‘A Late Chrysanthemum’: A short story collection full of pathos and maturity
This anthology of short stories may tend toward the morally dubious, but it’s a solid introduction to literary masters of the 20th century.
Kobo Abe's 'The Ark Sakura': A surreal narrative worth reading twice
"The Ark Sakura," Kobo Abe's puzzling, dream-like narrative about an obese recluse living in a vast underground bunker, is a dense interlacing of punning wordplay, psychological excavation and surreal imagery.
Kenzaburo Oe's 'Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness': Reflections on father-son relationships
In Oe's "Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness," the lifelong sense of obsession and profound sense of guilt engendered within his own familial history finds acute literary expression.
Kobo Abe's 'Kangaroo Notebook' is absurdist, surrealist and occasionally exasperating
Is this bizarrely oneiric journey, daikon sprouts and all, really just Kobo Abe's exteriorized exploration of a tortured psyche?
Lose yourself in 'The Face of Another,' Abe's existentialist fantasy
Losing face and the public humiliation associated with it is something that we all dread but, in Kobo Abe's 1964 fantasy "The Face of Another," the metaphorical term is made real.
Mishima, Murakami and the elusive Nobel Prize
Will he or won't he? It's about the time of year when the Japanese media descends into a frenzy of speculation about whether Haruki Murakami will land the Nobel Prize in literature, becoming the first Japanese literary laureate since Kenzaburo Oe in 1994. There is ...
A disfigured face drags ghosts back to postwar Berlin in 'Phoenix'
In Kobo Abe's 1964 novel "Tanin no Kao" ("The Face of Another"), a scientist left disfigured by an industrial accident dons a synthetic mask and poses as a different man in order to seduce his estranged wife. When she responds rather too readily to ...
Donald Keene reflects on 70-year Japan experience
My first visit to Japan was very short, only a week or so in December 1945. Three months earlier, while on the island of Guam, I had heard the broadcast by the Emperor announcing the end of the war. Soon afterward, I was sent ...
Certain books must be read, even with the knowledge that the reading will be painful. Kobo Abe's masterpiece "The Woman in the Dunes" is one such book. Called an "existential fable," it is no surprise that Abe's favorite writers were Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche ...
