignified human predicament." -- Saturday Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Some of Kobo Abe's readers will recall Kafka's manipulation of a nightmarish tyranny of the unknown, others Beckett's selection of sites like the sand pit...as a symbol of the undignified human predicament." -- Saturday Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
This is a fine work from one of Japan's most acclaimed novelists, has also been made into a successful film.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
One day in August a man disappeared. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
One day in August a man disappeared. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This had to be one of the most bizarre pieces of literature I have ever read -- but that's a good thing, really. It's a very claustrophobic work -- the setting is ultimately very very small and limited. I think this was a really cool effect -- it made us feel more "at home" with where the characters were.
To think that, according to Abe, sand -- only 1/8 mm in diameter -- can so oppress us... Maybe, he is saying, life is sometimes beyond our control.
The themes of living amidst even the worst circumstances are quite apparent, I think, and the sand pit being representative of the mind-numbing simplicity of every day life is a nice pessimistic vision for us all. This book is the story of a man who wants to escape from this mundane existence which he is forced into against his own will, like we all have no choice but, whether we earn an education or not, to work, every day, with little consolation or reward. This is a story of a man who lives out a pure human existence, though in captivity. He works, he eats, he sleeps.
Abe's point must be that there is no more to life than this. We should never expect too much from our lives. Like Jumpei does in this novel, we simply have to come to terms with our existence and find something worth devoting our time to -- like his little discovery in the end, which spurs him on in his work.
A note: in this translation, we are lead to believe that Niki Jumpei is single and living with a woman. This isn't true. In the Japanese version, Jumpei is married to Niki Shino. The author uses a Japanese pronoun to mean "woman" which is most commonly used by married Japanese men to refer to their wife. This novel is written in a very traditional Japanese manner, believe it or not, so the translator had to take a few liberties, I would assume. Since the story is told in third person, the use of this particular pronoun would confuse any transltor, really. Also, in the "missing person notice" at the end, the claimant is Jumpei's WIFE, not his mother. That final passage is translated word-for-word -- except for some reason the translator felt the need to put the word "mother" in parentheses as an attempt to clarify Niki's family life.
I think this might help the reader, because reading the Japanese version, one gets the impression early on that Jumpei left on his little trip partly as a result of a marital conflict.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The author tells the story of a man who is forced out of his mundane existence into a new mundane existence. I found the story to be more symbolic and open to interpretation and discussions than it is enjoyable to read. Having said that, I'm glad that I've read this book; It's a book one appreciates more after reading it than while reading it.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Among the most memorable pieces of literature I have read to date. I read this book during a particularly dreary Seattle winter and found I had to put it down sometimes lest the walls begin to close in and the roof appear lower and lower. Abe's beautifully written tale of futility and humanity really sneaks up on you, building to a crescendo that you never thought would come. Detail abounds and the perfect translation of human interaction alternately soothes and hurts the reader. By the story's dramatic apex, I felt like I was furiously digging too. I find myself pondering this book and bringing it up in conversation quite often and pulling more out of it each time. A worthwhile investment of time, emotions and thought.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Through the hour-glass
Though Kobo Abe first published as a poet in 1947, he only rose to acclaim with The Woman in the Dunes in 1962. Read more
Published 3 months ago by reader 451
A fable of entrapment
The plot is simple: a man visits a coastal region, where the inhabitants are forced to work tirelessly to clear their homes of sand. Read more
Published 9 months ago by P. A. Wilson
Sand and life and love
This book is a tale located in the sand dunes of a remote coastal village in early 1960's Japan. There are basically two characters the school master Niki, who's an intellectual... Read more
Published 11 months ago by H. Tee
Suffocation and delight
I have found a new writer of which I wish to grab all of the work of and see if it is as good or dare I say, improves even... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Nikki Dudley
What's in it for me? Sand.
Novels in translation always present at least twice their share of pitfalls for the reviewer, or even the reader. Read more
Published on 10 May 2010 by Philip Spires
Claustrophobic sandland
I have always been interested in all things Japanese but this was my first exposure to more serious literature. Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2008 by Minkle MacTinkle
Classical cult novel that haunts your imagination
The Kobo Abe novel "Woman in the Dunes is a Japanese novel written in the 1960s and made in the same person. Read more
Published on 4 Jan 2008 by John
A Perverse Sandscape
In this slippery and elliptical allegory, the woman in the dunes is in fact a secondary character, though her featuring in the title should alert to us to her true importance. Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2007 by John Self
Let Abe tell you about sand!
I wasn't sure what to expect of this little book - I'd heard vague rumours about the film being 'cult' and controversial - but knew nothing of the book which inspired it. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2003 by Cori Samuel
Thought provoking, philosophical and extremely tedious.
There's no doubt that Kobo Abe's Woman of the Dunes is a superb work of symbolism and philosophy. Every page is filled with metaphor and thoughts about life and futility but none... Read more
Published on 14 Dec 2000
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