Talk:Kōbō Abe

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[Untitled][edit]

Hi all, I'm a student who will be working on improving this page for a course on Japanese theatre. I have compiled a list of sources from which I will be drawing information. They are listed below. If anyone has any suggestions, comments, or questions, I would be happy to hear them. Thanks!
Almost all of these are accessible via JSTOR.
Guest, Michael. 'Autonomy And the Body in Samuel Beckett and Kōbō Abe'. Samuel Beckett Today 14 (2004): 161-177. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Hardin, Nancy S., and Abe Kōbō. 'An Interview With Abe Kōbō. Contemporary Literature 15.4 (1974): 439. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Hollingsworth, Cristopher. Poetics Of The Hive. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Ito, Kenji. 'Sublime Voices: The Fictional Science And Science Fiction Of Abe Kōbō (Review)'. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 71.2 (2011): 436-441. Print.
Iwamoto, Yoshio, and Nancy K. Shields. 'Fake Fish: The Theater Of Kōbō Abe'. World Literature Today 71.4 (1997): 873. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Ma, Sheng-mei. Asian Diaspora And East-West Modernity. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2012. Print.
Motoyama, Mutsuko. 'The Literature And Politics Of Abe Kōbō: Farewell To Communism In Suna No Onna'. Monumenta Nipponica 50.3 (1995): 305. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Murphy, Chad. 'Hybrid Identity And The Return Of The Repressed'. KulturPoetik 13.2 (2013): 236-252. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Sato, Kumiko. 'The Alien Within: Representations Of The Exotic In Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature. By Leith Morton. Honolulu: University Of Hawai’i Press, 2009. Ix, 257 Pp. Sublime Voices: The Fictional Science And Scientific Fiction Of Abe Kōbō. By Christopher Bolton. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. Xiii, 332 Pp.'. The Journal of Asian Studies 69.04 (2010): 1247-1249. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Schnellbächer, Thomas. 'Has The Empire Sunk Yet? The Pacific In Japanese Science Fiction'. Science Fiction Studies 29.3 (2002): 382-396. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Thornbury, Barbara E. America's Japan And Japan's Performing Arts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. Print.
Wisniewski, Mark L., and Timothy Iles. 'Abe Kōbō: An Exploration Of His Prose, Drama, And Theatre'. Pacific Affairs 74.3 (2001): 444-445. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Yamamoto, Fumiko. 'Metamorphosis In Abe Kōbō’s Works'. The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 15.2 (1980): 170-194. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
- DerLenker (talk) 21:05, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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I think this should be deleted. The information given about Abe from that link is a very sparse and strangely written biography (for example skipping from 1951 to his death in 1993, and not even mentioning the Woman in the Dunes). There's another discussion to be had about whether sharing the location of someone's grave is valuable or appropriate, but in this case it's moot as the location given is "unknown". Darazu (talk) 15:08, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alberto Moravia?[edit]

I've read almost all of Abe's novels, and only The Conformist by Alberto Moravia. Comparing Abe to Kafka goes without saying, but to Moravia? Seems like kind of an odd choice. But what do other people think? Maybe I haven't read enough by Moravia. Hérisson Ford (talk) 23:58, 11 April 2022 (UTC)Hérisson Ford[reply]

Replying to myself here, the Science Fiction Encyclopedia's entry on Kobo Abe compares him to Kafka and Beckett; I suggest that Samuel Beckett should replace Moravia. Hérisson Ford (talk) 01:58, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Beckett is a better choice, but I'm also not well versed in Moravia. The "often" in that sentence ("Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society.") absoutely applies to Kafka, but it is a stretch to apply it to Moravia and prossibly Beckett. Currently, that is "supported" by 2 citations; a dead link to the New York Times and Timothy Iles' Abe Kobo: An exploration of his Prose, Drama and Theatre. I've got the Iles book in front of me as I type and, while I can't say conclusively he isn't mentioned, Moravia doesn't appear in the index. It is possible he is more often reference by Japanese (or Italian) critics of Abe, but the Japanese language article on Abe has a whole section on Kafka while Moravia doesn't appear once.

I would suggest simplifying it to only Kafka and citing virtually any English-language discussion of Abe (e.g., Bolton, C., Sublime Voices: The Fictional Science and Scientific Fiction of Abe Kobo, p. 4 - "He [Abe] is often compared with Kafka...". Comparisons with Beckett are certainly made and could be included, but I would argue the above link to the science fiction encyclopedia is only useful as a source for the claim that he was influenced by Beckett and not that he is often compared to Beckett. Darazu (talk) 13:29, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Combined "Career" and "Awards" sections with "Biography" section, added some information[edit]

Though I wouldn't particularly mind if this edit was reverted, it seemed to me as though these sections were all essentially biographical, which is why I incorporated Career and Awards into the Biography. Some minor additional information was added. I took the liberty of removing:

"The fact is, it may not have been trash in the center of the marsh at all; it may have been crows. I do have a memory of thousands of crows flying up from the swamp at dusk, as if the surface of the swamp were being lifted up into the air."[8] The trash of the marsh was a truth of life, as were the crows, yet Abe's recollections of them tie them distinctively. Further experiences with the swamp centered around its use as a staking ground for condemned criminals with "[their] heads—now food for crows—appearing suddenly out of the darkness and disappearing again, terrified and attracted to us."

because it was a little unclear to me exactly what he was referring to (the sentence before this quote was incorporated into an earlier section of the article). I also trimmed:

"It was a safe space for young performers, whom Abe would often recruit from the Toho Gakuen College in Chofu City, on the outskirts of Tokyo, where he taught. The average age of the performers in the studio was about 27 throughout the decade, as members left and fresh faces were brought in. Abe "deftly" handled issues arising from difference in stage experience."

because this degree of detail seemed a bit excessive, and I thought a little tightening was needed here as well. Just about everything else is there from the previous version and I did move a few sentences around if they seemed to fit better in other paragraphs.

Again, I won't mind if this is reverted, I just thought all of these three sections worked better as one. Hope I'm not stepping on too many toes here! Hérisson Ford (talk) 11:33, 21 April 2022 (UTC)‪Hérisson Ford‬[reply]