Beyond the Curve (Modern Japanese Writers Series)
by Kobo Abe, Juliet Winters Carpenter
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Book Summary Information
Author: Juliet Winters Carpenter, Kobo AbeTranslator: Juliet Winters Carpenter
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); Japanese (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1993-02
ISBN: 4770016905
Number of pages: 248
Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc
Book Reviews of Beyond the Curve (Modern Japanese Writers Series)
Book Review: Beyond realism
Summary: 4 Stars
This collection of short stories, translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter, is a surreal foray into the illogical and improbable. Kobo Abe is the kind of writer who reminds one of other writers. His Kafkaesque "An Irrelevant Death" places an unexplained corpse in the apartment of A- who must then decide how to dispose of it without suspicion. In another story that recalls Kafka, "Dendrocacalia," a man named Common experiences an unexpected metamorphosis into a rare and sought-after plant. But not all stories evoke Kafka. "The Life of a Poet" embraces the lyrical mythology of Latin American magic realism as a crone is accidentally made into thread and a deadly snow falls made of "crystalline dreams, souls, and desires." Lewis Carroll's convoluted logic surfaces in "The Bet" when an architect for a particular demanding advertising company discovers a world of small doors, head-shaking conversations, and stairs that lead not to an expected succession of floors but instead to places governed by a red light and adages. The bizarre building teaches the architect the logic of the illogical. When he designs "the path of the president's office as a mathematical function of the System," he resolves the story in an entirely fitting way.Despite the derivative feel to these stories, they are distinctly Abe's. His Japanese sensibilities give them a different twist, for while Kafka chose to change his character into a cockroach, Abe chooses instead to transform his bewildered character into a scrubby plant that grows at high altitudes and which would be quite at home in a government funded hothouse. The author's confidence in the wildness of his imagination gives these stories an authority of voice, allowing for the needed suspension of disbelief. Abe's fictional realm is a difficult one to leave.
It took me a couple of stories to fully appreciate Abe's talents, but I'm glad I continued reading. Readers of Japanese and international fiction should most definitely take a look at Abe's work. Don't expect realism - or anything close to it - because Kobo Abe's fiction exists on another plane.
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