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Title: The Box Man by Kobo Abe, E. Dale Saunders ISBN: 0-86547-461-3 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: identity
Comment: The Box Man delves into what it is to be seen and what it is to see, the phenomenon of looking and being looked at. There are many parallels with sartre's Being and Nothingness - the idea that one despises being looked at because he is forced to think about his imperfect facticity, and that the unseen viewer, be it at sartre's keyhole or abe's observation window, is put in the privledge position of remaining pure transcendance, or purely beings of the mental realms that are untouchable by the outside world. Abe's style of writing leaves the reader guessing whether or not he is the voyeur or the exhibitionist.
Rating: 1
Summary: Completely nonessential.
Comment: I think of The Box Man by Kobo Abe and I try to recall one memorable image, or one compelling character, or one trenchant observation, or indeed one particularly inventive or colourful turn of phrase. I can't come up with a single one. It baffles me how someone can write something as memorable, compelling, trenchant, inventive and colourful as Woman in the Dunes, and then write something as devoid of any of these qualities as The Box Man. My only explanation is that this was written by a Kobo Abe from a strange parallel universe where Abe never wrote anything good, and somehow made its way here through a rift in space and time.
Upon picking up The Box Man and reading the first page, I naively and laughably thought that this was to be a sort of social commentary or just a story about homeless people. No, that wasn't at all the case. Apparently, unlike a regular homeless person, a "box man" has some sort of extremely deep philosophy that singles him out as someone who lives on a higher plane of existence. Except after reading the book, I came not a bit closer to understanding what this philosophy is, or to caring about finding out. This was exacerbated by Abe's extremely self-indulgent style, in which no concern is exhibited for time or flow, random unidentified narrators come and go with no warning, pages and pages are occupied with pseudo-intellectual "societal observations" and uninteresting non sequiturs, and so forth.
Keep in mind that such a style doesn't have to be bad. Plenty of authors like to jump around in time and make up their own stylistic rules. Plenty of authors like to wax eloquent about society. Plenty of authors come up with absurd premises and make great works out of them. But there are authors who do this well, and those who do not. The Box Man has laughably been called "surreal." But something like, say, Un Chien Andalou, though it also has absolutely no actual narrative structure, is chock full of striking images, which are memorable despite having nothing to do with reality or even with each other. The Box Man tries to be like that. It tries very, very hard, and it is very self-conscious about it. But it fails, because there is nothing above the norm in it - just a desire to "break conventions" for the sake of breaking conventions, to break conventions as a substitute for narrative, commentary, characterization, originality, emotion, and any worthwhile thought. Supposedly there is a nominal narrative here (there's something about an unsolved murder in places), and supposedly there's an existential parable here (some people ask themselves and each other some wooden and ham-handed questions about existence), but really, there is nothing even original (to say nothing of "masterful") about any of this. And don't even get me started on the oh-so-affected "photo inserts" with their oh-so-affected captions.
Woman in the Dunes leaves me spellbound, but The Box Man is an utter waste of time. It's shorter than Woman in the Dunes (178 pages in my edition) but every single line is an excruciating exercise in tedium. And as you read, you'll get the feeling that Abe is deliberately insulting your intelligence by writing such pretentious nonsense when he has shown himself to be capable of masterpieces. Stay far, far away from this "novel."
Rating: 3
Summary: a title for your review
Comment: Half the time I wasn't sure what the heck was going on so I consider this book to be, in part, a book questioning reality/ontology. The "box man" would ramble on about some scenario/reality/happening and then reveal that it was all his imagination. That's pretty much how my life goes about, more imagination than substance, so this book is a rather effective looking-glass. Given that, this plays a significant role in the play of "my dissatisfaction with the book." I don't want to be reminded of my anonymity and social lackings. I have little problem recommending this book to others--sometimes i recommend bad books to people for my own kicks--but there are other books I'd prefer to see sittin in my lap. In keeping with the question of reality, if its even addressed in this book (what the heck do i know--answer: nothing) I'd prefer to read Mark Daneilewski's House of Leaves or Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and definitely The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoban (I list these books only to impress you. It's pure show.).
There are elements of identity problems in this book, as far as I can see anyway. The person lives in a box, he/she doesnt have a name, and he/she usually only looks at people while they in turn, people, only see a box, if that. That's pretty cut n'dry. Again, there are other books that attack this idea more vicously. See: Fight Club
My biggest problem with the book is this: I have no clue if the box man was a murder or not. I love biggest problems and I consider this to be a rather large one, unanswered questions. So, Ill give this my recommendation, but, will the joke be on you?
Nah.
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Title: The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe ISBN: 0679733787 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 16 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Ruined Map : A Novel by Kobo Abe ISBN: 0375726527 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 04 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe ISBN: 0375726543 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Kangaroo Notebook : A Novel by Kobo Abe ISBN: 0679746633 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle : A Novel by Haruki Murakami ISBN: 0679775439 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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