The Woman in the Dunes

Name: The Woman in the Dunes
Author: Kobo Abe

Kobo Abe · 1964

A man misses the last bus and wakes up trapped at the bottom of a sand pit with a woman who has accepted her captivity. Abe's 1964 existentialist parable is Kafkaesque in the most precise sense, and entirely Japanese. The relentless sand as entropy, bureaucracy, and fate is among literature's great extended metaphors.

The case against

on the assault scene
“a rape scene, or a sexual assault scene at the very least”
a book blog
on the characters
“little better than archetypes, Everyman and Everywoman enacting a drama”
two stars · a book blog
on the lack of action
“There is not much “action” in the novel”
five stars · a book blog
on the woman’s portrayal
“the way she is handled is, in many ways, a little unsettling”
a book blog