Of these three novels, The Ruined Map was the first to be published, followed by The Box Man, which is surrealism unfettered and gloves off. This reserved approach to surrealism perhaps demonstrates how Abe’s writing evolved over time. It’s surrealism but in a subtle, almost invisible kind of way. Namely, the fact that he spends an ungodly amount of time on minor, insignificant descriptions, while character interactions come off as circular and like they are treading water. Though, if this isn’t your first Kobo Abe book, you’ll already be aware of some of his trappings here. The Ruined Mapbegins in a straightforward manner, with a detective – our protagonist – arriving at the home of a woman who has hired him to help her find her missing husband. Dale Saunders’ translation prowess that they were able to translate both The Box Man and The Ruined Map (two novels so distinct from one another in terms of narrative and structure) so wonderfully. Of the three Kobo Abe novels discussed here, The Ruined Mapis the longest, clearest, and most accessible.ĭisguised as a straightforward piece of genre fiction - specifically, a pulp noir detective novel - it steadily allows Kobo Abe’s signature surrealism to seep in through the cracks bit by bit, but never truly overwhelm the reader in the way that The Box Man does.Īt a little over 200 pages long, The Ruined Map is only slightly longer than The Secret Rendezvous, but it probably takes less time to read due to its clearer, more traditional, less absurdist approach to writing.
So, if you’re looking to explore the world and writings of the surrealist and Kafkaesque Kobo Abe, these three books offer the perfect place to start. Reading them in publication order is illuminating, and reading them out of order is chaotic in both a fun and a frustrating manner. However, despite this not being Abe’s complete body of work, they do beautifully represent a clear progression in style and theme for their author. Though all of Abe’s novels take a raw approach to sex, that one is by far the most problematic. His most famous novel – The Woman in the Dunes – is missing from this list, in part because it has a problematic and upsetting approach to writing women and sex. All are surrealist novels, though they differ wildly in the absurdism (with The Ruined Map being the most lucid and The Box Man the most abstract).įair warning: these three novels do not represent all of Abe’s works.
What we have here are three Kobo Abe novels, published in succession over ten years (from 1967 to 1977): The Ruined Map, The Box Man, and Secret Rendezvous.Īll are relatively short novels and each one has elements of the Kafkaesque in its DNA.
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