#Kobo Abe

[shihlun]

安部公房展――21世紀文学の基軸

2024

[yuksteria]

The Face of Another 1966 [他人の顔] - Hiroshi Teshigahara

No such thing as home, hence no dreams of escaping from it.

[tamurakafkaposts]

Only a shipwrecked person who has just escaped drowning could understand the psychology of someone who breaks out in laughter just because he is able to breathe

Kōbō Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

[madgeitboy]

[thelastrenaissance]

Kōbō Abe (pen name of Kimifusa Abe (March 7, 1924), was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer, and inventor.

“The most frightening thing in the world is to discover the abnormal in that which is closest to us.”

 Kobo Abe

[yama-bato]

via

[tofutasties]

To live is to fall into a pit

In a conversation with an American screenwriter, Ryu Murakami once said that all stories follow the same plot: the protagonist falls into a hole and either crawls out or dies within. When I heard that, it made sense to me; I could see nearly all stories fitting into that pattern. But in his genius, Abe would not settle for the ordinary. The Woman in the Dunes offers a third plot: the man finds a life inside the pit. Even in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice’s experiences inside the rabbit hole work toward bringing her back to reality. Not so in The Woman in the Dunes. When the man is stranded at the bottom of the pit, he at first struggles to escape, but in the end, he chooses to remain there. When he finally obtains his much-longed-for means of escape, he has an epiphany and comes to understand the freedom to be found in staying inside the hole — a freedom that he chooses while letting a different freedom go. And that is what life is. Is that same third option not the framework that governs our society, our work, our families, our life, and our day-to-day life? Unknowingly, we all are lured into our pits, swallowed up, and we struggle to crawl out. But even if we make it out, nothing is changed. Outside, new holes are being dug; being trapped in a different pit is the only outcome. There are many such pits in life. Some are made for us, and others we make particularly for ourselves. For every pit trap, there is also a shelter. To live is to fall into many pits. As long as you are walking forward, you will fall into a pit. —Hideo Kojima, The Creative Gene (2010)

[bbbeternelle]

Because winds and water currents flow over the land, the formation of sand is unavoidable. As long as the winds blew, the rivers flowed, and the seas stirred, sand would be born grain by grain from the earth, and like a living being it would creep everywhere. The sands never rested. Gently but surely they invaded and destroyed the surface of the earth.

Kōbō Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

[kendelias]

OC HALLOWEEN 2024 → horror archetypes

bungou stray dogs ocs as horror archetypes

[raviniaraven]

This book was written in the 60s and I just had an "Apollo and the gift of prophecy" kinda moment reading this

"If covering our bodies with clothes represents a cultural step forward, there is no guarantee that in the future masks will not be taken equally for granted [...] I wonder if a mask, being universal, enhances our relations with others more than does the naked face."

Like. Seeing someone wonder if there will be a time in the future when it'll be seen as normal for everyone to be wearing masks. I wonder. If that could happen. Hope it's not for an awful reason like a global pandemic

[mastomysowner]

"Kangaroo Notebook" by Kobo Abe by @go_odbreakfast

- Radish sprouts.

- It can't be...

- I'm not kidding, I'll show you.

[shihlun]

Writers Yukio Mishima, Kobo Abe, Jun Ishikawa, and Yasunari Kawabata reading the statement "Regarding the Cultural Revolution in China, it is imperative to preserve the self-discipline of learning and art" at a press conference. Photographed at the Hotel Imperial, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 28 February 1967.

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: The Box Man

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

The Box Man is based on a Kobo Abe novel that is—according to my admittedly limited research, at least—widely considered to be impossible to adapt. Although I am unable to properly judge the accuracy of that assertion (having not read the source material—yet), evidence in the film certainly supports it. The narrative is rough and ragged around the edges, so sprawling that it frequently threatens to unravel. As you might expect from a medium that requires concrete imagery, metaphor is often smothered by literalism. The tone and style are likewise wildly inconsistent—pulpy and avant-garde in equal measure; the iconography surrounding the eponymous hermit, for example, borrows much of its visual language from—of all genres���superhero cinema and anime.

The fact that director Gakuryu Ishii manages to wrangle the unwieldy story into something resembling coherence is nothing short of miraculous. A talented cast certainly helps matters: Masatoshi Nagase lends pathos and gravitas to even the most absurd scenes, while Tadanobu Asano (fresh off his acclaimed performance in FX’s Shogun) embraces the inherent slapstick comedy of the premise without hesitation or reservation. The poignant themes, too, anchor the chaotic plot; the recurring motif of false identities—a man who forsakes any semblance of “self” and instead lives as a nameless vagabond, a “doctor” that practices medicine without a license, a femme fatale whose allegiances and motivations remain infuriatingly ambiguous—is particularly compelling. The titular box emerges as a powerful symbol; clad in his cardboard armor, our protagonist exists on the fringes of a decaying society—anonymous, invisible, ignored by his so-called “civilized” fellow humans, trapped in their personal prisons of materialism and consumerism. But it’s the metafictional twist near the movie’s conclusion that truly elevates the whole package. I won’t spoil the ending here; suffice it to say that the audience is implicated as the ultimate voyeur, observing an artificial world through a narrow frame—judging the characters’ actions despite our fundamental lack of agency.

Featuring spectacularly choreographed fights, exquisitely overwrought melodrama, and inscrutably convoluted philosophy, The Box Man is the quintessential festival experience: impenetrably dense, difficult to classify or codify, a little pretentious, captivatingly beautiful, and absolutely unforgettable.

[tolbre]

The rope, along with the stick, are two of mankind's oldest tools. The stick to yeet. The rope to yoink. They where our first friends, of our own invention.

-Kobo Awe's Nawa

[alishasthoughts]

Secret Rendezvous-Kobo Abe Book Review

Secret Rendezvous By Kobo Abe was published in 1977, the book explores strange themes and events with hints of dark humour.

Personally i think this book is a very strange and interesting read, but really really brilliant.

On a impromptu trip with my friend to Waterstones, looking for a completely different book (Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, also a very strange book) I looked around and for some reason Secret Rendezvous popped out to me, upon reading the blurb and some of the first page i was instantly captured, i handed the book to my friend to read the blurb and i will say; he is not interested in reading much, he was impressed with the book and it sealed my mind and i bought it for £9.99.

I personally think if you are not instantly sucked into a book by the first page, it’s not the book for you, and as i thought about nothing but finallt getting to start it. i know this book was perfect for me.

The books blurb reads as:

“It is 4 a.m. when the ambulance comes to take the man's wife away - although no-one has called it, and there is nothing wrong with her. As he sets out to find her, he finds himself in the corridors of a vast underground hospital, where he encounters sinister medics, freakish sexual experiments and the unmistakable feeling of being watched. Even when he is suddenly appointed as the hospital's chief of security, reporting to a man who thinks he is a horse, he will not give up his search.

Secret Rendezvous is a nightmarish satire of bureaucracy, medicine and modern life.” with also having 2 reviews from the Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun Times. and additionally a review from The New York Times.

This book explores disturbing yet thrilling themes while this man is exploring this twisted yet fascinating hospital. i won’t spoil it but i don’t think anyone in 2024 could write something like this.

if secret rendezvous was made into a live action it would closely resemble Netflix’s Black Mirror or American Horror Story.

I do have a strong feeling that the ending was very rushed and unprompted but it did a good job of describing the effects that this “hospital” had on the narrator and how eventually he ended up clinging to his sanity even for a very short lived time.

Kobo Abe did a beautiful job of creating this very twisted world, he had a beautiful way of describing things in such shocking detail and making me create such horrifying mental images and scenes.

[paperandsong]

Screenshots from The Face of Another Cure (Tanin no Kao) 1966, based on a novel by Kobo Abe. Selected for adjacency to Phantom of the Opera.