Isnt the whole thing just a Kafka ripoff though? What am I missing?

>>9332892
are we talking about the movie or the book? Either way there are better pieces by Abe and Teshigahara

It's like Kafka but better and more concise.

>>9333492
No there aren't.

>>9332892
I can understand why he is called the Japanese Kafka, though I believe the similarities to be pretty superficial. Both writers have a somewhat understated way of describing bizarre yet somehow also familiar events. That's pretty much where any similarities end though.

Kafka is the master of polyvalence in literature where by contrast Abe-in Woman in the Dunes anyway-is quite clearly not polyvalent. The metaphors are fairly obvious. His talk of spiritual rape, of the main characters insect hobby, of the watch tower are all pretty straight forward. Kafka's power comes from his mystery.
The lack of mystery in Abe renders his stories quite different from Kafka's. With Kafka you are never really sure as to what the "point" is. It's an important part of that Kafkaesque weirdness about them. You do know with Abe, thus making his books a very different set of creatures.

If you really wanted to you could do a rigid and single minded reading of something like The Trial and compare it to Woman in the Dunes. But to do so is only to reduce Kafka to a single of facet of his many faced oeuvre.

Considering all the themes present in Woman in the Dunes I see a greater closeness to writers like Camus (though not stylistically) than Kafka.

>>9332892
what the actual fuck
closer to nabakov qua bug collector motif than kakfa

File: 1480006151944.jpg (10KB, 350x490px) Image search: [Google]

10KB, 350x490px

>>9333708
The role of bug collecting in Woman in the Dunes is aping science and its inability to understand the world, especially the world of human society. It has nothing in common with Nabokov at all except for that fact that Nabokov collects butterflies. Note that the main character in Dunes makes fun of people who only collect pretty insects like butterflies. We might as well compare the character to Hemingway because they both had two legs. They is only incidentally related.

>>9333571
The "Do you shovel to survive or survive to shovel" is, indeed, very closely related to the Myth of Sisyphus as is the main character finding peace and happiness in this.

>>9333542
Pitfall, in my opinion, is a better film.

Why would you be upset with getting more Kafka?

>>9333743
pretty sure that was his point

>>9333571

>Considering all the themes present in Woman in the Dunes I see a greater closeness to writers like Camus (though not stylistically) than Kafka.

Good post, and yeah this is true.

As an aside, the book really reminds me of a movie called The Woman in the Dunes also directed by some Japanese dude.

Also, The Duke of Burgundy qua the bug collection motif.

>>9334164
Pitfall is a much much less well conceived and executed film. If you said Face of Another, I might agree with you but Pitfall is clearly a first film and has all the expected problems of a first film.

Honestly amazed anyone would consider it better than Woman in the Dunes.

>>9333818
I don't think the main character finds peace and happiness in Woman in the Dunes. He stays, sure, but the woman is implied to die of an ectopic pregnancy and he seems to have been sucked in by the Japanese concept of "giri" which is a personal guilt associated with the feeling of not doing enough for your family or community. It's that obligation that I feel makes him stay at the end and not him finding some zen peace.

>>9334645
>the book really reminds me of a movie called The Woman in the Dunes

1/10, got me to respond

>>9334645
You're a knobhead for this post but The Duke of Burgundy needs more love and is a potential modern arthouse classic so I must offer you a polite reply in appreciation of your mentioning it.

the ultimate horror: a job which is meaningless to you and a partner you do not love, neither of which you can leave

>>9334816
Genuine fear of mine

>>9334806

It's all good in the kino hood my bludfam.