The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe

The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A weird, sabulous, Carrollian tale of an amateur entomologist on his quest for ammophilous beetles who is faced with an arenaceous and Sisyphean task of clearing sand from a Murakamisque pit. He ends up making gritty love to an arenaceous widow and cannot escape from this chthonic love-nest. There are some colourful bits

It was hard to wait. Time was folded in endless, deep, bellows-like pleats, if he did not pause at each fold he could not go ahead. And in every fold there were all kind of suspicions, each clutching its own weapon. It took terrible effort to go ahead, disputing or ignoring these doubts or casting them aside.

and

The morning pressing its face, like the belly of a snail, against the windowpane, was laughing at him.

A tinge of sado-masochism

…if tongs were driven into his nose and slimy blood stopped up his ears … if his teeth were broken one by one with hammer blows, and splinters jammed into his urethra … if a vulva were cut away and sewn onto his eyelids.

Ouch!

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