The Woman in the Dunes in Read a book from each country

Mar 15, 2010 Mary rated it really liked it

I read this book at the suggestion of a friend who used to live in Japan and knows Japanese literature better than I. (I was recommending the he read Haruki Murakami.) What I realize in reading this is that I am reading the derivations, or homages, first, and working backwards to the original - started with David Mitchell, who derives much from Murakami, and clearly Murakami was inspired by Abe.

The plot is effectively existential - a salaryman teacher/amateur entomologist goes on a holiday to t I read this book at the suggestion of a friend who used to live in Japan and knows Japanese literature better than I. (I was recommending the he read Haruki Murakami.) What I realize in reading this is that I am reading the derivations, or homages, first, and working backwards to the original - started with David Mitchell, who derives much from Murakami, and clearly Murakami was inspired by Abe.

The plot is effectively existential - a salaryman teacher/amateur entomologist goes on a holiday to the seashore to look for beetles and is captured by villagers who place him to live with a woman in a house at the bottom of a pit created by strongly shifting sand dunes, and their entire existence consists of shoveling sand everyday to not be buried. He is intent on escape throughout, but finally decides, when he can leave, that he will leave later, as he has found something that interests him in the dunes. His prior life seems to have been quite bland - while he lived with a woman in Tokyo he never thinks about her - there are only a couple of references to her, first that he had written her a letter to say that he was going off on a vacation but that the letter was never delivered, and second that he had always used a condom with her, not wishing to infect her with venereal disease that he says he had been cured of, and apparently certainly not committed enough to consider fathering children with her.

There is one episode that is almost as ugly as the rape scene in Blindness, when the villagers say that they will let him and the woman in the dunes out if they can watch them "do it", although it seems to wither away and reveal the villagers as weak rather than as monsters.

Finally, about midway through the book there is an "aside" where the principal character is addressed by name (which is not otherwise used except in legal affidavits at the end when his mother has him declared gone for seven years hence legally dead), and it either seems that he is in a mental institution, or that this is the author talking to himself, seeing himself as the principal character, but taking a break to consider things.

I am reminded of Murakami because of Murakami's fascination with living or being kept at the bottom of a well, which is comparable to being in the dune hole. Another common point is Murakami's interest in the Japanese occupation of Manchuria - Abe was born in Tokyo (in 1924)and grew up in Manchuria during the occupation. ...more

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Apr 15, 2017 Barrita rated it really liked it

Shelves: male-authors, reviewed

Me encantó el paso de una explicación racional del mundo natural (los insectos, la arena, el mar) a una fascinación por las anomalías, con el miedo y la aprensión correspondiente a lo impredecible que finalmente llevan a perder la perspectiva... y la razón. Este libro llega a ser mismo tiempo monótono e inesperado.
No me agradó tanto la interacción con otros personajes fuera de los dos protagonistas. Me dio la impresión de ser un mal necesario que interrumpía su interacción. Tampoco quedé totalm ...more

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