Kangaroo Notebook (1993) is the first Kobo Abe novel I read, and it is still my favourite—that is, alongside Secret Rendezvous, to which it bears a remarkable likeness. Among other things, each concerns medical infrastructure and the protagonist’s Sisyphean journey that nevertheless concludes with entrapment in a confined space. If you haven’t read either novel, this is not a spoiler: especially from The Box Man (1973) onward, Abe’s work belongs to a school that proclaims narrative tension—along with character development and believability—among the least interesting things a novel can achieve…

Read the full article starting on page 19 of The Scofield 3.1: Kobo Abe & Home.

Photo by Patrik Sampler taken at “Kōbō Abe’s EMS Synthi AKS“.

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