Kobo Abe

The inhabitants of a remote seaside village imprison a Japanese biologist in a deep sand pit

The Woman in the Dunes

altlovesbooks

This is one of those books that has a misleading premise and misleading Goodreads tags. I am not into philosophy, existentialism, or asshole protagonists(? Did this book even have a protagonist?), and yet that's essentially all there is here. If any of my friends added this book to their TBR list based on Goodreads' writeup specifically, remove it. You won't like it.

So the main character is an unlikable entomologist whose trip to the seaside to find some sort of sand beetle goes terribly awry when he gets himself captured by a sand press gang. This village, beset by mountains of sand dunes on all sides, has to resort to coercion to keep enough people to shovel the sand away on a daily basis. Weirdly enough, villagers leave and don't come back, so anyone unlucky enough to wander remotely close gets stuck here. The main character's companion during this is a woman who clearly has been there for some time, drunk the sand kool-aid, and is basically this passive presence in the story who doesn't seem to ever want to leave. And, scene.

Really, not a lot, magical realism or otherwise, happens. The man attempts escape a few times, has increasingly violent outbursts against the woman, and even seems to force himself on her a few times. This was not a fun book to read, by any means.

Clearly there's something intellectual going on under the hood based on other people's experiences here, but I can only rate based on my own enjoyment and I did not enjoy this book. Short as it is, I still had to basically force myself to finish it.

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.

Angus Bretherick

B.H. Pitt

haunting and claustrophobic--the nightmare of finding yourself a bug trapped in a jar.

Omar Fernandez

At times I grew restless reading this book. Likely due to growing tiredness of the situation the main character found himself in. Abe's genius is probably reflected on just how extensively I felt for the plight of the main character. 

"Loneliness was an unsatisfied thirst for illusion."

Gabriela Roxana 

4.25

This book fascinated me from the end to the beginning.

Gabe Cortez

Bram Bogaerts

Kōbō Abe

Heurs et malheurs d'un homme qui, parti à la recherche d'un insecte des sables, échoue dans un petit village perdu au fond des dunes. Commence alors un étrange cauchemar... La Femme des sables est incontestablement l'un des plus grands romans de la littérature japonaise contemporaine. Traduit dans le monde entier, il a été couronné, au Japon, par le prix Akutagawa (1962) et, en France, par le pris du Meilleur Livre étranger (1967).

The Woman in the Dunes

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