The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe

A classic in Japan that is remarkably popular for its bleakness. The protagonist, we learn in the first chapter, has gone missing. We then pick up on his travels to an isolated village, driven by his hypothesis that it is a prime spot to make his name in his hobby by finding a new species of insect. He has a lot of thoughts about sand, its physical properties, its larger meaning, how we can live around its shifting destructive power. These discussions were the highlight of the book for me as was the physicality of the language, the feel of sand on the skin, the dryness of throat, and separately knowing what it is to be betrayed by sleep.

One early passage gets at the musings:

Certainly sand was not suitable for life. Yet, was a stationary condition absolutely indispensable for existence? Didn’t unpleasant competition arise precisely because one tried to cling to a fixed position? If one were to give up a  fixed position and abandon oneself to the movement of the sands, competition would stop. Actually in the desert flowers blood and insects and other animals lived their lives. These creatures were able to escape competition through their great ability to adjust. . .

The book quickly takes a turn for the surreal as we see that the outer edge of village involves trekking above huts that exist at the base of sand pits as if an ant lion made an arrangement with a literal carpenter ant. Without giving too much away the story focuses on the man and the title woman in the dunes. She has some depth of character, in what she endures, what what she resists, and how she tries to reach out. However, she ultimately remained a cipher to me in ways that made the novels bleakness harder to bear. More on that after the cut.

For all his introspection and inventiveness, the man’s late actions reminded me of a discussion of the Scottish play and a guess that McDuff’s children were murdered offscreen so that we do not completely lose our bond with the lead even after his misdeeds. While not a killer of children, I felt in this book the bond was severed and, in my view, intentionally so. The man is so devoid of understanding, or frankly desire to understand, women that his introspection feels hollow. The book tells a plausibly depressing tale of how we settle especially in the absence of bonds of solidarity based in empathy. But I felt no real catharsis in the ending, just judgment.

Happily, the Argo Japan book club provided the solidarity that I wanted in analyzing the book. Kobo Abe does have a fascinating history, rejecting Japanese literary influences and objecting to the behavior of his country after a childhood in Manchuria. The treatment of women and the way the book explored exploitation makes for good discussion. However, even though I do think Abe does intend to critique misogyny, among the many ills of society, the protagonist indulges in enough it that we were hard pressed to understand what the book was saying regarding gender even in charitable reading.

I’m interested in Japanese literary history and so the reading and discussion was worthwhile, though I’m glad we’re on to lighter material for the next round. I don’t think I can recommend this book, though I intend to remember in my heart the book’s reminder that one’s own cleverness can blind us to the humanity of others and also to the terrible ways we may allow our world to be circumscribed.

Image credit: Penguin cover, from the edition I purchased. It is a good translation and includes pictures drawn by Machi Abe.