Kōbō Abe Criticism
Kōbō Abe, a leading figure in postwar Japanese literature, is renowned for his avant-garde exploration of identity, alienation, and existentialism. His work is often compared to that of Franz Kafka due to its surreal and symbolic nature, with critics like Kōbō Abe: Japan's Kafka highlighting these connections. Unlike much of traditional Japanese literature, Abe's narratives tackle universal themes, drawing both international acclaim and sparking critical debates about his placement within Japanese literary traditions. His collection of short stories, praised in reviews such as the Review of Beyond the Curve, encapsulates his unique style of blending Kafkaesque elements with modern existential concerns.
Abe's breakthrough novel, The Woman in the Dunes, stands as a hallmark of his literary prowess, gaining further recognition through its film adaptation, as noted by Wimal Dissanayake. This tale of entrapment and acceptance deftly combines the philosophical with the symbolic, a technique Abe employs throughout his body of work. Critics such as Stanley Kauffmann and Earl Miner consider the novel a profound exploration of human degradation and resilience, though some argue that its symbolic nature can overshadow narrative engagement.
Other notable works, such as The Face of Another and Inter Ice Age 4, continue this exploration of identity and existentialism, blending universal themes with Japanese cultural contexts. Critics like Edward Seidensticker and Howard Hibbett have engaged with these texts, noting Abe's ability to maintain reader interest through precise prose despite the unconventional narrative styles.
Abe's plays, such as Friends and The Man Who Turned into a Stick, further illustrate his thematic concerns with identity and alienation. They echo the traditions of the Theater of the Absurd, as observed by critics like Yoshio Iwamoto and Tony Dallas, providing a stark contrast to the realism predominant in contemporary drama.
Abe's universalist approach, as outlined by critics such as Raymond Lamont-Brown, allows his work to transcend cultural specifics and appeal to a global audience. This broad resonance, however, met a mixed reception in Japan, where his deviation from traditional storytelling occasionally sparked critical contention. Yet, his influence remains indelible, positioning him as a pivotal literary figure whose works continue to invite readers to question the stability of their own realities.
Contents
- Principal Works
- Abé, Kōbō (Vol. 8)
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Abé, Kōbō (Vol. 22)
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Novels from Abroad: 'The Woman in the Dunes'
(summary)
In the following essay, Stanley Kauffmann critiques Kōbō Abe's The Woman in the Dunes for its reliance on a symbolic plot structure that risks losing reader engagement unless enriched by character depth and narrative texture.
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Life Is a Sandpit
(summary)
In the following essay, Earl Miner critiques Kōbō Abe's The Woman in the Dunes, highlighting its exploration of humanity's degradation and resilience within a grotesquely credible sandpit setting, and noting the novel's successful use of symbolism and tone to convey its themes.
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Internationally Japanese
(summary)
In the following essay, Edward Seidensticker examines Kōbō Abe's "The Face of Another," highlighting its symbolic exploration of modern man's fate and its blend of universal and distinctly Japanese cultural elements, characterized by its melancholic mood and Kafkaesque influences.
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Books: 'Inter Ice Age 4'
(summary)
In the following essay, Howard Hibbett examines Kōbō Abe's novel "Inter Ice Age 4" as a masterful philosophical thriller that combines abstract speculation and scientific imagery with a compelling human drama, emphasizing the existential themes of cruelty and the future while challenging readers to engage in self-reflection.
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Something Fishy
(summary)
The critic finds Kōbō Abe's novel Inter Ice Age 4 lacking as a thriller and philosophical work, criticizing its disjointed narrative, implausible scientific ideas, weak character development, and failure to deliver profound philosophical insights.
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Eastern Promise
(summary)
In the following essay, Auberon Waugh critiques Kōbō Abe's The Ruined Map as a "serious nonsense novel," noting its oblique exploration of identity amidst urban chaos and praising Abe's precise and lucid prose that sustains reader engagement despite the narrative's obscurity and unconventional style.
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In Search of Identity: Abé Kōbō and Ōe Kenzaburō
(summary)
In the following essay, Hisaaki Yamanouchi explores Kōbō Abe's literary themes of alienation and lost identity, highlighting his deviation from traditional Japanese novels and his existentialist perspective, as well as his unique narrative techniques that blend realism with allegory, making his works universally relevant.
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Levels of Sexuality in the Novels of Kobo Abe
(summary)
In the following essay, William F. Van Wert explores how Kōbō Abe's novels integrate Western themes with Japanese figurative language, emphasizing sexuality as a key to understanding his works, and examining how Abe's characters negotiate intellectual and emotional realms through complex sexual dynamics.
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Japanese Logic and Illogic
(summary)
In the following essay, Anthony Thwaite argues that Kōbō Abe's "Secret Rendezvous" combines influences from Stoppard, Carroll, Kafka, and Borges, creating an original and satirical narrative that explores themes of identity loss, societal detachment, and modern absurdities through a comedic lens, while maintaining a distinctly Japanese flavor.
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Brief Review: 'Secret Rendezvous'
(summary)
In the following essay, D. W. contends that Kōbō Abe's novel Secret Rendezvous uses a surreal and troubling narrative to examine themes of obsession and self-investigation, offering Western readers a disorienting yet insightful perspective on Japanese culture's openness to the unspoken.
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Through Fantasies to Faith
(summary)
In the following essay, Irving Malin contends that in "Secret Rendezvous," Kōbō Abe crafts a novel that blends science and poetry into a complex narrative structure, compelling readers to engage with themes of fate and the elusive nature of reality, reminiscent of Kafka's exploration of hidden existential orders.
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Novels from Abroad: 'The Woman in the Dunes'
(summary)
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Abe, Kobo (Short Story Criticism)
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Kōbō Abe: Japan's Kafka
(summary)
In the following essay, Goebel determines the influence of Franz Kafka on Abe's fiction.
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Review of Beyond the Curve
(summary)
In the following essay, Woodhouse offers a favorable assessment of Beyond the Curve. This collection of stories is a significant offering from the well-established author best known for The Woman in the Dunes (1964). The usual comparisons to Kafka are unavoidable. In one story, a man finds himself turning into a plant, and the themes of alienation and disorientation in the face of urban life and oppressive political and social systems are pervasive and relentless. More subtle systems of thought are sometimes hinted at rather than explicated, however, and the disorientation so skillfully induced in the reader is sometimes left unresolved. This might not be to everyone's taste, but for those interested in Abe's work or in the future of serious Japanese fiction, this is an entertaining and fascinating volume. Some stories have the feel of sketches that might be further developed in Abe's longer fiction, and the influence on a new generation of writers, such as Haruki Murakami, can be readily seen. Recommended.
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Abe Kōbō's Early Short Fiction
(summary)
In the following essay, Mitsutani applauds the broad range of Abe's stories in Beyond the Curve, maintaining that it gives readers “the opportunity for a fresh perspective on one of the most familiar of modern Japanese writers.”
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Sand and Tendrils
(summary)
In the following essay, the reviewer provides a positive assessment of Beyond the Curve. The collection shows Mr Abe at his best, full of wry humour and images of self-defeat, and obsessed with the idea that alienation is the natural condition of contemporary man.
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Fact and Fuikkushion
(summary)
In the following mixed review of Beyond the Curve, Loose contends that although Abe “was first recognized for his short stories, this collection suggests that Abe's genius, which is for the detailed and eerily logical elaboration of an absurd or unthinkable situation, requires the larger scope of a novel or play.”
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Beyond the Curve: Kobo Abe Short Stories
(summary)
In the following review of Beyond the Curve, Lewis addresses the theme of identity in Abe's short stories. Beyond the Curve is the first collection of Abe's stories to appear in English. These twelve stories, written between 1949 and 1966, concern the fragile identity of protagonists who are confused strangers lost in the postwar landscape. Almost all of the stories are narrated in the first person, drawing the reader into the neurotic thoughts of protagonists trapped in claustrophobic situations. In “The Irrelevant Death,” a man returns to his apartment after work to find a murdered stranger lying on the floor. He decides that he cannot report the murder to the police because they will not believe that he is unconnected to the crime. So the nameless man slides into a Kafkaesque world of guilt and indecision as he creates more and more elaborate schemes to dispose of the body and transfer the responsibility for it to someone else.
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Kobo Abe: Japan's Novelist of Alienation
(summary)
In the following essay, Lamont-Brown traces Abe's literary development.
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Kōbō Abe: Japan's Kafka
(summary)
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Abé, Kōbō (Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism)
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Review of The Ark Sakura
(summary)
In the following unfavorable review, Garis derides The Ark Sakura as lacking in coherence and meaning. He describes the novel's protagonist, Mole, who seeks to gather people in his survival 'ship' located in an abandoned underground quarry, but the narrative fails to coalesce into a coherent fable about the nuclear age or human survival.
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Self, Place, and Body in The Woman in the Dunes: A Comparative Study of the Novel and the Film
(summary)
In the following essay, Dissanayake lists the reasons for the success of the cinematic adaptation of Abé's novel The Woman in the Dunes.
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Kōbō Abé: Japan's Novelist of Alienation
(summary)
In the following essay, Lamont-Brown reflects on Abé's life and work.
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The Plays of Kōbō Abé: An Introduction
(summary)
In the following introduction, Keene traces the development of Abé's career as a dramatist and underscores the problems with translating the author's work.
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Review of Three Plays
(summary)
In the following review, Iwamoto views the dramas collected in Three Plays as influenced by the Theater of the Absurd.
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Review of Three Plays
(summary)
In the following laudatory review of Three Plays, Dallas perceives “this witty, lyrical, eminently theatrical collection a welcome change from the confessional realism that pervades most contemporary American drama.”
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Review of Kangaroo Notebook
(summary)
In the following review, Iwamoto offers a mixed assessment of Kangaroo Notebook. Kobo Abe's last novel before his death in 1993, Kangaroo Notebook, originally published in Japanese in 1991, refigures with imaginative vigor those ingredients that have become trademarks in the novelist-playwright's works: metamorphosis, the theme of alienation and the problem of personal identity, and the journey motif through a labyrinthine modern dystopia. In this world fantastic elements coexist with all-too-real features in an exasperating and unnerving amalgam, and humor, albeit of the darkest sort, mitigates the often absurd, frightening, and incomprehensible incidents that occur.
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Review of The Ark Sakura
(summary)
- Further Reading