Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #293304 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Synopsis
A nameless man who chooses to exist in a small cardboard box records life in the box and his observations of the world from its small window as he wanders the streets of Tokyo. By the author of Woman in the Dunes. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

Customer Reviews

What's in a box but air?
My God what a tough book! I can’t remember when I last struggled with a piece of literature so much. Characters? Narrative? Plot? Forget about it – The Box Man is truly startling and frustrating story about identity.

Just when you think you know what is going on Abe sweeps the rug out from underneath your feet. Whole scenes are dismissed as imaginary and the identity The Box Man shifts and eludes. This made my head spin – but it did make me think, something that can’t be said for a majority of books.

A man walking around with a box over himself and his obsession with a nurse with nudist-tendencies is about as stable a explanation to the plot as I can give you. Abe has given us a book full of answers, but with no questions. I believe it is up to the reader to draw their own conclusions on what really happens.

Do you fancy a challenge? A big challenge? Then this is the book for you.

A sturdy, dirty cardboard box. . .
If you liked Samuel Beckett's book "Watt", then you'll love 'The Box Man'. 'The Box Man' is a psychotic tale of disassociation in a world that echoes that of the medical nightmares in William S. Burrough's 'Blade Runner: A Movie'.

You really don't want to know more about 'The Box Man' at this moment, deciding what is going on is one of the main pleasures of reading the book, Abe's wacked style is another.

I'd never read any of Kobo Abe's work before and found 'The Box Man' fascinatingly disturbed. If you want it weird, get this book. I'm definitely going to read more of his works.