Secret Rendezvous is one of Kobo Abe's lesser known novels. It is however still a superb novel from one of Japan's postmodern masters. The story opens with a man and a horse man. The horse man will be developed much later, but we our focus is the man. The narrative takes the shape of three "notebooks" representing his memories of the events surrounding his wife's disappearance, and the bizarre hospital where she was taken. The symbol of his wife being taken away by ambulance while protesting that she is healthy invokes a real sense of fascism. There are many undercurrents, but this theme will be revisited time and time again throughout the novel, the power of doctors and health providers over patients.

Kobo Abe has achieved with Secret Rendezvous what William Burroughs had attempted for much of his career: a surreal examination of the psychosexual nature of power structures. This is as strange as anything that Burroughs had ever conceived of. Abe works from that same sense of otherness, but with much less of a prurient nature. Whereas Burroughs seemed to want to challenge the puritans and conformists of the 50's Abe doesn't seem to care. This distance from your reaction allows the novel to unfold with a much more natural feel. The sex and surrealism floats off the pages delicately, not ripping forward like Burroughs.

Abe's use of language aids this more delicate touch. Japanese, even in translation, is a language of poetry and metaphor. Abe uses this to bring you into the depths of the character. In a scene set in an underground wing of the hospital, the scene comes to life slowly like a boiling teapot. By the end of the description Abe has given birth to a scene so real that you can smell the earthiness. While this novel is quite troubling in some parts, in others funny, and the mood twists and turns with the unnamed man's journey. Abe is not for the easily offended, or those who seek conventional literature. However he is a master at surrealism that feels natural, as if this reality, however twisted, is just how it should be.

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