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Apr 10, 2010

Lavinia rated it:

I don’t remember how I first came to read this book a few years ago, since I’m neither into Japanese authors nor into Existentialism. Anyway, being an e-book, I dropped it almost immediately, but (again, I don’t remember how) I ended up watching the film, about 3 years ago. And boy was it rewarding! The plot, the cinematography, the music, the resemblance to Fowles’ "The Collector", everything seemed to be perfectly bonded and hallucinating, I dare recommend it. But because I sort of h More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Michael rated it:

A novel of erosion - erosion of resolve, erosion of morality, erosion of sanity. Delightfully surreal.

6 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2008

Yulia rated it:

I began this book with such hope. How had I not read this before? Abe is amazing, he's a master, he's the inspiration for Haruki Murakami certainly, he's the original Japanese Kafka. Ah, what promise it held. And then the book continued . . .

"There was a woman . . . there was sand . . . there was an empty water jar . . . there was a drooling wolf . . . there was a sun" (p. 125). Don't ask about the drooling wolf. He lost me there.

I should note that I've More...

6 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2008

Savvy Suz rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2008

Chilly rated it:

An amatuer entomologist goes to a remote seaside village for specimens and finds himself involved in a bizarre nightmare scenario with the people there. I’m not sure how else the title might be translated from the Japanese, and though the “woman” mentioned is very much central to the novel, I think Mindfuck in the Dunes would have also been an apt title. It was so exciting to be pulled into this tale, and while it isn’t entirely about PLOT, I’m not going to say too much more along those lines. W More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2008

Andrea rated it:

This story is about a quiet entomologist who is visits a small seaside village to collect bug specimens. But his peaceful holiday turns sinister when the villagers deceive him, trap him in a sand-surrounded hole, and force him into daily manual labor with no hope of escape. Oh yeah, he's trapped with a timid woman also, hence the book's title. Since I'm a little claustrophobic, this book scared the crap out of me. Finishing it felt like waking from a nightmare--just because of the subject matter More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2011

Asmah rated it:

The Woman in the Dunes is described as an existential novel. A widow and a entomologist struggle to control the blowing sand inundating their village. The plot shows how the kidnapped protagonist adjusts to his circumstances and becomes absorbed by them. The back cover of a second-hand paperback calls the story existential; another descriptor is avant-garde. The lonely setting along a sand-driven Japanese seacoast parallels the main character's singular plight. Lovely is the discovery of manif More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2010

Fritz rated it:

stole it from a shelf at Camp Hope. Decent read, Japanese post-war novelist. bit misogynistic. cool illustrations.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2010

Rowland rated it:

The construction of The Woman in the Dunes includes many instances of irony. The overall ironic structure of the novel is that of the tables being turned on the protagonist. He hunts down and traps bugs for a hobby. And then he becomes like a bug, trapped in a hole in the sand. “He was lured on by the feeling that in all probability his prey was there, and he made his way down the gentle slope,” the narrator relates in the beginning of the story. There are also many other examples of irony, most More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2008

Joshua rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2008

Dustin added it

My first year at SFSU, me and my roommate decided to recommend books to each other, books we loved, in order to get to know each other better. It was the kind of quasi-homoerotic, pseudo-intellectual buddy activity which has since become the staple of our relationship.

The first book he recommended was "Woman in the Dunes". I struggled with it and felt intellectually inferior. He was my friend and I wanted to like it. I tried really hard. I fell asleep reading it at least th More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2011

Robert rated it:

Do we work to live, or live to work? What would happen to our sense of Self & Meaning if we realized that all work is essentially nothing but reorganizing piles of sand? What would happen if we came to that realization, but ultimately choose to accept it and keep working anyway? Is that heroic, or tragic?

Abe draws inspiration from Kafka and Beckett, and grounds his surreal exploration of existentialist themes in agonizing detail. It is a gripping, if at time disorienting, narrative. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2009

Richard rated it:

Trapdoor spider! This is a very good book. If you like Camus, you will like this. If you don't know anything about sand, you will after reading this! haha

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Dhini rated it:

Alur ceritanya mungkin sedikit membosankan, tapi sebenarnya lumayan menarik..

Menceritakan tentang seorang pengumpul serangga bernama Niki yang perburuannya pada serangga membuatnya "terdampar" di sebuah daerah di Jepang yang terkenal dengan bukit2 pasirnya (dunes).

Penduduk di daerah tsb, menunjukkan padanya sebuah rumah tempat ia bisa bermalam.. rumah itu milik seorang perempuan yang suami dan anaknya meninggal karena tertimbun longsoran pasir...

Niki More...

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Dec 18, 2011

Frederick rated it:

The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe[return][return]The Shifting Sands of Modernity…., June 24, 2000[return][return]Shortly after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 narrative writing became heavily influenced by Western literature. Although there are many excellent early fiction writers and those who, like Junichiro Tanizaki and Yasunari Kawabata, tend to reflect more traditional aesthetics, or those of the “I-novel,” Kobo Abe (1924-1993), a Marxist, is the first significantly modern Japanese novelist. More...

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Jun 28, 2011

John rated it:

As a fan of all things Japanese and bonkers (in my estimation, 'bonkers' is high praise indeed), I was really looking forward to this, but it didn't quite live up to expectations.

An amateur entymologist, who remains unnamed for nearly the entire length of the book, travels to a tiny beach-side village to look for insects in the sand dunes. He notices that the village is arranged curiously: each house sits at the bottom of a deep hollow in the sand, almost as if the dunes are crashing o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2010

Dumitru rated it:

A pretty strange book. The main character is a loner, someone who likes to leave the other outside of his life. And he's traped inside another loner, the sand village, which never let's him out. The storyline resembles Kafka's "Trial", where the character is acused without an obvious reason for it. The same happens here, Niki Jumpei is imprisoned, but he doesn't seem to understand any of this, being left to suffer his own thoughts and actions in the sand hole where he lives with anothe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 15, 2010

Sara rated it:

آنچه در این کتاب (به ویژه تا نیمۀ کتاب) خواننده را با مشکل روبرو می‌کند، ساختن یک تصویر ذهنی از این ناکجاآباد شن‌زده است. اما نقطۀ قوت داستان، واقعیت جاری در رفتار مرد است، احساس و تفکر او و سیر تغییراتش تا پایان کاملاً قابل درک است؛ خواننده به راحتی می‌تواند همگام با او، همان سیر احساسی و فکری را تجربه کند. همراه با او می‌ترسیم، نقشه می‌کشیم، مبارزه می‌کنیم و در آن باتلاق شنی، شکست خورده می‌گرییم و برای زنده ماندن از زندانبانانمان کمک می‌خواهیم. هر چند شاید در پایان داستان چندان با او هم آوا نب More...

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Apr 08, 2010

Nikki rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 12, 2010

Cyrus rated it:

I didn't know much about Kobo Abe before reading this, except that he was a fairly well-known Japanese author from the sixties or so. I was pleasantly surprised from the first pages at the authors skill in making the reader feel, almost physically, in the same predicament as the protagonist. It was a dark book, with fairly unpleasant themes. An amateur entomologist has traveled alone on his vacation to collect specimens in an isolated sea side community. Needing a place to stay for the night More...

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Dec 08, 2009

Inna rated it:

favourite quotes, sorry in Russian:
"Одиночество - это неутоленная жажда мечты.
Именно поэтому грызут ногти, не находя успокоения в биении сердца. Курят табак, не в состоянии удовлетвориться ритмом мышления. Нервно дрожат, не находя удовлетворения в половом акте. И дыхание, и ходьба, и перистальтика кишечника, и ежедневное расписание, и воскресенье, наступающее каждый седьмой день, и школьные экзамены, повторяющиеся каждые четыре месяца, - все это не только не успокаивало его, но More...

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Aug 05, 2009

Allison rated it:

Its about this man who finds himself trapped in this very deep hole in the middle of the sand dunes with this woman who lives there, and they must dig the sand out every night to keep it from burying themselves and the house. it is a giant metaphor, of course, and reminds me of classic existentialist pieces, especially samuel beckett's play, Happy Days (and sartre's no exit, i've been told, but i've never seen that one).

i liked it but found it very distressing to read. the first thin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 15, 2008

Tony rated it:

Look, I know it's a fantastic existential allegory (so, too, did Camus, most notably). Abe's narrative works on many levels, even if he does beat the insect metaphor to death on several of these. And it's a fair bit more balanced and polished than, say, The Box Man. I just personally cannot deal with books where characters are trapped in relatively absurd situations, physically, psychologically, or otherwise. It adds an unwanted tension to the reading experience.

That said, I read it More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2011

Jimmy rated it:

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Aug 09, 2011

M. Cornelis rated it:

I admit readily to being so pretentious as to have ordered a used copy of this book from Powell's in Oregon just because I thought the typeface on the the old cover looked better and more abstract than what they use now. There was something about this book, the title, the cover art, a discernible aura which made the decision seem justified.

This is the sort of book you only read while listening to particular records, or during specific times of the day. It sticks with you. It makes you think. It More...

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Oct 06, 2008

david rated it:

Physically and intellectually horrifying, insanely detailed and realistic but entirely fantastical and allegorical. There is something sinister and terrible in here which is at the same time mundane and real -- not only existential, as has been said, but with thoughts about the utilitarian, about ambition, about writing, about what makes us struggle and in the end what makes us give up.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2011

Philip rated it:

Novels in translation always present at least twice their share of pitfalls for the reviewer, or even the reader. A translated novel has to be approached as a package, experienced as such and reviewed in kind. After reading The Woman In The Dunes by Kobo Abe I am presented with a wholly new dilemma, however.

An entomologist disappears while out bug hunting. He finds himself a virtual prisoner in a sand pit, a pit inhabited by a woman with whom he soon finds a predictable solace. He trie More...

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Oct 10, 2007

Jamie rated it:

Some books turn ugly with how much truth they pack in to themselves. Woman in the Dunes isn't really entertaining to read, but it is fascinating, and just about swallows you whole. It is terrifying and frustrating without bringing any of the satisfaction or simple thrills of horror. Excited to read this yet? You'll just have to take my word for it.

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 30, 2011

Tazar rated it:

the translator's (Dale Saunders) terminology which is a little bit complex is unfriendly to me. the story is unlikely, yet i feel its simplicity. many reviewers on the book agreed, it's a allegory of human tie, a web or a trap that is unavoidable since the very beginning of human life. in another word, the life itself is a trap like the dunes. the very flow of the sands is a metaphor of the time. with this background knowledge, i found the taste of the relatively boring novel. it's like reading More...

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Feb 06, 2012

David rated it:

Such a powerful novel.

This was my morning book; I read it for half an hour every morning after I took a shower and was waiting for my hair to dry enough to walk to school. After a couple days, I could feel “grit” gathering at the corners of my eyes.

I thought the “copulation” scene at the beginning of the 21st chapter captures the essence of the book: “Man’s convulsions go on building endless layers of fossils. Dinosaur teeth and glaciers were powerless against this repro More...

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