Why I love Kobo Abe. One is never sure where one is, metaphor reigns, metaphysics take over, or is it something you are missing? Like the face of another it brings into questions of identity and self, and existence. ( )

So this book is weird, and I have to confess that I wasn't always exactly sure what was going on...

Mainly the story reads like a journal of a "Box Man" or basically someone who has decided to drop out of society in favor of wearing a cardboard box at all times. However, you can also tell that Abe has a background in science (medicine), because we are given detailed directions at the beginning regarding the construction of the box and specific details about survival methods, as though we were reading a manual on "How to be a Box Man." The story can be viewed as an examination of the intentionally homeless, existentialists, or a comment on the nature of identity. There's also a lot concerning the act of seeing and being seen. Also, sexual frustration or deviancy seems to have a correlation with choosing the "box."

There isn't a very concrete plotline, but we know that a box man is shot a by an air rifle and also offered 50,000 yen to discard his box. Tension is great between box men and the rest of society. Later, he has interactions with a fake box man and a woman who seems to be perpetually nude. Overall, I enjoyed the format and the issues the story examines. An unconventional read. ( )

I liked the first few pages and the last few pages. I found the middle tedious... ramblings from a delusional homeless man. The voyeuristic boy scene in the end seemed to take on a different language from the rest of the book… meaning it was a coherent little tale.

My favorite line in the book:

“If the article is not used at least three times a day, it should be disposed of with no regrets.”

After reading this one line I started mentally inventorying the heap of stuff I’ve collected over the years and judged each with the ‘daily 3 use rule’ and determined that I just needed my toothbrush. But I’m still keeping my other stuff.

Another passage that caught my attention:

“A pair of trousers. If I were just in trousers, somehow I could go out into the world. It would make no difference whether I was naked from the waist up and my feet bare just as long as I had trousers on. Otherwise if you go walking around the streets without trousers, no matter how new your shoes and how elegant your coat, it’s enough to raise a big hue and cry. Enlightened society is a kind of trouser society.”

Geeze... we even feel self-conscience walking in public with our fly open. ( )

This is probably one of Abe's most difficult novels, as the identity of the narrator is so fluid and so unreliable. I would start with other Abe novels first before diving into this.

This is one of those lovely books I can re-read over and over and come up with a different theory for what's going on each time. The translation is a bit unreliable (identical passages in the Japanese are translated differently, etc.). It might help to know a bit about Japanese culture before reading this, but I don't believe it needs to be read as social commentary exclusively about the Japanese. ( )