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This beautiful novel by one of Japan's most important writers is also one of the most strangely terrifying and memorable books you'll ever read. The Woman in the Dunes is the story of an amateur entomologist who wanders alone into a remote seaside village in pursuit of a rare beetle he wants to add to his collection. But the townspeople take him prisoner. They lower him into the sand-pit home of a young widow, a pariah in the poor community, who the villagers have condemned to a life of shoveling back the ever-encroaching dunes that threaten to bury the town. An amazing book.
236 pages, Paperback
First published June 8, 1962
1448 people are currently reading
66796 people want to read
About the author
Kōbō Abe
217 books2,071 followersKōbō Abe (安部 公房 Abe Kōbō), pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe, was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer, and inventor.
He was the son of a doctor and studied medicine at Tokyo University. He never practised however, giving it up to join a literary group that aimed to apply surrealist techniques to Marxist ideology.
Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities.
He was first published as a poet in 1947 with Mumei shishu ("Poems of an unknown poet") and as a novelist the following year with Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street"), which established his reputation. Though he did much work as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, it was not until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim.
In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara in the film adaptations of The Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another and The Ruined Map. In 1973, he founded an acting studio in Tokyo, where he trained performers and directed plays. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977.
He was the son of a doctor and studied medicine at Tokyo University. He never practised however, giving it up to join a literary group that aimed to apply surrealist techniques to Marxist ideology.
Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities.
He was first published as a poet in 1947 with Mumei shishu ("Poems of an unknown poet") and as a novelist the following year with Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street"), which established his reputation. Though he did much work as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, it was not until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim.
In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara in the film adaptations of The Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another and The Ruined Map. In 1973, he founded an acting studio in Tokyo, where he trained performers and directed plays. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,801 reviews
June 19, 2015
This book is horrifically claustrophobic and eerie.
How much of our lives consist of frantically trying to stay afloat? Life can be as fruitless as a man trapped under sand dunes digging to live...or living to dig. Do we work to live or live to work? If you think being held hostage in sand is fantastical, what do you think your life is, anyway?
This book wears you down. It gets into your skin, your hair, under your fingernails. The sand is everywhere. The wind, the salt air, their eyes always watching. You never breathe in all the way. You can't see the horizon through the grains scratching the insides of your eyelids.
There's a man and sand. A lot of sand. And a woman. And it's all delusional, suffocating and brilliant
He was like an animal who finally sees that the crack in the fence it was trying to escape through is in reality merely the entrance to its cage –like a fish who at last realizes, after bumping its nose numberless time, that the glass of the goldfish bowl is a wall.
How much of our lives consist of frantically trying to stay afloat? Life can be as fruitless as a man trapped under sand dunes digging to live...or living to dig. Do we work to live or live to work? If you think being held hostage in sand is fantastical, what do you think your life is, anyway?
This book wears you down. It gets into your skin, your hair, under your fingernails. The sand is everywhere. The wind, the salt air, their eyes always watching. You never breathe in all the way. You can't see the horizon through the grains scratching the insides of your eyelids.
There's a man and sand. A lot of sand. And a woman. And it's all delusional, suffocating and brilliant
He was like an animal who finally sees that the crack in the fence it was trying to escape through is in reality merely the entrance to its cage –like a fish who at last realizes, after bumping its nose numberless time, that the glass of the goldfish bowl is a wall.
March 14, 2023
[Edited for typos 3/12/23]
An existential classic from Japan. A lonely young man is an amateur entomologist and schoolteacher. He hopes to find a new species of sand beetle, so he goes off on a weekend expedition to a beach town where the houses are buried in pits by the ever-shifting stands. He asks about a place to stay and reaches his night’s lodging with a landlady by descending a rope ladder.
The next day the rope ladder is gone. He discovers he is a prisoner who will be kept there to help the woman, a young widow, with her work. Her work is the daily and endless task of shoveling out buckets of sand that accumulate each night. The sand buckets are pulled up each morning by teams of village men. Food and water come down by rope from the same men. If he stops working, the men hold off food and water.
It’s considered a modern existential novel, published in Japanese in 1962 and translated into English in 1964. Kafka’s Metamorphosis comes to mind – will he turn into a sand beetle? The woman who lives there seems to have accepted her fate.
Will he try to escape? If so, how? Will his escape be successful?
What kind of relationship will develop between the man and the woman living in such close quarters?
The author provides many touches of realism with nightmarish details of the sand invading their bodies, their clothes, their food, their water. The roof and walls of the primitive house can’t keep it out.
We also get entomological and geological information. Sand isn’t just a collection of tiny objects that flow and shift: sand involves the flowing and shifting that creates it: form and function; structure and process.
A good story; amazingly, never boring and in some ways a suspense novel. I read it first many years ago and didn't hesitate to read it again. I added it to my favorites.
It occurs to me the book is mistitled because we learn nothing of the inner workings of the mind of the woman. We only see her actions and hear limited conversation from her. An omniscient narrator tells us of the man’s mental anguish and of his philosophical thinking. The book could just as well be titles The Man in the Dunes.
The author (1924 -1993) was a prolific writer with a dozen novels, almost all translated into English. He wrote a dozen collections of short stories and a dozen plays. Women in the Dunes is by far his most popular work on GR and it was made into a Japanese film in 1964. I have also read his novel Beasts Head for Home and a collection of fantasy/magical realism short stories titled Beyond the Curve. I rated Dunes 5; Curve 4 and Beasts 3.
Top photo, a still from the movie from co.pinterest.com
Tottori sand dunes in Japan from japanrailpass.com
The author from azquotes.com
An existential classic from Japan. A lonely young man is an amateur entomologist and schoolteacher. He hopes to find a new species of sand beetle, so he goes off on a weekend expedition to a beach town where the houses are buried in pits by the ever-shifting stands. He asks about a place to stay and reaches his night’s lodging with a landlady by descending a rope ladder.
The next day the rope ladder is gone. He discovers he is a prisoner who will be kept there to help the woman, a young widow, with her work. Her work is the daily and endless task of shoveling out buckets of sand that accumulate each night. The sand buckets are pulled up each morning by teams of village men. Food and water come down by rope from the same men. If he stops working, the men hold off food and water.
It’s considered a modern existential novel, published in Japanese in 1962 and translated into English in 1964. Kafka’s Metamorphosis comes to mind – will he turn into a sand beetle? The woman who lives there seems to have accepted her fate.
Will he try to escape? If so, how? Will his escape be successful?
What kind of relationship will develop between the man and the woman living in such close quarters?
The author provides many touches of realism with nightmarish details of the sand invading their bodies, their clothes, their food, their water. The roof and walls of the primitive house can’t keep it out.
We also get entomological and geological information. Sand isn’t just a collection of tiny objects that flow and shift: sand involves the flowing and shifting that creates it: form and function; structure and process.
A good story; amazingly, never boring and in some ways a suspense novel. I read it first many years ago and didn't hesitate to read it again. I added it to my favorites.
It occurs to me the book is mistitled because we learn nothing of the inner workings of the mind of the woman. We only see her actions and hear limited conversation from her. An omniscient narrator tells us of the man’s mental anguish and of his philosophical thinking. The book could just as well be titles The Man in the Dunes.
The author (1924 -1993) was a prolific writer with a dozen novels, almost all translated into English. He wrote a dozen collections of short stories and a dozen plays. Women in the Dunes is by far his most popular work on GR and it was made into a Japanese film in 1964. I have also read his novel Beasts Head for Home and a collection of fantasy/magical realism short stories titled Beyond the Curve. I rated Dunes 5; Curve 4 and Beasts 3.
Top photo, a still from the movie from co.pinterest.com
Tottori sand dunes in Japan from japanrailpass.com
The author from azquotes.com
December 18, 2024
“Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel?”
This is an odd one, in the best possible way.
I’ve wanted to read this novel for some time. It is another famous Japanese export which got a “classic” status.
One day, an amateur entomologist decides to visit some Dunes to search for new species of insects. When he misses the last bus back to his hometown, he is forced to find shelter in a strange village, which is almost eaten alive by the dunes. In the morning, he tries to leave but the locals do not allow it and force the narrator to remain in the village and help with the shoveling of sand that threatens the village. He is lodged at the house of a strange young woman and asked to help her.
From here begins a Sisyphean struggle against the dunes and to free himself from the captors.
It was partially a thriller and partially an existentialist work with some Kafkian flavor. Buzzatti comes to mind too. The atmosphere was stifling, I could feel the sand on my tongue and in my nose. It can only happen with the best writers. At some point, the writing became repetitive, but it was only a way to show the uselessness of the task our hero was forced to perform.
“One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.”
“There wasn't a single item of importance [in the newspaper]. A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes. If life were made up only of important things, it really would be a dangerous house of glass, scarcely to be handled carelessly. But everyday life was exactly like the headlines. And so everybody, knowing the meaninglessness of existence, sets the center of his compass at his own home.”
This is an odd one, in the best possible way.
I’ve wanted to read this novel for some time. It is another famous Japanese export which got a “classic” status.
One day, an amateur entomologist decides to visit some Dunes to search for new species of insects. When he misses the last bus back to his hometown, he is forced to find shelter in a strange village, which is almost eaten alive by the dunes. In the morning, he tries to leave but the locals do not allow it and force the narrator to remain in the village and help with the shoveling of sand that threatens the village. He is lodged at the house of a strange young woman and asked to help her.
From here begins a Sisyphean struggle against the dunes and to free himself from the captors.
It was partially a thriller and partially an existentialist work with some Kafkian flavor. Buzzatti comes to mind too. The atmosphere was stifling, I could feel the sand on my tongue and in my nose. It can only happen with the best writers. At some point, the writing became repetitive, but it was only a way to show the uselessness of the task our hero was forced to perform.
“One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.”
“There wasn't a single item of importance [in the newspaper]. A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes. If life were made up only of important things, it really would be a dangerous house of glass, scarcely to be handled carelessly. But everyday life was exactly like the headlines. And so everybody, knowing the meaninglessness of existence, sets the center of his compass at his own home.”
January 29, 2019
کوبو آبه
در سال ۱۹۴۳ «کیمیفوسا آبه» که قرار بود بعدها نام قلمی «کوبو آبه» را برای خودش انتخاب کند، به اجبار پدرش که پزشک بود، و نیز به خاطر آن که پزشکان از خدمت سربازی معاف بودند، وارد دانشگاه پزشکی شد. بدون آن که در نظر بگیرد پزشکی چقدر برای کسی چون او مناسب است که از کودکی عاشق خواندن کافکا، داستایوسکی و ادگار آلن پو بوده. یک سال بعد با سرخوردگی دانشگاه را رها کرد، اما بعد از مرگ پدرش دوباره به دانشگاه برگشت و خلاصه این قدر جسته گریخته به تحصیل ادامه داد تا بالاخره موفق به اخذ مدرک پزشکی شد، اما چنان که بعدها به شوخی میگفت، با او شرط کردند که هرگز دست به مداوای کسی نزند!
اما در این سالها که برای گرفتن مدرک پزشکی دست و پا میزد، اتفاقی دیگر افتاد: در طول سال آخر تحصیلش، نخستین داستانهای خود را نوشت، و فهمید این کاری است که همیشه دوست داشته انجام دهد. به خاطر همین پس از فارغالتحصیلی به طور جدی به ادبیات پرداخت و داستانهای متعددی نوشت، اما داستانی که او را به شهرت جهانی رساند، «زن در ریگ روان» بود.
زن در ریگ روان
رمان زن در ریگ روان را میتوان به طور مختصر ترجمهای بسیار آزاد از مجموعه آثار کافکا به زبان ژاپنی دانست. رمان با مقدمهای شروع میشود که لحن مشئومش ما را تا آخر داستان رها نمیکند: مردی به مدت هفت سال گم میشود و دادگاه بنا بر قوانین ژاپن حکمی صادر میکند و او را مرده به شمار میآورد، با این که ممکن است هنوز جایی زنده باشد.
داستان سپس به عقب باز میگردد و ماجرای مرد گم شده را روایت میکند. مرد که «نیکی جومپی» نام دارد به امید کشف سوسکی منحصر به فرد و ثبت نامش در دانشنامۀ حشرات، راهی روستایی دوردست کنار دریا شده، بی آن که حدس بزند چه چیزی در انتظارش است.
تفسیرها
در مورد رمان شرح و تفسیرهای بسیاری نوشته شده، و تلاش کردهاند آن چیزی که رمان خود به خوبی با طنینی که پشت آدم را میلرزاند، به تصویر میکشد، با تفاسیری که از فرط رو و واضح بودن خشک و بی روح مینمایند، توضیح دهند. اما، آن چنان که سوزان سونتاگ هم در «علیه تفسیر» میگوید، برای نویسندگانی چون کوبو آبه و بیشتر از او کافکا، تفسیر همچون میز تشریح آزمایشگاه است که به بهای پاره پاره کردن و گرفتن حیات از اثر، میخواهد آن را توضیح دهد. راه درست مواجهه با این نویسندگان، به سادگی، مواجهه با آنهاست.
در سال ۱۹۴۳ «کیمیفوسا آبه» که قرار بود بعدها نام قلمی «کوبو آبه» را برای خودش انتخاب کند، به اجبار پدرش که پزشک بود، و نیز به خاطر آن که پزشکان از خدمت سربازی معاف بودند، وارد دانشگاه پزشکی شد. بدون آن که در نظر بگیرد پزشکی چقدر برای کسی چون او مناسب است که از کودکی عاشق خواندن کافکا، داستایوسکی و ادگار آلن پو بوده. یک سال بعد با سرخوردگی دانشگاه را رها کرد، اما بعد از مرگ پدرش دوباره به دانشگاه برگشت و خلاصه این قدر جسته گریخته به تحصیل ادامه داد تا بالاخره موفق به اخذ مدرک پزشکی شد، اما چنان که بعدها به شوخی میگفت، با او شرط کردند که هرگز دست به مداوای کسی نزند!
اما در این سالها که برای گرفتن مدرک پزشکی دست و پا میزد، اتفاقی دیگر افتاد: در طول سال آخر تحصیلش، نخستین داستانهای خود را نوشت، و فهمید این کاری است که همیشه دوست داشته انجام دهد. به خاطر همین پس از فارغالتحصیلی به طور جدی به ادبیات پرداخت و داستانهای متعددی نوشت، اما داستانی که او را به شهرت جهانی رساند، «زن در ریگ روان» بود.
زن در ریگ روان
رمان زن در ریگ روان را میتوان به طور مختصر ترجمهای بسیار آزاد از مجموعه آثار کافکا به زبان ژاپنی دانست. رمان با مقدمهای شروع میشود که لحن مشئومش ما را تا آخر داستان رها نمیکند: مردی به مدت هفت سال گم میشود و دادگاه بنا بر قوانین ژاپن حکمی صادر میکند و او را مرده به شمار میآورد، با این که ممکن است هنوز جایی زنده باشد.
داستان سپس به عقب باز میگردد و ماجرای مرد گم شده را روایت میکند. مرد که «نیکی جومپی» نام دارد به امید کشف سوسکی منحصر به فرد و ثبت نامش در دانشنامۀ حشرات، راهی روستایی دوردست کنار دریا شده، بی آن که حدس بزند چه چیزی در انتظارش است.
تفسیرها
در مورد رمان شرح و تفسیرهای بسیاری نوشته شده، و تلاش کردهاند آن چیزی که رمان خود به خوبی با طنینی که پشت آدم را میلرزاند، به تصویر میکشد، با تفاسیری که از فرط رو و واضح بودن خشک و بی روح مینمایند، توضیح دهند. اما، آن چنان که سوزان سونتاگ هم در «علیه تفسیر» میگوید، برای نویسندگانی چون کوبو آبه و بیشتر از او کافکا، تفسیر همچون میز تشریح آزمایشگاه است که به بهای پاره پاره کردن و گرفتن حیات از اثر، میخواهد آن را توضیح دهد. راه درست مواجهه با این نویسندگان، به سادگی، مواجهه با آنهاست.
November 5, 2017
Αριστουργηματικό έργο που γίνεται ακόμη πιο συγκλονιστικό καθώς διαχέεται ολόκληρο απο ΑΡΩΜΑ ΚΑΦΚΑ & ΑΝΕΠΑΙΣΘΗΤΗ ΑΠΟΧΡΩΣΗ ΚΑΜΥ.
Σουρεαλιστικές καταστάσεις, ατομικοί ψυχαναγκασμοί, σκληρές ευαισθησίες και παγιδευμένες υπάρξεις μέσα στους προσωπικούς και κοινωνικούς εφιάλτες. Σισύφεια προσπάθεια λύτρωσης.
Το ατελέσφορο και επαναληπτικό βασανιστήριο του πρωταγωνιστή καθρεφτίζει ρεαλιστικά κομμάτια απο τη δική μας καθημερινότητα.
Κάτι που δεν αντιλαμβάνεται εύκολα ο αναγνώστης, την ταύτιση, σε υπαρξιακό επίπεδο και την ανημποριά μας να ξεφύγουμε «φτυαρίζοντας άμμο» απο τις δυσκολίες, τα προβλήματα και τα ατελείωτα καθήκοντα που μας εγκλωβίζουν σε μια αέναη μάχη με την αιχμαλωσία του κατεστημένου.
Βρισκόμαστε ξαφνικά παγιδευμένοι μέσα στην καυτή ατελείωτη άμμο.
Αυτό το ύπουλο ορυκτό με διάμετρο 1/8 του χιλιοστού (κατα μέσο όρο) ανά κόκκο, γεννιέται μέσα απο το χώμα και σαν κάτι ζωντανό έρπει εισχωρώντας παντού, είναι το
«κελί» της ζωής μας.
Αθόρυβα και σταθερά, χωρίς ποτέ να ησυχάζει, εισβάλει και απλώνεται, θανατώνοντας την επιφάνεια του εδάφους...και όχι μόνο.
Είναι άγονη και ξηρή λόγω της αδιάκοπης ροής της και δεν μπορεί να φιλοξενήσει ζωντανό πλάσμα.
Επομένως η άμμος κρίνεται ακατάλληλη για τη ζωή λόγω κίνησης, ενώ η μελαγχολία της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης εξαναγκάζει σε μια συνεχόμενη και ακίνητη προσκόλληση μέσα στο χρόνο. Μια καταδικαστική σταθερότητα.
Στο ερώτημα αν η προσκόλληση και η απραξία ειναι πιο ζωογόνες σε σχέση με την ακατάπαυστη ροή πιθανότητα η απαντηση ειναι : ικανότητα προσαρμογής!!!
Αυτό το μυθιστόρημα παρά την έντονη δυσφορία και την κλειστοφοβική ατμόσφαιρα είναι εξεχόντως συναρπαστικό.
Η πλοκή λιγοστή και οι χαρακτήρες ελάχιστοι είναι φοβισμένα υποχείρια συμβόλων και υποταγμένων ιδεών.
Η υπόθεση τόσο απλή που γίνεται εθιστική και ύπουλη, επηρεάζοντας επικίνδυνα την ψυχολογική ταύτιση με τον αναγνώστη.
Το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ιστορίας διαδραματίζεται απελπιστικά είτε μέσα, είτε στον περίβολο της υπόγειας φυλακής - σε σχήμα σπιτιού - απο άμμο.
Οι πρωταγωνιστές δεν εμπνέουν συμπάθεια, είναι επιφανειακά κενοί, ξένοι, στείροι, όμως η πένα του συγγραφέα με την ίδια επίφαση ταύτισης μας κάνει ακούσια να ενδιαφερόμαστε και να πιστεύουμε σε αυτούς.
Γνωρίζοντας αρχικά ότι ο ήρωας μας είναι αγνοούμενος και μετά απο επτά χρόνια κηρρύσεται επισήμως άφαντος-νεκρός, ακολουθούμε την πορεία του συγγραφέα σε πραγματικό χρόνο που μας οδηγεί σε ένα χωριό.
Σε έναν τόπο ξεχασμένο απο θεούς και δαίμονες, σφηνωμένο μέσα σε τεράστιους αμμόλοφους ζούνε ανθρώπινα κουφάρια έρμαια και βασανισμένα απο τη θάλασσα της κινούμενης αμμου.
Ειναι οι ελεύθεροι θεματοφύλακες της παράδοσης τους.
Τα λιγοστά σπίτια είναι θαμμένα μέσα στη γη πνιγμένα απο την άμμο που πρέπει κάθε βράδυ να την φτυαρίζουν δίνοντας τιτάνιο αγώνα ώστε να μην πνίξει τα πάντα στον άνυδρο βυθό της.
Εκεί, εξαπατούν τον ήρωα μας που φθάνοντας στο χωριό ως ερασιτέχνης εντομολόγος, βρίσκεται εγκλωβισμένος σε ένα σισύφειο μαρτύριο.
Τον κατεβάζουν στο σπίτι της κόλασης απο άμμο το οποίο κατοικείται απο μια νεαρή χήρα που παλεύει νυχθημερόν να ζήσει και να αναχαιτίσει την άμμο πριν συμπαρασύρει όλο το χωριό στην άβυσσο της ανυπαρξίας.
Τα σπίτια εξαρτώνται το ένα απο το άλλο επομένως το μαρτύριο του «φτυαρίσματος»είναι καθημερινό και απαραίτητο.
Κάθε μέρα η ζέστη είναι ανελέητη, οι βολβοί των ματιών βράζουν,τα σπλάχνα καίγονται και τα πνευμόνια παίρνουν φωτιά. Παράλληλα η άμμος που εισχωρεί παντού γεμίζει με τους θανατηφόρους κόκκους της τα πάντα δημιουργώντας πληγές και πόνους.
Η λαχτάρα για ελευθερία καταπλακώνεται απο τόννους άμμου και χάνεται μαζί με την ανθρώπινη ψυχή.
Η συνήθεια του εγκλεισμού και η τρυφερή σχέση μεταξύ των δυο κρατουμένων ίσως να αποκτά μια ζοφερή αλλά σωτήρια καταδίκη.
«Επανέλαβε το ίδιο κάμποσες φορές, ώσπου το σάλιο έγινε κολλώδες, σα λιωμένα φύκια, και στάθηκε στο λάρυγγά του. Σίγουρα δεν αισθανόταν υπνηλία, όμως απ’ την εξάντληση η συνείδησή του είχε γίνει σαν βρεγμένο χαρτί. Ήτα σαν να ’βλεπε τα πάντα μέσα από ένα τέτοιο χαρτί, που το είχε σηκώσει στο φως. Το τοπίο γύρω είχε γίνει ένα σύνολο από βρόμικες κηλίδες και γραμμές, που έπλεε μπροστά του. Ήταν ένα τοπίο σαν αινιγματική εικόνα. Υπάρχει μια γυναίκα…Υπάρχει η άμμος…Υπάρχει ο ήλιος… Υπάρχει το εντελώς άδειο κιούπι του νερού… Από πού τέλος πάντων θα ’πρεπε λοιπόν ν’ αρχίσει προκειμένου να λύσει αυτή την εξίσωση, τη γεμάτη με άγνωστους Χ;»
🌄💥☀️🔥🌄💥☀️🔥🌄
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
Σουρεαλιστικές καταστάσεις, ατομικοί ψυχαναγκασμοί, σκληρές ευαισθησίες και παγιδευμένες υπάρξεις μέσα στους προσωπικούς και κοινωνικούς εφιάλτες. Σισύφεια προσπάθεια λύτρωσης.
Το ατελέσφορο και επαναληπτικό βασανιστήριο του πρωταγωνιστή καθρεφτίζει ρεαλιστικά κομμάτια απο τη δική μας καθημερινότητα.
Κάτι που δεν αντιλαμβάνεται εύκολα ο αναγνώστης, την ταύτιση, σε υπαρξιακό επίπεδο και την ανημποριά μας να ξεφύγουμε «φτυαρίζοντας άμμο» απο τις δυσκολίες, τα προβλήματα και τα ατελείωτα καθήκοντα που μας εγκλωβίζουν σε μια αέναη μάχη με την αιχμαλωσία του κατεστημένου.
Βρισκόμαστε ξαφνικά παγιδευμένοι μέσα στην καυτή ατελείωτη άμμο.
Αυτό το ύπουλο ορυκτό με διάμετρο 1/8 του χιλιοστού (κατα μέσο όρο) ανά κόκκο, γεννιέται μέσα απο το χώμα και σαν κάτι ζωντανό έρπει εισχωρώντας παντού, είναι το
«κελί» της ζωής μας.
Αθόρυβα και σταθερά, χωρίς ποτέ να ησυχάζει, εισβάλει και απλώνεται, θανατώνοντας την επιφάνεια του εδάφους...και όχι μόνο.
Είναι άγονη και ξηρή λόγω της αδιάκοπης ροής της και δεν μπορεί να φιλοξενήσει ζωντανό πλάσμα.
Επομένως η άμμος κρίνεται ακατάλληλη για τη ζωή λόγω κίνησης, ενώ η μελαγχολία της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης εξαναγκάζει σε μια συνεχόμενη και ακίνητη προσκόλληση μέσα στο χρόνο. Μια καταδικαστική σταθερότητα.
Στο ερώτημα αν η προσκόλληση και η απραξία ειναι πιο ζωογόνες σε σχέση με την ακατάπαυστη ροή πιθανότητα η απαντηση ειναι : ικανότητα προσαρμογής!!!
Αυτό το μυθιστόρημα παρά την έντονη δυσφορία και την κλειστοφοβική ατμόσφαιρα είναι εξεχόντως συναρπαστικό.
Η πλοκή λιγοστή και οι χαρακτήρες ελάχιστοι είναι φοβισμένα υποχείρια συμβόλων και υποταγμένων ιδεών.
Η υπόθεση τόσο απλή που γίνεται εθιστική και ύπουλη, επηρεάζοντας επικίνδυνα την ψυχολογική ταύτιση με τον αναγνώστη.
Το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ιστορίας διαδραματίζεται απελπιστικά είτε μέσα, είτε στον περίβολο της υπόγειας φυλακής - σε σχήμα σπιτιού - απο άμμο.
Οι πρωταγωνιστές δεν εμπνέουν συμπάθεια, είναι επιφανειακά κενοί, ξένοι, στείροι, όμως η πένα του συγγραφέα με την ίδια επίφαση ταύτισης μας κάνει ακούσια να ενδιαφερόμαστε και να πιστεύουμε σε αυτούς.
Γνωρίζοντας αρχικά ότι ο ήρωας μας είναι αγνοούμενος και μετά απο επτά χρόνια κηρρύσεται επισήμως άφαντος-νεκρός, ακολουθούμε την πορεία του συγγραφέα σε πραγματικό χρόνο που μας οδηγεί σε ένα χωριό.
Σε έναν τόπο ξεχασμένο απο θεούς και δαίμονες, σφηνωμένο μέσα σε τεράστιους αμμόλοφους ζούνε ανθρώπινα κουφάρια έρμαια και βασανισμένα απο τη θάλασσα της κινούμενης αμμου.
Ειναι οι ελεύθεροι θεματοφύλακες της παράδοσης τους.
Τα λιγοστά σπίτια είναι θαμμένα μέσα στη γη πνιγμένα απο την άμμο που πρέπει κάθε βράδυ να την φτυαρίζουν δίνοντας τιτάνιο αγώνα ώστε να μην πνίξει τα πάντα στον άνυδρο βυθό της.
Εκεί, εξαπατούν τον ήρωα μας που φθάνοντας στο χωριό ως ερασιτέχνης εντομολόγος, βρίσκεται εγκλωβισμένος σε ένα σισύφειο μαρτύριο.
Τον κατεβάζουν στο σπίτι της κόλασης απο άμμο το οποίο κατοικείται απο μια νεαρή χήρα που παλεύει νυχθημερόν να ζήσει και να αναχαιτίσει την άμμο πριν συμπαρασύρει όλο το χωριό στην άβυσσο της ανυπαρξίας.
Τα σπίτια εξαρτώνται το ένα απο το άλλο επομένως το μαρτύριο του «φτυαρίσματος»είναι καθημερινό και απαραίτητο.
Κάθε μέρα η ζέστη είναι ανελέητη, οι βολβοί των ματιών βράζουν,τα σπλάχνα καίγονται και τα πνευμόνια παίρνουν φωτιά. Παράλληλα η άμμος που εισχωρεί παντού γεμίζει με τους θανατηφόρους κόκκους της τα πάντα δημιουργώντας πληγές και πόνους.
Η λαχτάρα για ελευθερία καταπλακώνεται απο τόννους άμμου και χάνεται μαζί με την ανθρώπινη ψυχή.
Η συνήθεια του εγκλεισμού και η τρυφερή σχέση μεταξύ των δυο κρατουμένων ίσως να αποκτά μια ζοφερή αλλά σωτήρια καταδίκη.
«Επανέλαβε το ίδιο κάμποσες φορές, ώσπου το σάλιο έγινε κολλώδες, σα λιωμένα φύκια, και στάθηκε στο λάρυγγά του. Σίγουρα δεν αισθανόταν υπνηλία, όμως απ’ την εξάντληση η συνείδησή του είχε γίνει σαν βρεγμένο χαρτί. Ήτα σαν να ’βλεπε τα πάντα μέσα από ένα τέτοιο χαρτί, που το είχε σηκώσει στο φως. Το τοπίο γύρω είχε γίνει ένα σύνολο από βρόμικες κηλίδες και γραμμές, που έπλεε μπροστά του. Ήταν ένα τοπίο σαν αινιγματική εικόνα. Υπάρχει μια γυναίκα…Υπάρχει η άμμος…Υπάρχει ο ήλιος… Υπάρχει το εντελώς άδειο κιούπι του νερού… Από πού τέλος πάντων θα ’πρεπε λοιπόν ν’ αρχίσει προκειμένου να λύσει αυτή την εξίσωση, τη γεμάτη με άγνωστους Χ;»
🌄💥☀️🔥🌄💥☀️🔥🌄
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
April 9, 2019
This book tell the story of an entomologist that, in his search for a specific beetle, ends up trapped by local villagers in a huge sand hole with a woman, where he is forced to work gathering sand. As time pass by, his emotions and sanity begin to get twisted. In his struggle to escape both human and nature obstacles, he tries different strategies, and we are caught cheering for his success, but kind of knowing that his chances are minimal, which is a good "distressing" experience.
This is truly timeless, global, layered story that everyone should read. A man is trapped in a sand pit by villagers while he is out hunting for insects in the dunes. He is forced to shovel sand out day after day, as he plots to escape and forms an odd relationship with the woman who shares the pit. The role of the woman is intriguing. She is a sex object, his rational conscience, an imagined foe, an eventual partner/friend-- and at the same time, very one dimensional. The sand, the insects even, are more developed as characters than the woman is. The real appeal of this novel is in the existentialist allegory. It's life, as perceived by most humans at the various stages of maturity. Anger, selfishness, rebellion. Then, reason, planning, strategic alliances. Lastly, acceptance, contentment, humanity. At the end, as he is close to achieving his purported goal, he chooses to delay. To delay death perhaps? Is the message here that life is the journey and not the destination? Is freedom all we imagine, or do we all harbor a hidden need to be enslaved?I would love to spend some time with this book again-- perhaps with a class-- and study it closely. There is much to appreciate-- from the sand and insect imagery, to the enigmatic woman, to the man's psychological states. I can't take it all in with one read.
This is truly timeless, global, layered story that everyone should read. A man is trapped in a sand pit by villagers while he is out hunting for insects in the dunes. He is forced to shovel sand out day after day, as he plots to escape and forms an odd relationship with the woman who shares the pit. The role of the woman is intriguing. She is a sex object, his rational conscience, an imagined foe, an eventual partner/friend-- and at the same time, very one dimensional. The sand, the insects even, are more developed as characters than the woman is. The real appeal of this novel is in the existentialist allegory. It's life, as perceived by most humans at the various stages of maturity. Anger, selfishness, rebellion. Then, reason, planning, strategic alliances. Lastly, acceptance, contentment, humanity. At the end, as he is close to achieving his purported goal, he chooses to delay. To delay death perhaps? Is the message here that life is the journey and not the destination? Is freedom all we imagine, or do we all harbor a hidden need to be enslaved?I would love to spend some time with this book again-- perhaps with a class-- and study it closely. There is much to appreciate-- from the sand and insect imagery, to the enigmatic woman, to the man's psychological states. I can't take it all in with one read.
February 10, 2020
یک رمان قشنگ و دوست داشتنی. چند نکتهی کوچک:
یک. ابتدا فیلم اقتباسی این رمان را (که آقای هیروشی تشیگاهارا کارگردانی کرده) دیدم و به خواندن آن بسیار مشتاق شدم. هم فیلم و هم کتاب فوقالعاده هستند. نظر من این است که اول کتاب را بخوانید، بعد فیلم را ببینید.
Woman in the dunes (1964) 8.5
دو. اگر دوستی حشره شناس دارید که به رمان علاقهمند است این مورد را به او پیشنهاد دهید چرا که فکر میکنم برایش بسیار جذاب باشد.
سه. دوستی گفته بود ترجمهی آقای غبرایی را نخوانید که خیلی زیاد غلط ترجمه شده و سانسور زیاد دارد. هر چند آقای غبرایی شناخته شده است ولی من نسخهی انگلیسی کتاب (ترجمهی دکتر ساندرس که خودش دکترای مطالعات ژاپنی دارد) را هم برای کنجکاوی خودم گرفتم و البته با دانش زبانی ضعیف خود مقایسهای کوچک و در حد توان انجام دادم. به نظر من که ترجمهی آقای غبرایی خوب بود گرچه بعضاً ایرادهای خیلی خیلی کوچکی داشت (انگشت شمار) و بخشهایی که من نگاه کردم مشکلی نداشت. از نظر سانسور هم آقای غبرایی تمام تلاششان را کرده بودند سانسور صورت نگیرد ولی خب حدود یک صفحه: 10 الی 15خط (در کل کتاب) بالاجبار سانسور شده بود که مشخص بود دیگر از دست ایشان خارج بوده و فکر میکنم سانسور زیادی نباشد و آنچنان لطمهی بزرگی به کتاب نزند. با این همه این نظر شخصی من است و باید اهل فن ترجمه دربارهی آن اظهار نظر کنند. در صورت علاقهمندی بگویید فایل انگلیسی را برایتان ارسال کنم.
چهار. مورد جالبی که هم در فیلم و هم در کتاب توجهم را جلب کرد مسئلهای بود که کوبو آبه از خیام نقل کرده بود. برایتان عیناً میآورم:
"همین روانی شنها شهرهای آباد و امپراتوریهای بزرگ را بلعیده و ویران کرده بود. اگر درست به یادش مانده باشد به این گفتهاند "شن زدگی" امپراتوری روم. یا شهر دورافتادهای که عمر خیام از آن یاد کرده بود، با خیاطها و قصابها، بازارها و شوارع، که چون رشتههای تور ماهی گیری در هم بافته بودند. چند سال نزاع و لابه لازم بوده که فقط یکی از این رشتههای در هم بافته را تغییر دهد! شهرهای باستانی که هیچ کس در سکونشان شک نمیکند... با این حال سرانجام اینها هم نتوانستند در برابر قانون جریان دانههای یک هشتم میلی متری شن مقاومت کنند." ص 47 کتاب.
مورد جالب برایم آشنایی آبه با خیام بود. و سؤالم این که خیام در کدام اثر مکتوبش از چنین چیزی یاد کرده است؟ اگر به ذهن شما چیزی خطور کرد یا توضیحی دارید به من هم بگویید ممنون میشوم.
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یکی از همکارانش که روانکاوی غیرحرفهای بود، مدعی بود که علاقه به وقت گذرانی بیهودهای مانند گردآوری حشرات در آدم بالغ، بی برو برگرد دال بر اختلال روانی است. حتی در مورد اطفال، اشتغال خاطر غیرعادی به جمعآوری حشرات اغلب نشانهی عقدهی ادیپ است. کودک به جبران امیال ارضا نشدهاش، از اینکه به تن حشرات سنجاق فرو کند لذت میبرد، چون نمیخواهد هرگز ترس از گریزشان را به دل راه دهد. ص 12 کتاب
دلش میخواست باور کند که سکونش مایهی ایستادن دنیا از حرکت شده است، همان طور که قورباغهی زمستان خواب، زمستان را انکار میکند. ص 58 کتاب
اگر زندگی فقط از چیزهای مهم ساخته شده باشد، به راستی خانهی شیشهای خطرناکی خواهد بود که کمتر میتوان بیپروا دست به دستش کرد. ص 94 کتاب
زندگی آدم نباید مثل ورقهای پراکندهی کاغذ باشد. زندگی دفتر خاطرات صحافی شده است، و همان صفحهی اول هم برای یک کتاب زیادی است. ص 129 کتاب
Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel? (Movie)
یک. ابتدا فیلم اقتباسی این رمان را (که آقای هیروشی تشیگاهارا کارگردانی کرده) دیدم و به خواندن آن بسیار مشتاق شدم. هم فیلم و هم کتاب فوقالعاده هستند. نظر من این است که اول کتاب را بخوانید، بعد فیلم را ببینید.
Woman in the dunes (1964) 8.5
دو. اگر دوستی حشره شناس دارید که به رمان علاقهمند است این مورد را به او پیشنهاد دهید چرا که فکر میکنم برایش بسیار جذاب باشد.
سه. دوستی گفته بود ترجمهی آقای غبرایی را نخوانید که خیلی زیاد غلط ترجمه شده و سانسور زیاد دارد. هر چند آقای غبرایی شناخته شده است ولی من نسخهی انگلیسی کتاب (ترجمهی دکتر ساندرس که خودش دکترای مطالعات ژاپنی دارد) را هم برای کنجکاوی خودم گرفتم و البته با دانش زبانی ضعیف خود مقایسهای کوچک و در حد توان انجام دادم. به نظر من که ترجمهی آقای غبرایی خوب بود گرچه بعضاً ایرادهای خیلی خیلی کوچکی داشت (انگشت شمار) و بخشهایی که من نگاه کردم مشکلی نداشت. از نظر سانسور هم آقای غبرایی تمام تلاششان را کرده بودند سانسور صورت نگیرد ولی خب حدود یک صفحه: 10 الی 15خط (در کل کتاب) بالاجبار سانسور شده بود که مشخص بود دیگر از دست ایشان خارج بوده و فکر میکنم سانسور زیادی نباشد و آنچنان لطمهی بزرگی به کتاب نزند. با این همه این نظر شخصی من است و باید اهل فن ترجمه دربارهی آن اظهار نظر کنند. در صورت علاقهمندی بگویید فایل انگلیسی را برایتان ارسال کنم.
چهار. مورد جالبی که هم در فیلم و هم در کتاب توجهم را جلب کرد مسئلهای بود که کوبو آبه از خیام نقل کرده بود. برایتان عیناً میآورم:
"همین روانی شنها شهرهای آباد و امپراتوریهای بزرگ را بلعیده و ویران کرده بود. اگر درست به یادش مانده باشد به این گفتهاند "شن زدگی" امپراتوری روم. یا شهر دورافتادهای که عمر خیام از آن یاد کرده بود، با خیاطها و قصابها، بازارها و شوارع، که چون رشتههای تور ماهی گیری در هم بافته بودند. چند سال نزاع و لابه لازم بوده که فقط یکی از این رشتههای در هم بافته را تغییر دهد! شهرهای باستانی که هیچ کس در سکونشان شک نمیکند... با این حال سرانجام اینها هم نتوانستند در برابر قانون جریان دانههای یک هشتم میلی متری شن مقاومت کنند." ص 47 کتاب.
مورد جالب برایم آشنایی آبه با خیام بود. و سؤالم این که خیام در کدام اثر مکتوبش از چنین چیزی یاد کرده است؟ اگر به ذهن شما چیزی خطور کرد یا توضیحی دارید به من هم بگویید ممنون میشوم.
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یکی از همکارانش که روانکاوی غیرحرفهای بود، مدعی بود که علاقه به وقت گذرانی بیهودهای مانند گردآوری حشرات در آدم بالغ، بی برو برگرد دال بر اختلال روانی است. حتی در مورد اطفال، اشتغال خاطر غیرعادی به جمعآوری حشرات اغلب نشانهی عقدهی ادیپ است. کودک به جبران امیال ارضا نشدهاش، از اینکه به تن حشرات سنجاق فرو کند لذت میبرد، چون نمیخواهد هرگز ترس از گریزشان را به دل راه دهد. ص 12 کتاب
دلش میخواست باور کند که سکونش مایهی ایستادن دنیا از حرکت شده است، همان طور که قورباغهی زمستان خواب، زمستان را انکار میکند. ص 58 کتاب
اگر زندگی فقط از چیزهای مهم ساخته شده باشد، به راستی خانهی شیشهای خطرناکی خواهد بود که کمتر میتوان بیپروا دست به دستش کرد. ص 94 کتاب
زندگی آدم نباید مثل ورقهای پراکندهی کاغذ باشد. زندگی دفتر خاطرات صحافی شده است، و همان صفحهی اول هم برای یک کتاب زیادی است. ص 129 کتاب
Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel? (Movie)
June 7, 2025
Had my arachnophobia been replaced by Ammophobia (fear of sand) there was a certain moment in Kōbō Abe's 1962 existential fable my hands would have turned extra clammy and my thumping heart would have likely jumped out of my chest to find safety. It reads something like a Japanese Kafka, infused with a bit of Nietzsche, and topped off with a light dusting of Beckett. Abe was generally known for work where plot and character are usually subservient to idea and symbol. This makes The Woman in the Dunes something of an anomaly. Its plot is somewhat devious, addictive yes, but rather straightforward, told in almost abstract, allegorical terms.
A nameless man arrives in a remote area of sand dunes with the hope of finding a certain type of sand beetle. As the day draws to a close, villagers offer him shelter in a ramshackle old house at the bottom of a funnel-shaped pit of sand, where descent is only possible by a rope ladder. The only inhabitant, a young woman, spends most of the time shovelling epic amounts of sand into buckets, which are then raised up the sand cliffs, and sold off to construction companies, apparently. On awakening the first morning the man finds the ladder gone, and no other means to escape, with his attempts to climb out of the pit becoming futile. For the most part he is filled with both anger and fear. His world is now a prison, not of brick walls, cells, or barbed wire fences, but of sand.
A strange relationship then develops between the man and woman, with an underlying weird sort of sexual tension going on. Ultimately, when the two aren't stuck in the house together, the novel pits the man’s strong will to escape this sun-baked landscape of sand, against the villagers, who do what it takes to keep him down there, which does lead to some compelling reading. One thing that struck me, is that most of the story happens either inside or right outside the woman’s abode, like it could have been engineered for the stage. I liked its stripped down nature before it started to get too metaphysical for its own good, but still, I really enjoyed it. It's certainly one that I couldn't get out of my head for weeks.
October 20, 2022
Kōbō Abe - Image from Vice.com
This is a kafkaesque story of an entomologist who travels to a remote village in search of a new species of beetle. It is he and not the bug who is captured. The village is beset by relentless sand. Their homes have already been buried so deep that it takes full time effort by residents to remove incoming sand from the holes in which their houses are now nearly buried to keep from being destroyed. Jumpei is placed in the home of a widow to help her. The story tells of his imprisonment and his attempts to escape. There is much detail here about sand, but the true intent here is an examination of life. What is existence? What is the true role of man? Do we control our fate? If so, how much? A bond grows between the man and woman, and becomes sexual. Finally, he is faced with a choice, when freedom is offered, to stay or go. There is one scene that is quite chilling, in which taunting village elders at the top of his hole tease him that they will set him free if he will only have sex with the woman in their view. God playing with his human toys? I appreciated the intellectual drive of the novel, but I never felt much of a visceral tie to the characters. The absurdity of the story prevented that for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 5, 2018
When we mix surrealistic Kafkaesque climate with existential questions about sense of human being then we get something like The woman in the dunes.
Tale about a man obsessed or maybe possessed with sand who during the trip to the sea is trapped in the dunes in a cave inhabited by a lonely woman. Initially desperately tries to escape but the magnetic strength of the woman, her desperate fight with sand makes that what previously seemed to be a trap now becomes a sense of his life. The first what comes to your mind is like: hang on, I know that history. It's like The Trial by Kafka. The same anonymous hero, entangled in an absurd situation, condemned and imprisoned for unspecified faults.
Prose is hallucinatory, atmosphere stifling and nightmarish. This story is captured by the sand. In fact, sand rules everyone and everything, sand never rested. Reading you can almost hear rustle of the sand as if it was pouring from the book.
July 19, 2017
داستان مردی که توی کلبهای شنی گیر میافته و درصورتی که خونه رو شنروبی نکنه کشته میشه. درواقع مرد رو مجبور به موندن توی خونه کردن. حالا این مرد یا باید فرار کنه، یا باید به این سرنوشت تن بده
(برای از بین نرفتن کیف و حالِ خوندن کتاب، خیلی خیلی داستان و المانهاش رو خلاصه کردم)
مساله اینجاست که این شنروبی و این کارهای روزمره، استعارهای از اعمال روتین انسان در زندگیه. درواقع شبیهترین چیز به این کتاب، افسانه سیزیف هست. همون سیزیفی که هر روز باید سنگی رو به بالای کوه میغلطوند و سنگ باز به پایینِ کوه سر میخورد و این عمل تا انتهای عمر سیزیف ادامه داشت.
مرد تلاش میکنه که از سرنوشت(خونه) فرار کنه. سعی میکنه هرکاری بکنه تا بتونه به زندگی قبلیش(یک روتین دیگه) فرار کنه.
زندگی قبلیش، روتین دیگه ای بود. درواقع حلقههای زیادی برای زندگی وجود داره و انسان نهایتن میتونه از این حلقه به اون حلقه پرش کنه اما چیزی که اجتنابناپذیره روتین بودن و غیرانتخابی بودنِ زندگیه. مرد، انتخابی برای رفتن به خونهی شنی نداشت. اما با بودنِ اونجا، برای حفظ جونش مجبور بود که شنروبی کنه. هرچند که این کار براش دوستداشتنی نبود. از طرف دیگه، کمکم بخشهایی از این زندگی(مثل زن) براش لذتبخش شد. مثل لذتهای زندگی که میتونه مارو در عین اجتنابناپذیری زندگی تسلی بده.
حرف این کتاب، حرف کامو توی کتاب افسانه سیزیف هست. به صورت داستانی. داستانی که خیلی خوب پرداخت شده و خیلی خوب روایت شده و خیلی خوب توصیف شده و خیلی خوب همه چیزهای لازم رو به هم چسبونده و با خوندنش هم لذت میبری هم فکر میکنی.
شن توی این داستان میتونه نمادی از زمان باشه. که توش دستوپا میزنیم. ساعت شنی. اگه توش گیر کرده باشی و دست و پا بزنی، غرق میشی توش. فقط باید با خصوصیات و ویژگیهای شن آشنا بشی و بهترین استفاده رو ازش ببری.
همونطوری که توی مقدمه هم ذکر شده، کتاب بار فلسفه اگزیستنسیالیسم رو به دوش میکشه.
(برای از بین نرفتن کیف و حالِ خوندن کتاب، خیلی خیلی داستان و المانهاش رو خلاصه کردم)
مساله اینجاست که این شنروبی و این کارهای روزمره، استعارهای از اعمال روتین انسان در زندگیه. درواقع شبیهترین چیز به این کتاب، افسانه سیزیف هست. همون سیزیفی که هر روز باید سنگی رو به بالای کوه میغلطوند و سنگ باز به پایینِ کوه سر میخورد و این عمل تا انتهای عمر سیزیف ادامه داشت.
مرد تلاش میکنه که از سرنوشت(خونه) فرار کنه. سعی میکنه هرکاری بکنه تا بتونه به زندگی قبلیش(یک روتین دیگه) فرار کنه.
زندگی قبلیش، روتین دیگه ای بود. درواقع حلقههای زیادی برای زندگی وجود داره و انسان نهایتن میتونه از این حلقه به اون حلقه پرش کنه اما چیزی که اجتنابناپذیره روتین بودن و غیرانتخابی بودنِ زندگیه. مرد، انتخابی برای رفتن به خونهی شنی نداشت. اما با بودنِ اونجا، برای حفظ جونش مجبور بود که شنروبی کنه. هرچند که این کار براش دوستداشتنی نبود. از طرف دیگه، کمکم بخشهایی از این زندگی(مثل زن) براش لذتبخش شد. مثل لذتهای زندگی که میتونه مارو در عین اجتنابناپذیری زندگی تسلی بده.
حرف این کتاب، حرف کامو توی کتاب افسانه سیزیف هست. به صورت داستانی. داستانی که خیلی خوب پرداخت شده و خیلی خوب روایت شده و خیلی خوب توصیف شده و خیلی خوب همه چیزهای لازم رو به هم چسبونده و با خوندنش هم لذت میبری هم فکر میکنی.
شن توی این داستان میتونه نمادی از زمان باشه. که توش دستوپا میزنیم. ساعت شنی. اگه توش گیر کرده باشی و دست و پا بزنی، غرق میشی توش. فقط باید با خصوصیات و ویژگیهای شن آشنا بشی و بهترین استفاده رو ازش ببری.
همونطوری که توی مقدمه هم ذکر شده، کتاب بار فلسفه اگزیستنسیالیسم رو به دوش میکشه.
July 20, 2025
I have long wondered and still wonder about the meaning of this masterful novel. So, I updated the "myth of Sisyphus." In each cell of sandy ground, guards watch each occupant of his hole correctly evacuate the sand to keep this sort of alveolar village alive. Despite himself, the protagonist will fall into one of these holes already occupied by a woman who can no longer, on her own, evacuate the sand. And our man quickly realizes that the trap has closed on him. After the failure of his escape, he will understand that his future will be spent with this woman, working to extract the sand. Sand seeps everywhere. Little by little, a more tender relationship will develop within the couple, and it will become less aggressive.
Is our existence limited to that of Sisyphus, endlessly recommencing the same task? Consciously accept that this is the meaning of our existence, as Camus thinks? To be linked in the sense of the absurd, dear to Kobo. The absurdity of our life. (There, I think Camus would no longer agree).
Abe Kobo, with this book, poses one of the essential conditions of the meaning of life. Also, the writing is masterful. You feel the sand seep through all the crevices.
We too often forget Abe Kobo among Japanese novelists to remember.
Is our existence limited to that of Sisyphus, endlessly recommencing the same task? Consciously accept that this is the meaning of our existence, as Camus thinks? To be linked in the sense of the absurd, dear to Kobo. The absurdity of our life. (There, I think Camus would no longer agree).
Abe Kobo, with this book, poses one of the essential conditions of the meaning of life. Also, the writing is masterful. You feel the sand seep through all the crevices.
We too often forget Abe Kobo among Japanese novelists to remember.
April 18, 2018
Bu yorum da diğer yorumlarım ve bundan sonra gireceklerim gibi ağır spoiler içerir.
Kumların Kadını’nı konuşmadan önce biraz geçmişte dolaşalım, toparlarsak bugüne geliriz. Böcekten ve Kobo Abe’nin benzetildiği yerden başlayalım; Kafka’da böcek imgesinin ilk ortaya çıktığı eser Taşrada Düğün Hazırlıkları’dır, “ yatakta yatarken sanırım kocaman bir böceğe, bir geyik böceğine ya da mayıs böceğine dönüşeceğim” Samsa’nın devcileyin bir böcek olarak uyanmasına henüz dört yıl var. Bu böcekleşmenin her kitabına sirayet ettiği yazar ise Dostoyevski’dir, ya yukarıdan bir gözün böcek gibi gördüğü, böcek gibi ezdiği karakterler ya da yeraltı adamının bir türlü olmayı beceremediği böcekleşme isteği.. Gogol’ün Akaki Akakievic’i ise “havada uçan bir sinek kadar “ değersizdir büro çalışanlarının gözünde. Bu böceğin Alman edebiyatında doğum yeri ise Goethe’nin Faust kitabıdır. Burada bir es verip kitaba dönelim.
Kahramanımız Tokyo’da öğretmenlik yapan ve “boş zamanlarında” keşfedilmemiş böcekler üzerine çalışan biridir. Hafta sonu tatilini iziniyle birleştirip yeni türler keşfedeceğini düşündüğü çölümsü bir bölgeye doğru yola çıkar. “Köyünü sev” pankartı dalgalanan bir bölgeye gelir, araştırmalara başlar, geç olur geri dönemez ve köylülerin önerisiyle yalnız bir kadının yaşadığı ve merdivenle inilen kumların ortasında bir evde konaklamayı kabul eder, bir başka deyişle oltaya gelir ve kuyuya “düşer”. Kitabın hemen başlarında kuma dair verilen ansiklopedik bilgide kumun ufalanmış kaya parçaları olduğunu görürüz. Düşüş ve kaya parçasından gelmek istediğim yeri anlamışsınızdır, elbette Camus. Kitap boyunca etkisini hissettiğimiz temel meselelerden biri de Camus, Düşüş ve Sisifos ( Japon mitolojisinde Sai nehri) söylencesi üzerinden varoluşçu felsefe. 2. Savaş sonrası batılı entelektüel dünyaya hakim olan bu kavramın edebiyatdaki güçlü izdüşümlerini batı edebiyatından çok Japon eserlerinde takip etmek de ilginç aslında.
Kitaba adını veren kumların kadını bütün dünyevi ve modernizmin doğurduğu istek ve arzulardan öte, yeme, içme, barınma, aitlik ve bulursa seks düzleminde ömrünü kumların köyü işgal etmemesi üzerine kurmuş, başka da bir tahayyülü olmayan öznelik kategorisinden düşürülmüş bireyi simgelemektedir. Her akşam sisifos azmiyle kumları küremektedir, ertesi akşam kumları küreyeceği bilgisiyle. Bu tekrarlanan rutine ceza gözüyle bakacak okur kendi gündelik rutini ile tekrarladıklarına bakarsa tehlikeli sorgulamalar girebilir aman dikkat diyelim. Kahramanımız bir gecelik sandığı misafirliğin ebediyete yelken açtığını fark ettiğinde her düşürülmüş birey gibi çıkış yolu aramaya başlar, önce kısa bir atar ( vergisini veren, kimlik ve ehliyet kartı olan, düzenli işe giden birinin böyle kolay düşeceğini nasıl düşünürsünüz) ardından plan aşaması gelir. Kuyuda kadın ile geçen bu bölüm kadın erkek ilişkilerine ve cinselliğe dair çok yetkin bir anlatı barındıyor ve eserin ikinci temel ayağını oluşturuyor, hatta kapsadığı alan itibari ve derinliğiyle diğer dertleri yer yer gölgede bırakıyor.
Tokyo’da öğretmenlik yapan, sendika kartı sahibi her birey gibi içine düştüğü bu saçmalık ile hesaplaşır ( ne yani kum küremek için mi yaşıyorsun) ama aslında anlatılan kendi hikayesidir ve bunu hissettikçe öfkesi artar. Nihayetinde sevgili dostlar, son kertede hepimiz varoluşuna anlam katmak için debelenen canlılarız ve bunu kuyuda kum küremek, dağa kaya yuvarlamak, sai nehrinde taş üstüne taş dizmek, goodreads de yorum yazmak gibi bin farkı yolu olsa da birini diğerinden değerli kılan şey durduğumuz noktadır.
Düşme sürer, kum küremeyi reddince kesilen suya dayanamaz ve ilk olarak kadının pozisyonuna yani ilksel insanın ihtiyaç düzeyine düşer, plan ertelenebilir önce suyu içip sevişeyim gerisini sonra düşünürüz noktasına gelir.
Yeni bir plan, kaçış başarılı olur ama ironik bir şekilde kumdan kaçarken kumdan bataklığın içine düşer ( sistem karşıtı alt kültürlerin kaçtıkları sisteme can suyu taşıması misali) Düzene sığınır, köylüler kurtarıcısı olur ve kuyusuna geri döner.
Ve yaklaşırız o çarpıcı sona, böceklerle başlamıştık oradan gidelim. Kuyunun başına gelen görevlilere “ denizi görmek istediği söyler” ve onlarda neden olmasın “ kadını çıkarıp karşılarında sevişirlerse bu isteği kabul edeceklerini " söylerler. Ve böcek araştırmacısı kahramanımız bu teklifi kabul eder, neden olmasın. Düşme böcekleşme ile tamamlanır, neden olmasın o artık bir özne değil, izlenebilen, kontrol edilebilen, vücudu üzerinde karar verilebilen ve insan olmadığı için başka insanların önünde çiftleşebilen bir böceğe dönüşmüştür. Biz edebiyat tarihinde böcekleşen, kendini böcek gibi hisseden, böcek olmak isteyen ya da iktidarın gözünde böcek kadar değeri olmayan bir sürü karakter görmüştük, Kobo Abe ise bizi işin en başına böcekleşmenin hikayesine götürüyor ve bunu mükemmel bir kurgu ile tamamlıyor.
Ve final; 6 aylık kuyu hapsinden sonra kadını hastaneye götürmek için sarkıtılan merdivenin ucunda yalnız görürüz kahramanımızı. İstese kaçabilir, engelleyecek kimse yok etrafında. Aman der, sonra da kaçarım ve kuyusuna döner, aklımızda kitaba, kendimize ve varoluşa dair çetrefilli sorular bırakarak.
Sonuç olarak; ince ve okuması görece kolay, edebi olarak yetkin, derdi ve tasası ile hayata değen, edebi ve felsefi referanslarının hakkını fazlasıyla veren bu başyapıtı gönül rahatlığıyla herkese önerir, şimdi ne okuyayım sorusuyla cebelleşmekten beni kurtaran Japon edebiyatına huzurlarınızda teşekkür ederim.
Kumların Kadını’nı konuşmadan önce biraz geçmişte dolaşalım, toparlarsak bugüne geliriz. Böcekten ve Kobo Abe’nin benzetildiği yerden başlayalım; Kafka’da böcek imgesinin ilk ortaya çıktığı eser Taşrada Düğün Hazırlıkları’dır, “ yatakta yatarken sanırım kocaman bir böceğe, bir geyik böceğine ya da mayıs böceğine dönüşeceğim” Samsa’nın devcileyin bir böcek olarak uyanmasına henüz dört yıl var. Bu böcekleşmenin her kitabına sirayet ettiği yazar ise Dostoyevski’dir, ya yukarıdan bir gözün böcek gibi gördüğü, böcek gibi ezdiği karakterler ya da yeraltı adamının bir türlü olmayı beceremediği böcekleşme isteği.. Gogol’ün Akaki Akakievic’i ise “havada uçan bir sinek kadar “ değersizdir büro çalışanlarının gözünde. Bu böceğin Alman edebiyatında doğum yeri ise Goethe’nin Faust kitabıdır. Burada bir es verip kitaba dönelim.
Kahramanımız Tokyo’da öğretmenlik yapan ve “boş zamanlarında” keşfedilmemiş böcekler üzerine çalışan biridir. Hafta sonu tatilini iziniyle birleştirip yeni türler keşfedeceğini düşündüğü çölümsü bir bölgeye doğru yola çıkar. “Köyünü sev” pankartı dalgalanan bir bölgeye gelir, araştırmalara başlar, geç olur geri dönemez ve köylülerin önerisiyle yalnız bir kadının yaşadığı ve merdivenle inilen kumların ortasında bir evde konaklamayı kabul eder, bir başka deyişle oltaya gelir ve kuyuya “düşer”. Kitabın hemen başlarında kuma dair verilen ansiklopedik bilgide kumun ufalanmış kaya parçaları olduğunu görürüz. Düşüş ve kaya parçasından gelmek istediğim yeri anlamışsınızdır, elbette Camus. Kitap boyunca etkisini hissettiğimiz temel meselelerden biri de Camus, Düşüş ve Sisifos ( Japon mitolojisinde Sai nehri) söylencesi üzerinden varoluşçu felsefe. 2. Savaş sonrası batılı entelektüel dünyaya hakim olan bu kavramın edebiyatdaki güçlü izdüşümlerini batı edebiyatından çok Japon eserlerinde takip etmek de ilginç aslında.
Kitaba adını veren kumların kadını bütün dünyevi ve modernizmin doğurduğu istek ve arzulardan öte, yeme, içme, barınma, aitlik ve bulursa seks düzleminde ömrünü kumların köyü işgal etmemesi üzerine kurmuş, başka da bir tahayyülü olmayan öznelik kategorisinden düşürülmüş bireyi simgelemektedir. Her akşam sisifos azmiyle kumları küremektedir, ertesi akşam kumları küreyeceği bilgisiyle. Bu tekrarlanan rutine ceza gözüyle bakacak okur kendi gündelik rutini ile tekrarladıklarına bakarsa tehlikeli sorgulamalar girebilir aman dikkat diyelim. Kahramanımız bir gecelik sandığı misafirliğin ebediyete yelken açtığını fark ettiğinde her düşürülmüş birey gibi çıkış yolu aramaya başlar, önce kısa bir atar ( vergisini veren, kimlik ve ehliyet kartı olan, düzenli işe giden birinin böyle kolay düşeceğini nasıl düşünürsünüz) ardından plan aşaması gelir. Kuyuda kadın ile geçen bu bölüm kadın erkek ilişkilerine ve cinselliğe dair çok yetkin bir anlatı barındıyor ve eserin ikinci temel ayağını oluşturuyor, hatta kapsadığı alan itibari ve derinliğiyle diğer dertleri yer yer gölgede bırakıyor.
Tokyo’da öğretmenlik yapan, sendika kartı sahibi her birey gibi içine düştüğü bu saçmalık ile hesaplaşır ( ne yani kum küremek için mi yaşıyorsun) ama aslında anlatılan kendi hikayesidir ve bunu hissettikçe öfkesi artar. Nihayetinde sevgili dostlar, son kertede hepimiz varoluşuna anlam katmak için debelenen canlılarız ve bunu kuyuda kum küremek, dağa kaya yuvarlamak, sai nehrinde taş üstüne taş dizmek, goodreads de yorum yazmak gibi bin farkı yolu olsa da birini diğerinden değerli kılan şey durduğumuz noktadır.
Düşme sürer, kum küremeyi reddince kesilen suya dayanamaz ve ilk olarak kadının pozisyonuna yani ilksel insanın ihtiyaç düzeyine düşer, plan ertelenebilir önce suyu içip sevişeyim gerisini sonra düşünürüz noktasına gelir.
Yeni bir plan, kaçış başarılı olur ama ironik bir şekilde kumdan kaçarken kumdan bataklığın içine düşer ( sistem karşıtı alt kültürlerin kaçtıkları sisteme can suyu taşıması misali) Düzene sığınır, köylüler kurtarıcısı olur ve kuyusuna geri döner.
Ve yaklaşırız o çarpıcı sona, böceklerle başlamıştık oradan gidelim. Kuyunun başına gelen görevlilere “ denizi görmek istediği söyler” ve onlarda neden olmasın “ kadını çıkarıp karşılarında sevişirlerse bu isteği kabul edeceklerini " söylerler. Ve böcek araştırmacısı kahramanımız bu teklifi kabul eder, neden olmasın. Düşme böcekleşme ile tamamlanır, neden olmasın o artık bir özne değil, izlenebilen, kontrol edilebilen, vücudu üzerinde karar verilebilen ve insan olmadığı için başka insanların önünde çiftleşebilen bir böceğe dönüşmüştür. Biz edebiyat tarihinde böcekleşen, kendini böcek gibi hisseden, böcek olmak isteyen ya da iktidarın gözünde böcek kadar değeri olmayan bir sürü karakter görmüştük, Kobo Abe ise bizi işin en başına böcekleşmenin hikayesine götürüyor ve bunu mükemmel bir kurgu ile tamamlıyor.
Ve final; 6 aylık kuyu hapsinden sonra kadını hastaneye götürmek için sarkıtılan merdivenin ucunda yalnız görürüz kahramanımızı. İstese kaçabilir, engelleyecek kimse yok etrafında. Aman der, sonra da kaçarım ve kuyusuna döner, aklımızda kitaba, kendimize ve varoluşa dair çetrefilli sorular bırakarak.
Sonuç olarak; ince ve okuması görece kolay, edebi olarak yetkin, derdi ve tasası ile hayata değen, edebi ve felsefi referanslarının hakkını fazlasıyla veren bu başyapıtı gönül rahatlığıyla herkese önerir, şimdi ne okuyayım sorusuyla cebelleşmekten beni kurtaran Japon edebiyatına huzurlarınızda teşekkür ederim.
August 21, 2019
Es ya un lugar común traer a Kafka a colación al comentar este tipo de novelas, pero quizás esta referencia, compartida por tantos, pueda orientar más y mejor que otros comentarios más elaborados.
Tres personajes sin nombre: el hombre, un Sísifo envuelto en una lucha absurda, interminable y abocada al fracaso; la arena, en su camino imparable hacia la destrucción; y una mujer, sumisa y entregada al que tenía que ser su compañero de fatigas en esa lucha a muerte con la arena y con la que el sexo es rabioso y resignado.
En medio, la infinita capacidad de adaptación del ser humano a cualesquier circunstancia y al absurdo de una vida para la que no hay explicación, para la que no hay respuestas. Como se puede leer por ahí, es una novela claustrofóbica, de escritura (no voy a decir árida que sería un chiste fácil y además no sería cierto) seca, sin florituras, muy sensual, en la que los sentidos, el olor, el gusto, el tacto, juegan un papel preponderante.
El final… no, mejor no digo nada sobre el final.
Un cuento bello, maravillosamente narrado. Un libro muy recomendable
August 5, 2022
رواية مختلفة وفكرة مميزة كتبها كوبو آبي سنة 1962
الإنسان عندما يصبح مجرد جسد بدون رأي أو إرادة حرة
ولا يملك الاعتراض على إجباره على عمل لا يرضاه
جومبي صائد الحشرات في الكثبان الرملية يجد نفسه مع امرأة في حفرة عميقة وسط الرمال
لا يستطيع الخروج منها وعليه أن يقوم بعمل محدد بدون أي نفع مادي أو معنوي.
الكاتب استطاع أن يصف ببراعة التغيرات في نفسية وتصرفات رجل فاقد للحرية ومحاط بالرمال على جسده وفي طعامه وشرابه
بدءاً من الأسئلة والاستنكار ثم الاحساس بالقهر والغضب والخوف ومحاولة الهرب
النهاية محيرة تثير التساؤل عن الاعتياد والاستسلام
تفاصيل الرواية مرئية تغمرك أثناء قراءتها في الرمال
الإنسان عندما يصبح مجرد جسد بدون رأي أو إرادة حرة
ولا يملك الاعتراض على إجباره على عمل لا يرضاه
جومبي صائد الحشرات في الكثبان الرملية يجد نفسه مع امرأة في حفرة عميقة وسط الرمال
لا يستطيع الخروج منها وعليه أن يقوم بعمل محدد بدون أي نفع مادي أو معنوي.
الكاتب استطاع أن يصف ببراعة التغيرات في نفسية وتصرفات رجل فاقد للحرية ومحاط بالرمال على جسده وفي طعامه وشرابه
بدءاً من الأسئلة والاستنكار ثم الاحساس بالقهر والغضب والخوف ومحاولة الهرب
النهاية محيرة تثير التساؤل عن الاعتياد والاستسلام
تفاصيل الرواية مرئية تغمرك أثناء قراءتها في الرمال
March 21, 2020
یک نکته یک سوال
نکته: مرده (آقای نیکی) خیلی قد کوتاه بود . من از مرد کوتاه خوشم نمیاد حتی اگه حشره شناس باشه.
سوال: چرا " زن در ریگ روان " و نه "مرد در ریگ روان "؟
..
صوتیش رو گوش دادم از آوای بوف، اجرا وحشتناک بد بود
نکته: مرده (آقای نیکی) خیلی قد کوتاه بود . من از مرد کوتاه خوشم نمیاد حتی اگه حشره شناس باشه.
سوال: چرا " زن در ریگ روان " و نه "مرد در ریگ روان "؟
..
صوتیش رو گوش دادم از آوای بوف، اجرا وحشتناک بد بود
April 16, 2020
One of my favorite books of all time. One of the best film adaptations of a book as well, done by Hiroshi Teshigahara in collaboration with Abe. Both are equally mesmeric.
Kobo Abe's well-honed, surreal worlds became etched permanently in my mind, and this novel more than his others. Even after reading some of his less intense, and less masterful novels, I still retained a deep appreciation for his bizarre aesthetic. You will discover a similar texture and attitude as in Poe or Baudelaire. Though he is not often discussed in the same circles as Kenzaburo Oe or Haruki Murakami, his influence has become far-reaching, and is more singular in its approach.
This is Abe's finest work, in my opinion, far-surpassing Box-Man, Ruined Map, Ark Sakura and Kangaroo Notebook. However, almost everything he wrote affected me in one way or another. This could have been because I read most of his oeuvre in college, impressionable as I was.
It wasn't until I also read Quicksand, by Tanizaki, that I realized that both novels were about on the same level in my mind. Tanizaki's masterpiece, less about sand, and more about love, felt like a parry to Abe's, even though Abe's came later. Both are existential. Abe's is more mythic, and Tanizaki's more grounded. I was socked in the gut by both. There is an essence of self-sabotage to the characters' psyches and an inescapable passion consumes them, leading inevitably toward a void. I was enraptured by Abe first, and will likely return to this novel far more often.
Entomology exists on the fringes of Woman in the Dunes, as it does in Ark Sakura. Insects crawl through the novels, but they also make for a nice comparison to the main characters, who are trapped in an environment, where their humanity wears away, kept in a terrarium of sorts, and we, the readers, are studying them, fascinated. The film captures the voyeuristic quality of the narration incredibly well.
The shifting psychological portraits that Abe presents to us, are reminiscent of his experimental plays. I believe he was concerned with the human being as an object among disorienting constraints. As in Box Man, the most intriguing aspects of the plot arise from the juxtaposition of humanity with the absurdity of their own weakness, their limitations define them, and allow them to discover hidden potentialities, often as disturbing as they are enlightening. He explores humanity's survival instinct in Beasts Head for Home, and much of the same sentiment can be found here.
As dark and brooding as Kafka, but pure, simple, yet beguilingly complex, this novel rewards those who seek to dwell in the liminal spaces between reality and dream. The burden of understanding ourselves is an illustration of perpetual motion. Humanity's protean heart is contained in us all, vaguely buried beneath layers of propriety, comfort and self-denial. If all the world were sand, if it was all we knew, how would our minds conform to the contours of our flat horizon? Would the solitary figures of other minds, blasted smooth and coppery, sink into our anima?
Enmesh yourself in this softly distressing masterpiece.
Kobo Abe's well-honed, surreal worlds became etched permanently in my mind, and this novel more than his others. Even after reading some of his less intense, and less masterful novels, I still retained a deep appreciation for his bizarre aesthetic. You will discover a similar texture and attitude as in Poe or Baudelaire. Though he is not often discussed in the same circles as Kenzaburo Oe or Haruki Murakami, his influence has become far-reaching, and is more singular in its approach.
This is Abe's finest work, in my opinion, far-surpassing Box-Man, Ruined Map, Ark Sakura and Kangaroo Notebook. However, almost everything he wrote affected me in one way or another. This could have been because I read most of his oeuvre in college, impressionable as I was.
It wasn't until I also read Quicksand, by Tanizaki, that I realized that both novels were about on the same level in my mind. Tanizaki's masterpiece, less about sand, and more about love, felt like a parry to Abe's, even though Abe's came later. Both are existential. Abe's is more mythic, and Tanizaki's more grounded. I was socked in the gut by both. There is an essence of self-sabotage to the characters' psyches and an inescapable passion consumes them, leading inevitably toward a void. I was enraptured by Abe first, and will likely return to this novel far more often.
Entomology exists on the fringes of Woman in the Dunes, as it does in Ark Sakura. Insects crawl through the novels, but they also make for a nice comparison to the main characters, who are trapped in an environment, where their humanity wears away, kept in a terrarium of sorts, and we, the readers, are studying them, fascinated. The film captures the voyeuristic quality of the narration incredibly well.
The shifting psychological portraits that Abe presents to us, are reminiscent of his experimental plays. I believe he was concerned with the human being as an object among disorienting constraints. As in Box Man, the most intriguing aspects of the plot arise from the juxtaposition of humanity with the absurdity of their own weakness, their limitations define them, and allow them to discover hidden potentialities, often as disturbing as they are enlightening. He explores humanity's survival instinct in Beasts Head for Home, and much of the same sentiment can be found here.
As dark and brooding as Kafka, but pure, simple, yet beguilingly complex, this novel rewards those who seek to dwell in the liminal spaces between reality and dream. The burden of understanding ourselves is an illustration of perpetual motion. Humanity's protean heart is contained in us all, vaguely buried beneath layers of propriety, comfort and self-denial. If all the world were sand, if it was all we knew, how would our minds conform to the contours of our flat horizon? Would the solitary figures of other minds, blasted smooth and coppery, sink into our anima?
Enmesh yourself in this softly distressing masterpiece.
September 11, 2023
Visceral, claustrophobic, poetic. And not for me.
- Anakin Skywalker a.k.a. Darth Vader
General and themes
I didn’t understand. But life isn’t something one can understand, I suppose.
The Woman in the Dunes brings us the mysterious tale of a man looking for insects but ending up in a seaside village of houses nestled in honeycomb like pits of sand. One of the creatures he plans to discover in the dunes is a beetle that is known to lures it victims into desserts to feast of their flesh when they die: likewise our narrator is ensnared and forced to live with an unnamed woman. Even when he first thinks It was still too soon to be frightened, as a reader you are soon made clear all is not well. This is further compounded by the fact the book starts in chapter one with saying that our main character is already missing for seven years.
Sand is an almost alive element in this book, ever present, ever moving and ever accumulating and trying to undo the human impact on the dunes. As is perspiration, the author brought the surroundings and the discomfort associated with it most vividly, if sometimes a bit repetitively, to life.
Theme wise there is a lot being covered in this short novel. There are some parts in the book that really reflect on the feebleness of social constructs versus power abuse, how quickly "civilized" behaviour can collapse (even though our main character paid all his taxes and is in all the registers of the government he catches himself thinking: Defeat begins with the fear that one has lost.). This is quite like Franz Kafka in terms of alienation, and the individual versus an unnamed and unseen collective/society. Also the sense of weirdness, the world being "off" from normal, reminded me of Haruki Murakami
We also have the lure of a simpler and uncomplicated life, not unlike the life our ancestors had 500 years ago. But overall I think the novel is about the human mind struggling for release versus insurmountable and impersonal obstacles. I at least read the book most as an allegory on growing up and accepting societal demands of you. A second plausible interpretation might be that it is a parable on mental illness developing and how the main character loses touch with normal society along the way.
Interpretation is often not easy: some of the chapters were quite vague in my opinion, chapter 20 with the spiritual rape musings was rather off putting for instance, and chapter 24 is also jumbled, no idea where the main character went, despite all of the descriptions Kōbō Abe gives us. The reflections on teaching sometimes woven in the main storyline felt a bit weird as well, and the whole recurring Mobius man and one way ticket discourse left me a bit baffled.
Our narrator
Suddenly a sorrow the colour of dawn welled up in him.
For someone whisked away, locked up and submitted to a kind of Sisyphus torture, Niki Jumpei is still quite unsympathetic.
He goes about nearly assaulting a woman, messing up her orderly life, hurting a dog and some kids, burning a moth with a cigarette, trying to escape on his own and thinking of a radio to send back as compensation to the one he leaves behind.
When his companion says “Why should we worry what happens to other people?”, he is shocked, but in all fairness, how does Jumpei care for others?
There is even a public sex for freedom scheme at the end that definitely made me feel the main character had fell to an animalistic level.
I feel that the book might work better as a movie, as it is so dependent on atmosphere and how it not really succeeded for me to bring alive the inner world of the characters.
I will add the 1964 film to my watchlist, and want to close of with an insightful quote from a review of this novel by my favourite author David Mitchell:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
Sand is the prison: literally, symbolically; and not just for the man. We, too, are down in this burning sandpit. We, too, must spend a lifetime doing a job as meaningless (to the universe at large, if not to ourselves) as shovelling never-ending deposits of sand into buckets, getting nothing for our pains but the barest essentials. As we read about the man’s predicament, existentially speaking, we are reading about our own.
- Anakin Skywalker a.k.a. Darth VaderGeneral and themes
I didn’t understand. But life isn’t something one can understand, I suppose.
The Woman in the Dunes brings us the mysterious tale of a man looking for insects but ending up in a seaside village of houses nestled in honeycomb like pits of sand. One of the creatures he plans to discover in the dunes is a beetle that is known to lures it victims into desserts to feast of their flesh when they die: likewise our narrator is ensnared and forced to live with an unnamed woman. Even when he first thinks It was still too soon to be frightened, as a reader you are soon made clear all is not well. This is further compounded by the fact the book starts in chapter one with saying that our main character is already missing for seven years.
Sand is an almost alive element in this book, ever present, ever moving and ever accumulating and trying to undo the human impact on the dunes. As is perspiration, the author brought the surroundings and the discomfort associated with it most vividly, if sometimes a bit repetitively, to life.
Theme wise there is a lot being covered in this short novel. There are some parts in the book that really reflect on the feebleness of social constructs versus power abuse, how quickly "civilized" behaviour can collapse (even though our main character paid all his taxes and is in all the registers of the government he catches himself thinking: Defeat begins with the fear that one has lost.). This is quite like Franz Kafka in terms of alienation, and the individual versus an unnamed and unseen collective/society. Also the sense of weirdness, the world being "off" from normal, reminded me of Haruki Murakami
We also have the lure of a simpler and uncomplicated life, not unlike the life our ancestors had 500 years ago. But overall I think the novel is about the human mind struggling for release versus insurmountable and impersonal obstacles. I at least read the book most as an allegory on growing up and accepting societal demands of you. A second plausible interpretation might be that it is a parable on mental illness developing and how the main character loses touch with normal society along the way.
Interpretation is often not easy: some of the chapters were quite vague in my opinion, chapter 20 with the spiritual rape musings was rather off putting for instance, and chapter 24 is also jumbled, no idea where the main character went, despite all of the descriptions Kōbō Abe gives us. The reflections on teaching sometimes woven in the main storyline felt a bit weird as well, and the whole recurring Mobius man and one way ticket discourse left me a bit baffled.
Our narrator
Suddenly a sorrow the colour of dawn welled up in him.
For someone whisked away, locked up and submitted to a kind of Sisyphus torture, Niki Jumpei is still quite unsympathetic.
He goes about nearly assaulting a woman, messing up her orderly life, hurting a dog and some kids, burning a moth with a cigarette, trying to escape on his own and thinking of a radio to send back as compensation to the one he leaves behind.
When his companion says “Why should we worry what happens to other people?”, he is shocked, but in all fairness, how does Jumpei care for others?
There is even a public sex for freedom scheme at the end that definitely made me feel the main character had fell to an animalistic level.
I feel that the book might work better as a movie, as it is so dependent on atmosphere and how it not really succeeded for me to bring alive the inner world of the characters.
I will add the 1964 film to my watchlist, and want to close of with an insightful quote from a review of this novel by my favourite author David Mitchell:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
Sand is the prison: literally, symbolically; and not just for the man. We, too, are down in this burning sandpit. We, too, must spend a lifetime doing a job as meaningless (to the universe at large, if not to ourselves) as shovelling never-ending deposits of sand into buckets, getting nothing for our pains but the barest essentials. As we read about the man’s predicament, existentially speaking, we are reading about our own.
February 8, 2020
یه فضاسازی بکر و عجیب که یک تصویر منحصر به فرد رو تو ذهن موندگار میکنه. با تمام وجود طعم شن رو زیر زبونم حس کردم، هنوزم انگار تمام دهنم مزهی شن میده.
داستان از خو گرفتن به عادتها و مکانها میگه، شرایطی که شاید در روزهای اول برامون فجیع و غیرقابل تحمل و دردناک بیان اما به مرور زمان عادی میشن و حتی گاهی وقتها دوست داشتیو لذتبخش.. این هم تلخه هم عجیب، این سازگاری و عادت جبری وقتی کاری برای تغییر از دستت برنمیاد..
تصویر انتهایی کتاب درخشانه، و صد حیف که سانسور به یک دستی روایت لطمه زده. یک فیلم اقتباسی هم داره این کتاب که سال ۱۹۶۴ ساخته شده و البته چون ندیدمش فعلا نظری ندارم :))
داستان از خو گرفتن به عادتها و مکانها میگه، شرایطی که شاید در روزهای اول برامون فجیع و غیرقابل تحمل و دردناک بیان اما به مرور زمان عادی میشن و حتی گاهی وقتها دوست داشتیو لذتبخش.. این هم تلخه هم عجیب، این سازگاری و عادت جبری وقتی کاری برای تغییر از دستت برنمیاد..
تصویر انتهایی کتاب درخشانه، و صد حیف که سانسور به یک دستی روایت لطمه زده. یک فیلم اقتباسی هم داره این کتاب که سال ۱۹۶۴ ساخته شده و البته چون ندیدمش فعلا نظری ندارم :))
December 7, 2014
4.5 stars
Without the threat of punishment there is no joy in flight.
In Kobo Abe's fantasy world of The Woman in the Dunes, an amateur entomologist on vacation finds himself in a remote coastal village built amid deeply undulating dunes. There, he is tricked by a lonely widow and her neighboring villagers, trapped in deep pits shored by sand drift walls, to be charged with the task of shoveling back the ever-sliding banks, persistent and never-ending in its threat to entomb them.
Sand moves around like this all year long. Its flow is its life. It absolutely never stops— anywhere. Whether in water or air, it moves about free and unrestricted. So, usually, ordinary living things are unable to endure life in it.
The landscape of the dunes which Abe describes, of wood-rotted boxed dwellings built at the bottom of shifting sand hills, could not realistically exist, marking the novel as a science fiction/ fantasy thriller. In addition, its themes adopt surrealistic, dreamlike, metamorphosing features reminiscent of the works of Kafka, slowly shifting and deforming like the dunes themselves.
Sand...
Things with form were empty when placed beside sand. The only certain factor was its movement; sand was the antithesis of all form.
Abe's works are generically concerned with the human state of balance, whose fragility becomes evident in a life of pointlessness and insufferable futility. In The Woman in the Dunes, Abe presents the grotesque sadness borne from a man's oppressive, fruitless daily life; the image of a degraded human being who is isolated, trapped in the monotony of routine, unable to escape a meaningless existence.
What's hardest for me is not knowing what living like this will ever come to.
What was this "Hell of Loneliness"? he wondered. Perhaps they had misnamed it, he had thought then, but now he could understand it very well. Loneliness was an unsatisfied thirst for illusion.
To effectuate some meaningfulness to his situation, whether for the choice to stay or freedom of escape, the protagonist heroically attempts to alter his circumstance, significantly going through a metamorphosis of his own, but like the true kinetic nature of sand, its waves of ebbs and flows, his fate lays ambiguous.
. One of his colleagues, who was an amateur psychoanalyst, held to this view. He claimed that in a grown man enthusiasm for such a useless pastime as collecting insects was evidence enough of a mental quirk.
The Woman in the Dunes has its share of vocabulary best fitted for the field of science, reflecting Abe's background in the profession; though his manipulation of such language effectively results in a poetic blend of logic and illogic, never off-putting for the reader, simply suspending reality for a thrilling period of time, meaningfully spent. I feel comfortably balanced in recommending this to readers of both sci-fi and Japanese literature.
Without the threat of punishment there is no joy in flight.
In Kobo Abe's fantasy world of The Woman in the Dunes, an amateur entomologist on vacation finds himself in a remote coastal village built amid deeply undulating dunes. There, he is tricked by a lonely widow and her neighboring villagers, trapped in deep pits shored by sand drift walls, to be charged with the task of shoveling back the ever-sliding banks, persistent and never-ending in its threat to entomb them.
Sand moves around like this all year long. Its flow is its life. It absolutely never stops— anywhere. Whether in water or air, it moves about free and unrestricted. So, usually, ordinary living things are unable to endure life in it.
The landscape of the dunes which Abe describes, of wood-rotted boxed dwellings built at the bottom of shifting sand hills, could not realistically exist, marking the novel as a science fiction/ fantasy thriller. In addition, its themes adopt surrealistic, dreamlike, metamorphosing features reminiscent of the works of Kafka, slowly shifting and deforming like the dunes themselves.
Sand...
Things with form were empty when placed beside sand. The only certain factor was its movement; sand was the antithesis of all form.
Abe's works are generically concerned with the human state of balance, whose fragility becomes evident in a life of pointlessness and insufferable futility. In The Woman in the Dunes, Abe presents the grotesque sadness borne from a man's oppressive, fruitless daily life; the image of a degraded human being who is isolated, trapped in the monotony of routine, unable to escape a meaningless existence.
What's hardest for me is not knowing what living like this will ever come to.
What was this "Hell of Loneliness"? he wondered. Perhaps they had misnamed it, he had thought then, but now he could understand it very well. Loneliness was an unsatisfied thirst for illusion.
To effectuate some meaningfulness to his situation, whether for the choice to stay or freedom of escape, the protagonist heroically attempts to alter his circumstance, significantly going through a metamorphosis of his own, but like the true kinetic nature of sand, its waves of ebbs and flows, his fate lays ambiguous.
. One of his colleagues, who was an amateur psychoanalyst, held to this view. He claimed that in a grown man enthusiasm for such a useless pastime as collecting insects was evidence enough of a mental quirk.
The Woman in the Dunes has its share of vocabulary best fitted for the field of science, reflecting Abe's background in the profession; though his manipulation of such language effectively results in a poetic blend of logic and illogic, never off-putting for the reader, simply suspending reality for a thrilling period of time, meaningfully spent. I feel comfortably balanced in recommending this to readers of both sci-fi and Japanese literature.
April 9, 2014
“While he mused on the effect of the flowing sands, he was seized from time to time by hallucinations in which he himself began to move with the flow.”
This book is about a man who tricked and has to live in a house at the bottom of a sand pit with a woman. They can't escape the sand which settles on them even as they sleep. As much as they shovel it away, they can't get rid of it.
This is definitely a unique story. I now know more about sand than I probably need to. I never really thought much about sand but I kind of didn't have a choice in this book.
This book is about a man who tricked and has to live in a house at the bottom of a sand pit with a woman. They can't escape the sand which settles on them even as they sleep. As much as they shovel it away, they can't get rid of it.
This is definitely a unique story. I now know more about sand than I probably need to. I never really thought much about sand but I kind of didn't have a choice in this book.
January 22, 2020
در سالی که گذشت من سه رمان #اگزیستانسیالیستی خواندم. بدون هیچ برنامهریزی قبلی! و البته این احتمالا نشان میدهد که این فلسفه چطور در قرن گذشته بر ادبیات ملل مختلف از شرق تا غرب تاثیر گذاشتهبودهاست. سه رمان اینها بودند:
زن در ریگ روان
دمیان
تنهایی پر هیاهو
از این بگذریم که ویکیپدیای انگلیسی این سه رمان را در صفحهء رمانهای اگزیستانسیالیستی از قلم انداخته، پایگاه معتبر #گودریدز صورتی از بهترین رمانهای اگزیستانسیالیستی جهان را ارائه کرده که برای شناخت آثار اگزیستانسیالیستی بدک نیست. این که میگویم بدک نیست از آن بابت است که تعداد زیاد رمان ها اعتبار این گزینش را زیر سوال میبرد. به علاوه رمان درخشانی مثل #دمیان را در این صورت در ردیف 213 و مثلا پایینتر از "آوای وحش" جک لندن قرارداده! با این که نشانههای اگزیستانسیالیسم در دمیان بسیار بارز هستند.
متعجب شدم که چطور تصمیم گرفتم با نوشتن این یادداشت کوتاه اشارهای بکنم به عناصر اگزیستانسیالیستی در چهار رمان زیر:
در ابتدا لازم است یادآور شوم که گاه اگزیستانسالیستی بودن کاملا یک کیفیت خاص ناملموس است که در اثر وجود دارد و اصلا شکل کمی و مرئی ندارد. بنابراین هرگز نمیتوان با ریختن این عناصر در یک داستان، رمان اگزیستانسیالیستی نوشت.
نخستین عنصر رمانهای اگزیستانسیالیستی #تنهایی است. شخصیت قهرمان در این گونه رمانها همیشه خود را تنها مییابد. این تنهایی عموما به شکل بریدن از پیوندهای خانوادگی هم بروز مییابد. همانگونه که در #بیگانه آلبر کامو رمان با خبر مرگ مادر و بیتفاوتی راوی آغاز میشود.
در رمان "زن در ریگ روان" نوشتهء نویسنده بزرگ ژاپنی #کوبو_آبه شخصیت اصلی به تنهایی در حال سفر برای یافتن حشرات است که درگیر ماجرایی عجیب میشود. او همسرش را بیخبر رها کرده و در پایان داستان میبینیم
بعدالتحریر:
به بهانه سالگرد درگذشت این نویسنده ژاپنی بریدهای از بخشهای ابتدای کتاب را با صدای بنده بشنوید + تصاویر فیلم سینمایی اقتباس شده از این رمان
https://www.aparat.com/v/ioWdb
زن در ریگ روان
دمیان
تنهایی پر هیاهو
از این بگذریم که ویکیپدیای انگلیسی این سه رمان را در صفحهء رمانهای اگزیستانسیالیستی از قلم انداخته، پایگاه معتبر #گودریدز صورتی از بهترین رمانهای اگزیستانسیالیستی جهان را ارائه کرده که برای شناخت آثار اگزیستانسیالیستی بدک نیست. این که میگویم بدک نیست از آن بابت است که تعداد زیاد رمان ها اعتبار این گزینش را زیر سوال میبرد. به علاوه رمان درخشانی مثل #دمیان را در این صورت در ردیف 213 و مثلا پایینتر از "آوای وحش" جک لندن قرارداده! با این که نشانههای اگزیستانسیالیسم در دمیان بسیار بارز هستند.
متعجب شدم که چطور تصمیم گرفتم با نوشتن این یادداشت کوتاه اشارهای بکنم به عناصر اگزیستانسیالیستی در چهار رمان زیر:
در ابتدا لازم است یادآور شوم که گاه اگزیستانسالیستی بودن کاملا یک کیفیت خاص ناملموس است که در اثر وجود دارد و اصلا شکل کمی و مرئی ندارد. بنابراین هرگز نمیتوان با ریختن این عناصر در یک داستان، رمان اگزیستانسیالیستی نوشت.
نخستین عنصر رمانهای اگزیستانسیالیستی #تنهایی است. شخصیت قهرمان در این گونه رمانها همیشه خود را تنها مییابد. این تنهایی عموما به شکل بریدن از پیوندهای خانوادگی هم بروز مییابد. همانگونه که در #بیگانه آلبر کامو رمان با خبر مرگ مادر و بیتفاوتی راوی آغاز میشود.
در رمان "زن در ریگ روان" نوشتهء نویسنده بزرگ ژاپنی #کوبو_آبه شخصیت اصلی به تنهایی در حال سفر برای یافتن حشرات است که درگیر ماجرایی عجیب میشود. او همسرش را بیخبر رها کرده و در پایان داستان میبینیم
بعدالتحریر:
به بهانه سالگرد درگذشت این نویسنده ژاپنی بریدهای از بخشهای ابتدای کتاب را با صدای بنده بشنوید + تصاویر فیلم سینمایی اقتباس شده از این رمان
https://www.aparat.com/v/ioWdb
April 2, 2021
رمانی به شدت عمیق و پراز جمله های تحسین برانگیز در مورد زندگی .
و در اواخر داستان فلسفه زندگی از دید مرد اینگونه بیان میشود: «نفهمیدم. اما گمانم زندگی چیزی نیست که آدم بتواند بفهمد. همه جور زندگی هست و گاه طرف دیگر تپه سبزتر به نظر میرسد. چیزی که برایم مشکلتر از همه است این است که نمیدانم این جور زندگی به کجا میکشد. اما ظاهراً آدم هرگز نمیفهمد، صرفنظر از اینکه چه جور زندگی کند. به هر حال چارهای جز این احساس ندارم که بهتر است چیزهای بیشتری برای سرگرمی داشته باشم.»
و در اواخر داستان فلسفه زندگی از دید مرد اینگونه بیان میشود: «نفهمیدم. اما گمانم زندگی چیزی نیست که آدم بتواند بفهمد. همه جور زندگی هست و گاه طرف دیگر تپه سبزتر به نظر میرسد. چیزی که برایم مشکلتر از همه است این است که نمیدانم این جور زندگی به کجا میکشد. اما ظاهراً آدم هرگز نمیفهمد، صرفنظر از اینکه چه جور زندگی کند. به هر حال چارهای جز این احساس ندارم که بهتر است چیزهای بیشتری برای سرگرمی داشته باشم.»
September 20, 2025
“Was the sand really to blame? Or was the blame his for not being able to endure it?”
In “The Woman in the Dunes”, Kōbō Abe constructs a slow, grinding metaphysical trap — one that shifts under your feet like the endless sand it obsesses over. Ostensibly a tale of an amateur entomologist who finds himself imprisoned in a sand pit with a mysterious widow, the novel is in fact a bleak, brilliant treatise on the illusion of freedom, the brutality of routine, and the seductive pull of surrender.
The sand is the novel’s true protagonist — insidious, granular, eternal. It invades every crevice of thought and body. Symbolically, it represents entropy, time, and the erosion of individual will. Abe weaponizes sand as a force of existential annihilation: you cannot build on it, you cannot fight it, and yet you must. It is both landscape and adversary, a constant reminder that meaning, like sand, slips through your fingers the tighter you grasp.
The protagonist / Niki Jumpei begins as a beacon of modern rationality. He seeks classification, control, logic. His initial horror at the absurdity of his condition — trapped in a house with a woman who accepts the Sisyphean task of endlessly shoveling sand to survive — mirrors Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, but here, Abe offers no comforting declaration of defiance. “He had not given up hope, he had merely accepted the possibility that he might never escape.” There is no rebellious joy; just sweat, sand, and the slow death of ambition.
The woman, inscrutable and passive, embodies a different kind of truth: resignation as survival. She does not rebel because she has long since been absorbed into the rhythm of futility. She is not a villain, nor a savior, but something much more disturbing — a mirror to what the man will become.
And he does become. The novel’s final stroke is its most devastating: the man, once desperate to escape, chooses to stay. Not because he finds meaning, but because the need for purpose, however hollow, becomes more bearable than the chaos of freedom. He begins to invent meaning — a way to store water — as a coping mechanism, a final act of self-deception that makes the unbearable livable.
The ending is not a revelation. There is no salvation, no epiphany — only adaptation. Abe doesn’t ask whether freedom exists, but whether it’s even desirable once stripped of illusion. In the end, “The Woman in the Dunes” is a claustrophobic howl against the absurdity of existence, disguised as a pale whisper.
“One could say that this was the discovery of a method for extracting joy from humiliation.”
4.6/5
In “The Woman in the Dunes”, Kōbō Abe constructs a slow, grinding metaphysical trap — one that shifts under your feet like the endless sand it obsesses over. Ostensibly a tale of an amateur entomologist who finds himself imprisoned in a sand pit with a mysterious widow, the novel is in fact a bleak, brilliant treatise on the illusion of freedom, the brutality of routine, and the seductive pull of surrender.
The sand is the novel’s true protagonist — insidious, granular, eternal. It invades every crevice of thought and body. Symbolically, it represents entropy, time, and the erosion of individual will. Abe weaponizes sand as a force of existential annihilation: you cannot build on it, you cannot fight it, and yet you must. It is both landscape and adversary, a constant reminder that meaning, like sand, slips through your fingers the tighter you grasp.
The protagonist / Niki Jumpei begins as a beacon of modern rationality. He seeks classification, control, logic. His initial horror at the absurdity of his condition — trapped in a house with a woman who accepts the Sisyphean task of endlessly shoveling sand to survive — mirrors Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, but here, Abe offers no comforting declaration of defiance. “He had not given up hope, he had merely accepted the possibility that he might never escape.” There is no rebellious joy; just sweat, sand, and the slow death of ambition.
The woman, inscrutable and passive, embodies a different kind of truth: resignation as survival. She does not rebel because she has long since been absorbed into the rhythm of futility. She is not a villain, nor a savior, but something much more disturbing — a mirror to what the man will become.
And he does become. The novel’s final stroke is its most devastating: the man, once desperate to escape, chooses to stay. Not because he finds meaning, but because the need for purpose, however hollow, becomes more bearable than the chaos of freedom. He begins to invent meaning — a way to store water — as a coping mechanism, a final act of self-deception that makes the unbearable livable.
The ending is not a revelation. There is no salvation, no epiphany — only adaptation. Abe doesn’t ask whether freedom exists, but whether it’s even desirable once stripped of illusion. In the end, “The Woman in the Dunes” is a claustrophobic howl against the absurdity of existence, disguised as a pale whisper.
“One could say that this was the discovery of a method for extracting joy from humiliation.”
4.6/5
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2024
В один из августовских дней пропал человек. Он был женат, работал учителем. Жил в большом мегаполисе. Но никто его не искал. Формально, конечно, искали. Но поскольку, причины не нашли, "по прошествии семи лет на основании статьи 30 Гражданского кодекса человек был признан умершим." Первый и очевидный смысл - люди безнадежно одиноки, даже если женаты, даже если есть работа, друзья. Это кажется абсурдом, крайней степенью, но правда в том, что можно быть одиноким в семье, на работе и в большом городе.
А что такое общество? Это множество, подобное песку, где каждая песчинка - человек. "Бесплодность песка, каким он представляется обычно, объясняется не просто его сухостью, а беспрерывным движением, которого не может перенести ничто живое. Как это похоже на унылую жизнь людей, изо дня в день цепляющихся друг за друга."
Притча о человеке, ушедшем в пески в поисках мушки, и обретшем смысл, прозрение, показывает нам состояние современного человека:
"то, что его увлек песок и насекомые, в конце концов было лишь попыткой, пусть хоть на время, убежать от нудных обязанностей бесцветного существования…"
У Ники Дзюмпэя явно прослеживается типичная картина принятия неизбежного: отрицание, гнев, торг, депрессия и принятие, может какие-то стадии в сглаженной форме, какие-то, наоборот, в более ярко выраженной. Сначала он не верит в возможность того, что он пойман в ловушку, затем злится, приводит доводы, что его ищут и жители деревни совершают преступление, насильно удерживая его. Пытается договориться с женщиной. Это сродни духовной смерти и перерождению. Читая газету со статьями, среди которых нет ни одной, которую бы было жалко пропустить, Ники приходит к выводу: "если бы на свете существовало лишь то, что жалко упустить, действительность превратилась бы в хрупкую стеклянную поделку, к которой страшно прикоснуться. Но жизнь — те же газетные статьи. Поэтому каждый, понимая ее бессмысленность, ось компаса помещает в своем доме."
Парадоксальный вывод для человека, пойманного в ловушку, обесценивающий то, к чему он стремился, возврату к своей размеренной жизни.
"...разве мир в конечном счете не похож на песок?.. Этот самый песок, когда он в спокойном состоянии, никак не проявляет своего существа… На самом деле не песок движется, а само движение есть песок… ". Песок, как отрицание стабильности.
Понимать роман можно по-разному. Бездумный, бесцельный и неэффективный труд ради труда навевает мысли об автор��таризме, принудительный, неоплачиваемый труд - это рабство.
"Когда он встал, суставы затрещали, как железная крыша под порывом ветра. С опаской мужчина заглянул в бак. Он был снова наполнен до краев. Мужчина смочил полотенце и приложил его к лицу. Дрожь пронзила все тело, как искра — лампу дневного света. Он протер шею, бока, стер песок между пальцами. Может быть, такими мгновениями и нужно определять смысл жизни?!"
"Начав работать, он удивился, что не ощутил того сопротивления, которого ждал от себя. В чем причина этой перемены? Может быть, в боязни остаться без воды или в долге перед женщиной, в возможно, в характере самого труда? Действительно, труд помогает человеку примириться с бегущим временем, даже когда оно бежит бесцельно."
На одной из лекций он запомнил слова лектора: «Нет иного пути возвыситься над трудом, как посредством самого труда. Не труд сам по себе имеет ценность, а преодоление труда трудом… Истинная ценность труда в силе его самоотрицания…»
Он убегал, его поймали и водворили в яму. Ему удалось добиться независимости от "кнута" - воды, и однажды, когда женщину увезли, лестницу оставили. Он мог бежать, но не сделал этого.
Песок преобразил героя. Он осознал, что до этого он видел не песок, а лишь песчинки.
А что такое общество? Это множество, подобное песку, где каждая песчинка - человек. "Бесплодность песка, каким он представляется обычно, объясняется не просто его сухостью, а беспрерывным движением, которого не может перенести ничто живое. Как это похоже на унылую жизнь людей, изо дня в день цепляющихся друг за друга."
Притча о человеке, ушедшем в пески в поисках мушки, и обретшем смысл, прозрение, показывает нам состояние современного человека:
"то, что его увлек песок и насекомые, в конце концов было лишь попыткой, пусть хоть на время, убежать от нудных обязанностей бесцветного существования…"
У Ники Дзюмпэя явно прослеживается типичная картина принятия неизбежного: отрицание, гнев, торг, депрессия и принятие, может какие-то стадии в сглаженной форме, какие-то, наоборот, в более ярко выраженной. Сначала он не верит в возможность того, что он пойман в ловушку, затем злится, приводит доводы, что его ищут и жители деревни совершают преступление, насильно удерживая его. Пытается договориться с женщиной. Это сродни духовной смерти и перерождению. Читая газету со статьями, среди которых нет ни одной, которую бы было жалко пропустить, Ники приходит к выводу: "если бы на свете существовало лишь то, что жалко упустить, действительность превратилась бы в хрупкую стеклянную поделку, к которой страшно прикоснуться. Но жизнь — те же газетные статьи. Поэтому каждый, понимая ее бессмысленность, ось компаса помещает в своем доме."
Парадоксальный вывод для человека, пойманного в ловушку, обесценивающий то, к чему он стремился, возврату к своей размеренной жизни.
"...разве мир в конечном счете не похож на песок?.. Этот самый песок, когда он в спокойном состоянии, никак не проявляет своего существа… На самом деле не песок движется, а само движение есть песок… ". Песок, как отрицание стабильности.
Понимать роман можно по-разному. Бездумный, бесцельный и неэффективный труд ради труда навевает мысли об автор��таризме, принудительный, неоплачиваемый труд - это рабство.
"Когда он встал, суставы затрещали, как железная крыша под порывом ветра. С опаской мужчина заглянул в бак. Он был снова наполнен до краев. Мужчина смочил полотенце и приложил его к лицу. Дрожь пронзила все тело, как искра — лампу дневного света. Он протер шею, бока, стер песок между пальцами. Может быть, такими мгновениями и нужно определять смысл жизни?!"
"Начав работать, он удивился, что не ощутил того сопротивления, которого ждал от себя. В чем причина этой перемены? Может быть, в боязни остаться без воды или в долге перед женщиной, в возможно, в характере самого труда? Действительно, труд помогает человеку примириться с бегущим временем, даже когда оно бежит бесцельно."
На одной из лекций он запомнил слова лектора: «Нет иного пути возвыситься над трудом, как посредством самого труда. Не труд сам по себе имеет ценность, а преодоление труда трудом… Истинная ценность труда в силе его самоотрицания…»
Он убегал, его поймали и водворили в яму. Ему удалось добиться независимости от "кнута" - воды, и однажды, когда женщину увезли, лестницу оставили. Он мог бежать, но не сделал этого.
Песок преобразил героя. Он осознал, что до этого он видел не песок, а лишь песчинки.
June 21, 2014
Since I started reading both more avidly and more widely several years ago, I've spent more time analyzing different genres, different kinds of authors, and different kinds of literature. In Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, she makes a number of observations about how classic French novels differ from classic British novels, and how American novelists differ from either. I'm not well read enough in French and British literature to judge the validity of her points, other than to notice that yes, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas do have a tone that is noticeably different from, say, Charles Dickens and George Eliot.
All of which brings me to Japanese literature. Which I haven't read nearly enough of since taking a couple of courses in medieval Japanese literature as an undergrad. So far I have read several books by Haruki Murakami, Battle Royale, and now, The Woman in the Dunes. I've got several more in my queue.
Haruki Murakami, Kobo Abe, and Koushun Takami are very different authors (just as Charles Dickens and George Eliot are very different authors), but Japanese novels all have a very different feel from Western novels. That is not to say they are particularly hard to understand or that they don't have the same elements of English-language novels: plot, characters, theme, storytelling, etc. But Japanese literature seems to focus very much on the moment, and an individual's experience of it. Long, descriptive passages about mundane details in the character's environment, or his mental ruminations, often wandering off onto bizarre sidetracks, almost as if the author is trying to describe how a person's thoughts actually work (like, when you're focusing on the matter at hand, but somehow your mind makes a subconscious leap onto a completely unrelated topic).
And that is how The Woman in the Dunes reads. The story is of a Japanese schoolteacher and amateur entomologist who takes a little weekend trip to the beach. He happens upon a small, very poor village that is being overwhelmed by the encroaching sands on all sides. Needing a place to stay for the night, the villagers offer to put him up in the home of one of the locals, who turns out to be a widow living alone. Her house is at the bottom of a sandpit and the only way in or out is by rope ladder. Our unfortunate schoolteacher doesn't think anything is odd or sinister about this until he has lowered himself into the trap.
The rest of the book is really more about Niki Jumpei's thoughts and experiences, and of course, sand. Sand is everywhere. Kobo Abe describes it - its porosity, its viscosity, its physical qualities, its omnipresence - the way gothic authors describe the brooding atmosphere and the dark manor. By the end of the book you're feeling sand crawling up all your crevices, rubbing your skin raw, getting in your hair, and threatening to bury you.
Jumpei's relationship with the widow, who is never named, is turbulent, sexual, ambiguous, and disturbing. She was the bait for the trap, and she is by turns apologetic, vulnerable, pathetic, and callous. One gets the impression she is the way Kobo Abe, as a Japanese man of a certain age, may see all women, as these opaque, unrelatable beings as prone to break into sudden charming laughter and offer you a massage as to turn out to be dangerous fairy tale creatures luring you into hell. Certainly our protagonist, Jumpei, never quite relates to the widow as a fellow human being, but he seems to be completely disconnected from people in general. The world he's been abducted from really wasn't much better than the world he is now trapped in, where he must forever shovel sand to keep it from burying the widow's hovel. This metaphor seemed one of the more obvious ones in the novel, but I'm sure there were many others I missed, and like the other Japanese novels I've read, I have the feeling that much imagery and symbolism is lost in translation.
I can't really say how I felt about this book, other than that it was an interesting reading experience and the story is definitely haunting and weird and memorable, like a slightly surreal movie. I definitely recommend it for anyone who is interested in sampling Japanese literature.
Oh, but speaking of surreal: come on, all your Goodreaders who labeled this "magical realism"! Kobo Abe is not Haruki Murakami. There are no talking cats or parallel worlds in this book. Okay, yes, parts of it are a little... strange, but there is nothing that is, strictly speaking, fantastical about it. It's not "magical realism" just because it's written in Spanish or Japanese, folks!
All of which brings me to Japanese literature. Which I haven't read nearly enough of since taking a couple of courses in medieval Japanese literature as an undergrad. So far I have read several books by Haruki Murakami, Battle Royale, and now, The Woman in the Dunes. I've got several more in my queue.
Haruki Murakami, Kobo Abe, and Koushun Takami are very different authors (just as Charles Dickens and George Eliot are very different authors), but Japanese novels all have a very different feel from Western novels. That is not to say they are particularly hard to understand or that they don't have the same elements of English-language novels: plot, characters, theme, storytelling, etc. But Japanese literature seems to focus very much on the moment, and an individual's experience of it. Long, descriptive passages about mundane details in the character's environment, or his mental ruminations, often wandering off onto bizarre sidetracks, almost as if the author is trying to describe how a person's thoughts actually work (like, when you're focusing on the matter at hand, but somehow your mind makes a subconscious leap onto a completely unrelated topic).
And that is how The Woman in the Dunes reads. The story is of a Japanese schoolteacher and amateur entomologist who takes a little weekend trip to the beach. He happens upon a small, very poor village that is being overwhelmed by the encroaching sands on all sides. Needing a place to stay for the night, the villagers offer to put him up in the home of one of the locals, who turns out to be a widow living alone. Her house is at the bottom of a sandpit and the only way in or out is by rope ladder. Our unfortunate schoolteacher doesn't think anything is odd or sinister about this until he has lowered himself into the trap.
The rest of the book is really more about Niki Jumpei's thoughts and experiences, and of course, sand. Sand is everywhere. Kobo Abe describes it - its porosity, its viscosity, its physical qualities, its omnipresence - the way gothic authors describe the brooding atmosphere and the dark manor. By the end of the book you're feeling sand crawling up all your crevices, rubbing your skin raw, getting in your hair, and threatening to bury you.
Jumpei's relationship with the widow, who is never named, is turbulent, sexual, ambiguous, and disturbing. She was the bait for the trap, and she is by turns apologetic, vulnerable, pathetic, and callous. One gets the impression she is the way Kobo Abe, as a Japanese man of a certain age, may see all women, as these opaque, unrelatable beings as prone to break into sudden charming laughter and offer you a massage as to turn out to be dangerous fairy tale creatures luring you into hell. Certainly our protagonist, Jumpei, never quite relates to the widow as a fellow human being, but he seems to be completely disconnected from people in general. The world he's been abducted from really wasn't much better than the world he is now trapped in, where he must forever shovel sand to keep it from burying the widow's hovel. This metaphor seemed one of the more obvious ones in the novel, but I'm sure there were many others I missed, and like the other Japanese novels I've read, I have the feeling that much imagery and symbolism is lost in translation.
I can't really say how I felt about this book, other than that it was an interesting reading experience and the story is definitely haunting and weird and memorable, like a slightly surreal movie. I definitely recommend it for anyone who is interested in sampling Japanese literature.
Oh, but speaking of surreal: come on, all your Goodreaders who labeled this "magical realism"! Kobo Abe is not Haruki Murakami. There are no talking cats or parallel worlds in this book. Okay, yes, parts of it are a little... strange, but there is nothing that is, strictly speaking, fantastical about it. It's not "magical realism" just because it's written in Spanish or Japanese, folks!
February 8, 2021
Wait… what did I just experience?
Very minor spoilers ahead.
Going into this book, I knew that 2021 was the Year of Japan (for me). For one reason or another, my aim has been to up the number of Japanese books that I read. This meant that, sooner or later, I was bound to yield to the Goodreads algorithm once again. It was time to tackle The Woman in the Dunes. It didn’t hurt that the cover looked unbelievably gorgeous. What I was not expecting was possibly the best fictional existential book I have read so far. I knew something was up, and so I looked at the back of the book: the author biography mentioned that Kōbō Abe studied medicine, alongside studying Poe, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Kafka. And just like that, it started to make sense.
This hit me like a train, which is a metaphor from Spirited Away that I used while reading this book to help me gather my thoughts, and it is one that I will come back to at the end of my review. The main character, Niki Jumpei, goes on an excursion to a sandy area of Japan in order to spend some time doing what he enjoys as a hobby: insect collection and inspection. The situation is slightly awkward, and he finds himself having to spend a night in a town that is surrounded by sand dunes. The hut of the eponymous “woman” is offered to him as a viable option, and he accepts, grateful for the opportunity. And that is where the fun begins.
I think I will stop there in terms of the plot. Our main character’s philosophical musings get dialled to 100. He is surrounded by menial labour and sand. Lots of sand. The sand is everywhere. It never stops. It is always blowing in, always pouring in, always finding a way in, always in nooks and crannies and crevices that he does not appreciate. I chose to look at the sand as a great symbol for the passing of time. Maybe this is why the presence of the sand irks him so. Our main character is 38. In the most basic way, then, he could be said to be having an early-ish midlife crisis. The signs are all there – wild hobbies, sudden desires, long rants on the relationship between the sexes, and the sand. The sand is constant.
Looking underneath the hood, however, reveals a deeper set of concepts: Death. Freedom. Isolation. Meaninglessness. Niki Jumpei is constantly outrunning death. The anxiety of finality is unbearable for him. To think of wasting time without working towards fulfillment is to have a panic attack. Freedom is an obvious key here – he is physically and mentally trapped. But is he able to use freedom as the land of milk and honey that it is often conceived as? He is also alone, but deeply lonely. He is not content in being solo. These all contribute to a deep sense of ennui and listless movements in his daily life – he is so afraid of monotony that he is willing to cause chaos in anything and with anyone. He is willing to pull apart the perfect latticed structure of millions of grains of sand, each 1/8th of a mm in diameter.
Where does the train come in? Well… it doesn’t. But Niki Jumpei does talk about tickets. I thought of them as train tickets. To you, they might be bus or plane tickets. I will let his words speak for themselves as we finish off:
Going into this book, I knew that 2021 was the Year of Japan (for me). For one reason or another, my aim has been to up the number of Japanese books that I read. This meant that, sooner or later, I was bound to yield to the Goodreads algorithm once again. It was time to tackle The Woman in the Dunes. It didn’t hurt that the cover looked unbelievably gorgeous. What I was not expecting was possibly the best fictional existential book I have read so far. I knew something was up, and so I looked at the back of the book: the author biography mentioned that Kōbō Abe studied medicine, alongside studying Poe, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Kafka. And just like that, it started to make sense.
This hit me like a train, which is a metaphor from Spirited Away that I used while reading this book to help me gather my thoughts, and it is one that I will come back to at the end of my review. The main character, Niki Jumpei, goes on an excursion to a sandy area of Japan in order to spend some time doing what he enjoys as a hobby: insect collection and inspection. The situation is slightly awkward, and he finds himself having to spend a night in a town that is surrounded by sand dunes. The hut of the eponymous “woman” is offered to him as a viable option, and he accepts, grateful for the opportunity. And that is where the fun begins.
I think I will stop there in terms of the plot. Our main character’s philosophical musings get dialled to 100. He is surrounded by menial labour and sand. Lots of sand. The sand is everywhere. It never stops. It is always blowing in, always pouring in, always finding a way in, always in nooks and crannies and crevices that he does not appreciate. I chose to look at the sand as a great symbol for the passing of time. Maybe this is why the presence of the sand irks him so. Our main character is 38. In the most basic way, then, he could be said to be having an early-ish midlife crisis. The signs are all there – wild hobbies, sudden desires, long rants on the relationship between the sexes, and the sand. The sand is constant.
Looking underneath the hood, however, reveals a deeper set of concepts: Death. Freedom. Isolation. Meaninglessness. Niki Jumpei is constantly outrunning death. The anxiety of finality is unbearable for him. To think of wasting time without working towards fulfillment is to have a panic attack. Freedom is an obvious key here – he is physically and mentally trapped. But is he able to use freedom as the land of milk and honey that it is often conceived as? He is also alone, but deeply lonely. He is not content in being solo. These all contribute to a deep sense of ennui and listless movements in his daily life – he is so afraid of monotony that he is willing to cause chaos in anything and with anyone. He is willing to pull apart the perfect latticed structure of millions of grains of sand, each 1/8th of a mm in diameter.
Where does the train come in? Well… it doesn’t. But Niki Jumpei does talk about tickets. I thought of them as train tickets. To you, they might be bus or plane tickets. I will let his words speak for themselves as we finish off:
“These days people caught in the clutches of the one-way ticket never sing it like that. The soles of those who have only a one-way ticket are so thin that they scream when they step on a pebble. They have had their fill of walking. “The Round-Trip Ticket Blues” is what they want to sing. A one-way ticket is a disjointed life that misses the links between yesterday and today, today and tomorrow. Only the man who obstinately hangs on to a round-trip ticket can hum with real sorrow a song of a one-way ticket. For this very reason he grows desperate lest the return half of his ticket be lost or stolen; he buys stocks, signs up for life insurance, and talks out of different sides of his mouth to his union pals and his superiors. He hums “The One-Way Ticket Blues” with all his might and, choosing a channel at random, turns the television up to full volume in an attempt to drown out the peevish voices of those who have only a one-way ticket and who keep asking for help, voices that come up through the bathtub drain or the toilet hole. It would not be strange at all if “Th e Round-Trip Ticket Blues” were the song of mankind imprisoned.”
December 11, 2021
Gerçeküstü ve fantastik edebiyattan hoşlanmamama rağmen "Kumların Kadını"nı çok ilginç buldum. Farklı bir anlatım ve ilginç benzetmelerle hızla ve zevkle okunur bir roman çıkmış ortaya. Eminim siz de okuduktan sonra "kum"a çok farklı bakacak, belki de bir anlam yükleyeceksiniz. Öneririm
March 24, 2019
4.5 stars!
As others have noted, this is very much a Japanese Kafka; but also a Japanese Camus, more L'Etranger than Gregor Samsa. I was drawn into the story from the start, although it needs to be kept in mind that this is not your average plot-oriented page turner. A man disappears. Enquiries are made as to the circumstances of his disappearance. He doesn't seem to harbour a dirty secret, and he could be the type that disappears deliberately (although the items he took with him -tools for collecting insects- do not suggest as much). We learn early on that on the seventh year of his disappearance the police officially declare him a missing person - so we know that there's no easy resolution. This is going to be a long-drawn-out disappearance.
Rewind seven years earlier: a man with a keen interest in collecting insects, and in particular, in a certain kind of beetle that he thinks has not been identified yet, sets off for a place of sand dunes where he believes more of this new species may be found. We are treated to detailed descriptions of a weird, almost lunar, landscape (which could be real, but, one suspects, is more likely fantastical):
"But, curiously enough, the areas where houses stood were not the slightest bit higher. The road alone rose, while the hamlet itself continued to remain level. No, it was not only the road; the areas between the buildings were rising at the same rate. In a sense, then, the whole village seemed to have become a rising slope with only the buildings left on their original level. This impression became more striking as he went along. At length, all the houses seemed to be sunk into hollows scooped in the sand. The surface of the sand stood higher than the rooftops. The successive rows of houses sank deeper and deeper into the depressions."
The man stays around longer than he anticipated, and as night falls, he is greeted by some locals whom he asks for lodgings for the night. After checking carefully that he's not an inspector (at which point alarm bells should have gone off), they agree to offer him accommodation for the night, placing him with a young widow. But the house where he'll spend the night is very strange indeed; like the sunken houses described earlier, this, too, is sunk deeply into the sand, and the man descends to it by means of a rope ladder. Once there, all sorts of strange things start to happen. The woman tells him things about the sand which defy logic and modern science, for example, how the sand is moist and how it needs to be shoveled out every evening lest the village be burried in sand. The man is suspicious; he doesn't believe a word. But he realises that something odd is going on when he wakes up with sand encrusted on his face, around his eyes and his mouth, having foregone the woman's advice to put a towel over his head as he sleeps.
The man now wants to leave the village and return to his usual activities. He's a teacher, an insect collector, and has recently met a woman with whom he has sexual relations. But there's no ladder, and neither the woman nor the villagers seem eager to offer him one. All routes of escape seem cut off: without a ladder he cannot get out of the enormous sand hole in which the house is buried, and without hard work to shovel out the sand, the situation will soon become precarious. Will the man manage to find a way out? Will he escape the villagers who now seem keener than ever to keep him in the village? And, most important of all, will he hold on to his will to escape once a few attempts have failed?
This is a very existentialist piece of fiction, with forays into the meaning of life, freedom, and sexuality. The way of life of the villagers seems entirely Sisyphean to the main character, and for that reason pointless, useless, and devoid of any purpose. Surely, in the modern world the villagers could relinquish their nightly shoveling and find a more effective way of keeping the sand at bay. They could migrate. They could contact the authorities. They could set up a charity. Contact the newspapers, make a splash of their peculiar circumstances. But how much of this is truly irrational compared to the daily routine of a teacher, a city dweller, an office worker? Shoveling sand for a set number of hours a day, without meaning and without an ultimate purpose, how different is this really from our daily lives which give the illusion of freedom and pursposeful activity? This is a depressing question, a question that the book forces you to confront. At the same time, the writing has a hypnotic quality, that won't let you put it aside easily. I am glad I have read this, and am grateful to Steven for recommending it. I very much look forward to watching the film that was made of this book!
As others have noted, this is very much a Japanese Kafka; but also a Japanese Camus, more L'Etranger than Gregor Samsa. I was drawn into the story from the start, although it needs to be kept in mind that this is not your average plot-oriented page turner. A man disappears. Enquiries are made as to the circumstances of his disappearance. He doesn't seem to harbour a dirty secret, and he could be the type that disappears deliberately (although the items he took with him -tools for collecting insects- do not suggest as much). We learn early on that on the seventh year of his disappearance the police officially declare him a missing person - so we know that there's no easy resolution. This is going to be a long-drawn-out disappearance.
Rewind seven years earlier: a man with a keen interest in collecting insects, and in particular, in a certain kind of beetle that he thinks has not been identified yet, sets off for a place of sand dunes where he believes more of this new species may be found. We are treated to detailed descriptions of a weird, almost lunar, landscape (which could be real, but, one suspects, is more likely fantastical):
"But, curiously enough, the areas where houses stood were not the slightest bit higher. The road alone rose, while the hamlet itself continued to remain level. No, it was not only the road; the areas between the buildings were rising at the same rate. In a sense, then, the whole village seemed to have become a rising slope with only the buildings left on their original level. This impression became more striking as he went along. At length, all the houses seemed to be sunk into hollows scooped in the sand. The surface of the sand stood higher than the rooftops. The successive rows of houses sank deeper and deeper into the depressions."
The man stays around longer than he anticipated, and as night falls, he is greeted by some locals whom he asks for lodgings for the night. After checking carefully that he's not an inspector (at which point alarm bells should have gone off), they agree to offer him accommodation for the night, placing him with a young widow. But the house where he'll spend the night is very strange indeed; like the sunken houses described earlier, this, too, is sunk deeply into the sand, and the man descends to it by means of a rope ladder. Once there, all sorts of strange things start to happen. The woman tells him things about the sand which defy logic and modern science, for example, how the sand is moist and how it needs to be shoveled out every evening lest the village be burried in sand. The man is suspicious; he doesn't believe a word. But he realises that something odd is going on when he wakes up with sand encrusted on his face, around his eyes and his mouth, having foregone the woman's advice to put a towel over his head as he sleeps.
The man now wants to leave the village and return to his usual activities. He's a teacher, an insect collector, and has recently met a woman with whom he has sexual relations. But there's no ladder, and neither the woman nor the villagers seem eager to offer him one. All routes of escape seem cut off: without a ladder he cannot get out of the enormous sand hole in which the house is buried, and without hard work to shovel out the sand, the situation will soon become precarious. Will the man manage to find a way out? Will he escape the villagers who now seem keener than ever to keep him in the village? And, most important of all, will he hold on to his will to escape once a few attempts have failed?
This is a very existentialist piece of fiction, with forays into the meaning of life, freedom, and sexuality. The way of life of the villagers seems entirely Sisyphean to the main character, and for that reason pointless, useless, and devoid of any purpose. Surely, in the modern world the villagers could relinquish their nightly shoveling and find a more effective way of keeping the sand at bay. They could migrate. They could contact the authorities. They could set up a charity. Contact the newspapers, make a splash of their peculiar circumstances. But how much of this is truly irrational compared to the daily routine of a teacher, a city dweller, an office worker? Shoveling sand for a set number of hours a day, without meaning and without an ultimate purpose, how different is this really from our daily lives which give the illusion of freedom and pursposeful activity? This is a depressing question, a question that the book forces you to confront. At the same time, the writing has a hypnotic quality, that won't let you put it aside easily. I am glad I have read this, and am grateful to Steven for recommending it. I very much look forward to watching the film that was made of this book!
January 19, 2016
با خواندنِ این داستان اولین چیزی که به ذهنم رسید زندگی کنونی ما ایرانیان بود... اون دهکده رو ایرانِ عزیزم دیدم... و انسان هایِ گرفتار در گودال های شنی رو دختران و پسران سرزمین پاک ایران زمین دیدم... ایرانیانی که هر روزشان مثلِ دیروز است... گرفتار در تکرار و تکرار... همه افسرده و پرخاشگر... با این تفاوت که یکی بیشتر پول دارد و دیگری کمتر... با این تفاوت که اون مرد شکم دَل به واسطۀ طمع به درونِ چاله رفت... ما به بهانۀ چه رفتیم؟ چه به روزِ سرزمینِ ما آوردن؟ آیا ما همان مردم همیشه شاد در زمانِ بهرام گور و انوشیروان بزرگ هستیم؟ آیا ما همان ایرانیانی هستیم که بزرگترین مورخان جهان هم نتوانستن تعداد دقیق فستیوال ها و جشن هایِ ملی مارو اعلام کنن... همان جشن هایی که تعداد آن رو بیشتر از سوراخ های غربال یا اَلَک میدونستن... افسوس و صد افسوس
دوستان گرامی استفاده از شن روان واقعاً برای عنوان کتاب هنرمندانه بود... چراکه روان بودنِ شن بهتر میتونه این زندگی و تلاش رو نشون بده... حال اگر شن روان نبود و ثابت بود ... باز هم عنوانِ مناسبی میشد؟ بی شک جواب، نه... هستش
پیروز باشید و ایرانی
دوستان گرامی استفاده از شن روان واقعاً برای عنوان کتاب هنرمندانه بود... چراکه روان بودنِ شن بهتر میتونه این زندگی و تلاش رو نشون بده... حال اگر شن روان نبود و ثابت بود ... باز هم عنوانِ مناسبی میشد؟ بی شک جواب، نه... هستش
پیروز باشید و ایرانی
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