Kōbō Abe (安部 公房) "The Woman in the Dunes" (砂の女)

Kōbō Abe (安部 公房) was the most talented writer of the post war Japan, he was a play-writer, an inventor, a novelist a versatile genius in one person. His works are surreal, dark, portray hostile life, nightmares of the psycho in everyday life. “The Woman in the Dunes” is his flag book. A contemporary masterpiece that is worth to read. 

“The woman in the Dunes” describes the problems of loneliness of personalities in modern world, the characters are looking for some means of escapism, the need of being loved, and the need to find someone to love in modern world, a developing world is depressing, namely, the most simple and basic virtues are lost and forgotten, the identity is lost. Far from perfect the  characters are surrounded by fear, the fear to live the life without regret, the fear of rejection is too strong to face the world and society. They are exile. The plot of “The Woman in the Dunes” takes place in a desert place, the dunes are far-fetched from urban areas, the place is so clean, so unreal that almost sterile. The main character is a young entomologist arrived at stranded dunes in search of a rare beetle.  The scientist had been working all day, the night had come and now he need a shelter, he is offered one in a bizarre place, namely, ramshackle house, yet, he can leave and enter it only by means of a ladder, which was taken away while the scientist was sleeping. He became a hostage, he is left to die, because he is a stranger, he enters the forbidden, hermetic land, the villagers will not risk their independence, their being in the name of one unknown person. He has to shovel the sand, the sand which represents a trap and no way out.  The one person who could possible help him is a young woman who also is forced to shovel the sand into the buckets during the night. The man doesn't believe in his nightmare, his is an individual, lone character who against the odds will try to survive, his will to live is exceptional, strong, it exhausts him, depresses him and keeps him alive. Niki Jumpei is a brave man, a man with rules, a man with purpose who doesn't give up easily, he wanted to become a scientists, therefore he must have been consistent. The book shows two sides of Japan – archetypal and modern, both completes one another.  He is open-mined, a bit of a dreamer, the woman he encountered in the dunes is his opposite, born in the village, close and secretive, she had probably never left that place before. She is a very unfortunate woman, her children and husband had been killed in a sand avalanche, she lost hope of finding their remnants and give them a proper burial. Niki’s perception of the woman is diverse, from a pity to admiration, from hate to contempt, from pity to love. He is not angry with the woman and her submissive demeanor, being so agreeable to her fate, now he sees and understands that the poor one has never ever known anything but this life. No one taught her to fight, to be different. The silence they share turns to conversation, the woman tells Niki about the village, the sand, the illegal sand trade and the possible disastrous outcomes if it was revealed. She tells him about the system the villagers live in, hermetic, close from everyone. There is no justice but damnation of those who doesn't belong to the same group, class, caste, whatever it is called, if someone doesn't belong to certain group must die.  The “prisoners”   share life together, they have contact with an outside world by the radio they bought. They coexist. May even love one another. Their intimacy fills the time, becomes a tool to self-acceptance, the acceptance of imperfection and a doom situation. They are not alone, the sand surrounds them, it is like an intruder it is everywhere, on their bodies, in their food, in their bad, within clothes, everywhere, it is omnipresent. The sand imprisons the lovers, doesn't allow to breakthrough through freedom. The man realizes that more he fights with the sand, more submerged he becomes.  The escapism he was dreaming of for so long is just a Sisyphean labor. The sand is undefeated. The man and the woman live their life repetitively, their routine is perpetual, everyday the same, they are like a factory machines, with a small break to rest. Sex fills the vacuum space. Metaphorical meaning of sand is direct – it reflects the continuum of human life, its growth and decline, its development, its amplitude; dynamic and slow almost lunatic pace. It is all what human agreed for. The dullness and hopeless situation made Niki insane, he suffers hallucinations, his lack of perception leads to his withdrawal into the sand, into the hopeless abyss. The sand he fought with won, took his life, mind, hope and dream for freedom, love, return to the background he came from. He gives up as much as the woman who lives with him, she knew she had to follow her fate – she understood that she will never be able to disobey the society which imprisoned her, the system cannot be change suddenly by one person, it doesn't happen out of the blue. She is victimized and accepts her place in the society, which, despite of high modernization is still archaic.