Second, Abe abandoned the politically directed surrealism of his early days for a more subtle, documentary style. First, Abe's style is not confessional, but descriptive and explanatory. The corpus of this thesis, four translations, three stories in the original, several novels in translation, as well as the works of criticism consulted, should provide the basis for some tentative conclusions. Appendix III Is a list of Abe's original works, in order of publication. In the second part of Chapter II, the four translations mentioned above are examined in chronological order and are analyzed in detail to show Abe's change in style at about the time he wrote "Yume no heishi." Some facts concerning Abe's politics are also explained.Īppendix I and II contain the four short stories in chronological order: first the translations and then the originals. These three works represent not only stepping stones in Abe's career, they also testify to the painstaking experimentation in which Abe was engaged before abandoning the surrealist style of his early years. Karuma shi no hanzai", an extremely long short story remains to be translated. Jelinkova 1965), are available in English, though the remaining one "Kabe-S. John Nathan 1966), and Dendorokakariya" (Dendrocacalia 1949, trans. Two of the remaining three, "Akai mayu" (Red Cocoon 1950, trans. Furthermore, Japanese critics, as can be seen in the first part of Chapter I, would never consider separating the author's personality from his literary creations.Ĭhapter I comes to the conclusion that a connection does exist between Abe and his heroes, albeit a much more subtle one than the typical one-to-one, author-hero relationship of Japanese confessional literature.Ĭhapter II is an examination of seven of Abe's stories, four of which, "Oshimusume", "Inu", "Yume no heishi" and "Toki no gake", are translated and appended at the back of this thesis. This thesis, therefore-, examines both the man and his works. Although the argument that a man's life and his works should be kept separate, may be valid when we examine the works of an author of our own cultural-linguistic environment, such an examination of style, devoid of human experience would be meaningless when applied to the works of a man who is little known and whose culture still remains to be studied by most North Americans. Chapter I concerns itself with Abe Kobo's life and working environment. (Apr.This thesis is divided into three parts: Chapter I, Chapter II, and the Appendices each of these parts fulfills different purposes. The beautifully conceived title story describes the actions of a man with amnesia trying to remember his past just ``beyond the curve.'' Abe blends elements of suspense and science fiction to create a form singularly his own. The almost lulling repetitiveness of ``Record of a Transformation'' underscores the senseless brutality of war as, at the height of battle, an executed soldier describes his horrifying experiences among the dead and the living. On a lighter note, ``Dendrocacalia'' describes the plight of a bewildered man named Common, who discovers he has turned into a rare plant, placed in a botanical garden. Contemplating ways to get rid of the body, he finds himself increasingly implicated in the stranger's death. In ``An Irrelevant Death,'' a man returns from work to confront a corpse in his apartment. The tightly drawn, surrealistic tales proceed from the same premise: an ordinary individual is suddenly thrust into extraordinary, often nightmarish circumstances that lead him to question his identity. In this first collection of short fiction, Abe confirms his reputation as one of Japan's most significant modern writers.
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