[Review] The Woman in the Dunes - Kobo Abe

Title of Book: The Woman in the Dunes
Author: Kobo Abe
Translator: E. Dale Saunders
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Publication Year: 2006
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240

Dazzlingly original, Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes is one of the premier Japanese novels in the twentieth century, and this Penguin Classics edition contains a new introduction by David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas.
Niki Jumpei, an amateur entomologist, searches the scorching desert for beetles. As night falls he is forced to seek shelter in an eerie village, half-buried by huge sand dunes. He awakes to the terrifying realisation that the villagers have imprisoned him with a young woman at the bottom of a vast sand pit. Tricked into slavery and threatened with starvation if he does not work, Jumpei's only chance is to shovel the ever-encroaching sand - or face an agonising death. Among the greatest Japanese novels of the twentieth century, The Woman in the Dunes combines the essence of myth, suspense, and the existential novel.
Kobo Abe (1924-93) was born in Tokyo, grew up in Manchuria, and returned to Japan in his early twenties. During his life Abe was considered his country's foremost living novelist. His novels have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been bestsellers in Japan. They include The Woman in the Dunes, The Ark Sakura, The Face of Another, The Box Man, and The Ruined Map. If you liked The Woman in the Dunes, you might enjoy Albert Camus' The Plague, also available in Penguin Classics.

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The Woman in the Dunes follows a school teacher who’s on a journey to collect insects. He stumbled upon sand dunes and got trapped there. After being saved by people from the nearby village, he realized that he was trapped to do some labor shoveling sand. He was imprisoned in a house with a mysterious woman. Everyday, they must do what they’re asked for or face the threat of starvation and dehydration.

This is the first time I read or even heard of Kobo Abe. One of the blurb on the cover likened this book to a ‘Kafkaesque nightmare’. Unfortunately, since I haven’t read any of Kafka’s books, I have no idea and couldn’t really say anything about it. I read this book only with the knowledge that it’s a book about a man who’s trapped in a sand dune. I didn’t imagine it would be this scary.

At the beginning of this book, we don’t get much information about the main character other than he’s a school teacher who’s obsessed with insects. I mean, who’s willing to leave the comfort of his house and family to go to the middle of nowhere just to collect insects. Mind you, he’s not even got paid for it. As the story goes, through his hallucination and frustration, we get a glimpse of how he used to be in his life including his motivation to do this journey. We’ll learn later in the book that his name is Junpei. I think the anonymity is intended to make the experience universal.

The horror of this book starts when the main character was ‘saved’ by the villagers. He didn’t know what was waiting for him. Apparently, being saved by the villagers means being trapped in a house surrounded by sand doing the same job over and over again. The condition that he lived in makes me feel claustrophobic. Also, the reason why he left his house is actually to escape his daily life. It’s ironic that in the end he’s confined to the one thing he’s escaping from.

One of the theme of this book is alienation. When the villagers captured Junpei, they cut him off of the outside world. Aside of the fact that the house he lived in basically had no access to the outside world other than a rope ladder (that the villagers control), no other communication was allowed. It’s not until Junpei requested newspaper that he got a peek of what happened outside. Even then, he’s pretty sure that the newspaper was censored by the villagers. The villagers created a condition which force Junpei to be dependent to them. Since Junpei depended on the villagers, he had to do what he’s asked for, to shovel sand every day.

This book provokes us to ask why do we work and why we persevere? which is another horror in itself when I think about it. I think these are the right questions to ask to the salarymen out there. Salarymen is a term used in Japan for white collar workers. I think Junpei and other workers in the village is the analogue for salaryman. At one point, Junpei asked the question itself to the woman that he’s assigned with. He was frustrated with the condition he’s in and refused to be in such position, stating that it wasn’t a way to life. When in fact, that’s the norm in society.

The ending of this book is frustrating but I kind of understand Junpei’s choice. Without giving spoiler, I think in the end, what matters more to Junpei is that feeling of being in control. He’s feeling content knowing that he finally owns the control to his life. Overall, the Woman in the Dunes is surprisingly eerie. If you think that it’s slow paced and boring, knowing the theme, I feel like it is intended to be that way. If you’re interested in such story, I recommend this book to read.

“In fact, his involvement with sand and his insect collecting were, after all, simply ways to escape, however temporarily, from his obligations and thr inactivity of his life.”