The Box Man [Paperback]

Kobo Abe (Author), E. Dale Saunders (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 1995

Kobo Abe, the internationally acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes, combines wildly imaginative fantasies and naturalistic prose to create narratives reminiscent of the work of Kafka and Beckett.

In this eerie and evocative masterpiece, the nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head. Wandering the streets of Tokyo and scribbling madly on the interior walls of his box, he describes the world outside as he sees or perhaps imagines it, a tenuous reality that seems to include a mysterious rifleman determined to shoot him, a seductive young nurse, and a doctor who wants to become a box man himself. The Box Man is a marvel of sheer originality and a bizarrely fascinating fable about the very nature of identity.

Translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The nature of identity itself is the ostensible subject of this bizarrely fascinating existential novel from the great Japanese fiction writer and dramatist Kobo Abe. In the story, a man decides to give up the self that he has been all his life to attain a state of blissful anonymity. He leaves his world behind and moves onto the streets of Tokyo. He puts a large box over his head, cuts a hole for his eyes. It is as strange as it sounds, but Abe's light touch and narrative innovation makes it compelling.

Review

"A finely drawn masterpiece." -- Donald Keene

"A spellbinder from beginning to end, an edgy masterpiece." -- Chicago Sun-Times

"A stunning addition to the literature of eccentricity, those bitter, crying voices of Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener and Dostoevsky's Underground Man ... funny, sad and destructive, an ontological thriller." -- The New York Times

"Brilliant... Like Kafka's, Ab's work reveals an astonishing ability to create dreamlike events. And like Kafka, Ab writes with simplicity and precision, a style so deceptive that only the most attentive reader will be aware of the existential abyss opening beneath the seemingly spare surface of the novels... And it is filled with beautifully descriptive writing." -- Chicago Tribune

"Japan's most important, gifted and original writer of serious fiction... Ab writes with singing, poetic, and almost proletarian exuberance." -- The New York Times Magazine

Avant-garde satiric novel by Abe Kobo, published in Japanese in 1973 as Hako otoko. A bizarre commentary on contemporary society, The Box Man concerns a man who relinquishes normal life to live in a "waterproof room," a cardboard box that he wears on his back. Like a medieval Buddhist monk, the man observes society's goings-on but disdains any interaction with the world he has abandoned as a mad place. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

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Product Details

• Paperback: 178 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press (April 3, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865474613
• ISBN-13: 978-0865474611
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,488,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars at least seven fierce dogs to avoid within the city, January 1, 2002

By 

"longggg_duree" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Box Man: A Novel (Paperback)

a contemporary novel of fragmented identity which examines the ultimate failure of signification...so comparisons to beckett are pretty relevant i would say. as with beckett, 'the box man' confronts readers with a real rupture of traditional narrator/reader relationships, and delivers the narrative in such a dispersed manner that you are really left without a cohesive idea of what agency gave you the information you read. the real box man, the fake box man, the real doctor, the fake doctor...all of these are thrown out there for you to sort out. characters begin to refer to ideas or possible actions rather than tangible indentities. in the end, abe tells a story of the contemporary predicament of representation and the psychology of a society in which we increasing interact with representations of things rather than the things themselves. the box man is a man who, saturated with the mediated representations of radio and television, is unable to have normal human interactions with people, he can only look and never be looked at. 'the box man' is an excellent treatment of these very relevant contemporary cultural issues, a frustrating read, but an excellent novel.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's in a box, July 18, 2000

By 

mrgrieves08 (tucson) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Box Man (Paperback)

If you like Kafka, Pynchon, Beckett, or Burroughs you will probably like this novel. This is a work that will occupy your mind long after you have finished the last page. Its greatness lies in Abe's keen ability to personify the darkest dreams and innermost desires of modern humanity. The main character, the Box Man, could be anyone. He is merely an anonymous person who yearns for escape from the dehumanizing conditions of modern life. The plot is interesting, alluring, and above all puzzling, without being inaccessible to the average reader. This is a work to be read and reread, and for those who take the time there will be few who are disappointed.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sturdy, dirty cardboard box. . ., June 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Box Man (Paperback)

If you liked Samuel Beckett's book "Watt", then you'll love 'The Box Man'. 'The Box Man' is a psychotic tale of disassociation in a world that echoes that of the medical nightmares in William S. Burrough's 'Blade Runner: A Movie'.

You really don't want to know more about 'The Box Man' at this moment, deciding what is going on is one of the main pleasures of reading the book, Abe's wacked style is another.

I'd never read any of Kobo Abe's work before and found 'The Box Man' fascinatingly disturbed. If you want it weird, get this book. I'm definitely going to read more of his works.