The Woman in the Dunes
The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel. After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit....
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The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel. After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman. Together their fates become intertwined as they work side by side at this Sisyphean task.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780679733782 (0679733787)
ASIN: 679733787
Publish date: April 16th 1991
Publisher: Vintage
Pages no: 256
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Novels,
Literature,
Cultural,
Literary Fiction,
20th Century,
Asian Literature,
Asia,
Japan,
Magical Realism,
Japanese Literature
Niki Jumpei is a teacher, but his true passion is entomology. His biggest dream is to discover a new type of insect and have his name written in the encyclopedias of that science. After thorough study he has decided that his luck will be in the desert, in the sand it's very possible that a beetle wo...
Without the threat of punishment there is no joy in flight. In Kobo Abe's fantasy world of The Woman in the Dunes, an amateur entomologist on vacation finds himself in a remote coastal village built amid deeply undulating dunes. There, he is tricked by a lonely widow and her neighboring villagers,...
kAFKA-esque allegory; man is trapped in a sand pit of seeming endlessness...subject to numerous readings, many of which seem either stupid or absurd.but then the book is absurd.a good read!
Since I started reading both more avidly and more widely several years ago, I've spent more time analyzing different genres, different kinds of authors, and different kinds of literature. In Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, she makes a number of observations about how classic French no...
While reading this book my thoughts were constantly racing towards Camus’s ‘The Myth of Sisyphus” "From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all."Premises of hope, alienation and irrationality reeking from every printed word induced me into inferring Kobo A...
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