Kōbō Abe (1924–1993)

Collapsed [...] like a marionette whose strings had been cut,

Abe is doing a couple interesting things here:
-Some play in the Mask Face relationship. Mask as a kind of face; face subordinated (in the animistic sense) to the mask; mask as the real self (simulacrum) and the self which is already a kind of mask.
-An attempt at technical detail that is almost believable (though reads as juvenilia compared to later accomplishments in The Box Man).
-Wearing a mask so he can date his wife, condemning her for dating him (scarred face), condemning her for dating him (mask face), condemning her for lack of prurience, condemning her for imagined prurience. condemning her for not seeing through the mask, but utterly destroyed when he realizes that she has seen through it/leaves him.

After a long time, I picked up this book, blindly, and thought, "this guy sounds like Kōbō Abe when he writes about women," so at least it can be said he has a style.… (mere)

Non è la sabbia che scorre, ma forse lo stesso scorrere è la sabbia. Non riesco a spiegarmi bene.

(109)

La respirazione, il camminare, la peristalsi dei visceri, i programmi quotidiani di ricerca, le domeniche ogni sette giorni, gli esami di fine stagione ogni quattro mesi, non solo non arrivano a darci la pace, ma ci incitano nuovamente al tran tran della vita. Di giorno in giorno, poi, si aumenta la quantità del fumo, e, dopo i sogni in cui si cerca affannosamente, con una donna dalle unghie sporche, un posto tranquillo e nascosto agli occhi dei curiosi, infine ci si accorge di essere intossicati, e poi, ricordandosi a un tratto del firmamento sostenuto dai cicli dei movimenti ellittici estremamente monotoni, e delle dune comandate dalla lunghezza d'onda di 1/8 di mm, improvvisamente ci si rende conto della situazione reale.

(224)

E resto sempre perplesso dal fatto che Sisifo ritrovi sempre il masso ad aspettarlo...… (mere)

An existentialist Japanese novel about a man getting stuck in a village, buried by sand.

Extremely atmospheric, with the sand almost being its own character. The level of detail it is written really allows for the reader to get absorbed into the oppressive atmosphere of the sand. You can almost feel the sand stuck to your sweaty body, or taste it in your mouth. The level of detail really added a layer of realism to the story that otherwise read like some sort of hazy fever dream.

My only gripe is the main character felt like an incel at times, and some parts felt a bit "rapey" and over sexualized. Generally I don't mind unlikable characters, so it wasn't a huge deal for me, but was just a bit uncomfortable at times.… (mere)