壁

My first Abe Kobo. This was a short story collection, with a wall being a recurring motif. Before I started this I saw someone describe it as "Kafkaesque" but I found it way more surreal than anything Ive personally read from Kafka, or from anyone else if I'm being honest.

I am obsessed with the first story (which was around 58% of the book). it was so disorientating with such a vague and utterly absurd plot that felt like many fever dreams I've had before. I've read my fair share of magical realism and surrealism and so far this is the only one that has ever actually captured that disorientating feeling you have during and after a really weird dream; the relatively normal start to the point where you dont realize you're in a dream, the sudden weird unnatural things that no one seems to think are weird except you, the jump from one scene or place to another in seconds, your messy thoughts and feelings blending to make absolutely no sense whatsoever, truly a masterpiece.

The stories after it did not hit the same as the first in my opinion. The first one flowed so naturally but all the rest while they had their moments just did not flow as seamlessly as the first one and did not have the strong dreamlike effect as the first one. Still, I would love to read more of Abe Kobo's work now

In terms of Japanese, this may be one of the hardest things I've ever read. Not only for the surreal scenes which may be difficult to follow, but the later stories involved so many technical academic lingo ranging from philosophy to biochemistry that made it even harder to understand what was going.

I still loved it and it was a very interesting challenge for me to read.