Hooked by the blurb, good premise but lost interest by halfway, which is a shame as I really enjoyed the beginning character and world building. Could have done with more mole before the story escalated.

Not sure if this novel went through the editing process as it felt more like freeform writing to me.
When it comes to the fear of atomic oblivion then The Cold War - this written around the time when the possibility was still a great threat - was obviously on Abe's mind. Knowing Abe from previously read novels this was always going to be weird, and it is - a creature that eats its own faeces and a bizarre flea market being a couple of examples. Despite its fantasy elements in the end it came down to the complex relationship between four characters - three males and a female (she being written as a sexual object more than anything else) - and their time spent together in Mole's underground ark (Mole being the reclusive central character) waiting to launch when mankind is wiped out. I liked certain parts of it but overall it didn't hold itself together as a novel in the ways I'd hoped.

My feelings about this are mixed. I totally loooooved the idea and the beginning and the gadgetry and the use of metaphor with stories within it. Totally totally. I quite liked the ending as well.

As a whole book it only makes sense as a flagging of human imperfection in the sense of morality and action (some of it culturally imbued some innate), how there is such a side to us all to some degree, and how we might come to exercise some of them due to for example competition especially where power is involved (or war), how such can bring out such aspects of humanity. And how those can look judging and disagreeing with people who act and hold certain views, but when some situation comes by, there are elements that can be triggered in them. The behaviour around women are highlighted in this, which means whilst it is absurd, there is a derogatoriness and disrespect for women exhibited in this very male character dominated book. It's instrumental to the whole that is aimed at, but at the same time it is not something I `enjoyed' reading, finding it immature and disgraceful -- that people might act quite in that ridiculous ugly way. But there in arises part of the point of the book or perhaps part of the motivators of it.

Being as it is everywhere, by way of discussing the choice of survivors of a potential sudden nuclear war (which the ark is built for and the mole is certain is coming) and other metaphors, the question of how one draws the line is raised. And whether such separations really matters when it comes to getting on with things and surviving. Towards the end with the main character, it's very much about him cutting away from fears and his passed and the judgement of others, and it's only then and that way he can be open to the outside world rather than trying to guard from the consequences of it and human nature running at large in it.

If the main character came to try to defend what he thought or others that might be thought, or some how came to face his inner contradictions with regards to women somewhere I probably wouldn't have minded, but he never did. He just went on living with his inner contradictions -- saying women are free, disagreeing strongly with rape, yet not trying to avoid a situation where it might come to be with him walking away that his actions in some way put them in a situation to enable, and wrestling with the immature sexual want for one character and struggling to accept her will on the matter. I'm not sure if it was deliberate being that most people go in in their lives in some ways zombies to it or if it's a reflection of the author, or if its a choice feeling that something of the sort would indicate some chance of humanity saving them from themselves which the author didn't believe or was not trying to portray in the book. Whatever the reason, the `lesson' is still the same and in keeping with theme of the book.

Maybe I just want to think humans can be better than they are, and would like to see it reflected somewhere. Or maybe I just think they can be a little better than the author depicts or thinks in this book.

It's not very articulately worded, but that's roughly indicating the general direction.

A bewildering and mostly unpleasant reading experience. A survivalist lets a set of shills into his mountain and they wander around arguing in a casual way while nothing happens or is resolved, and scatology, fatphobia, and relentlessly grim misogyny abound. I suppose it's about the awful pointlessness of survival after nuclear war and what society will come to when reduced to a few awful people centred around a toilet.

I suspect this is one of those books that struck an amazing chord in its time/place and makes no sense once out of it, in the same way that Zuleika Dobson was a gigantic hit despite being rambling gibberish to the modern eye.

The world, behaviour, story telling were truly repulsive and like a trip into an underground world you never wanted to get to. Not sure whether I wanted to embark on this kind of trip although I do enjoy Abe's surreal worlds but this was one of a kind.

By rights, I should have been head over heels for Kobo Abe's The Ark Sakura. I mean, check it out: a bizarre, absurdist-yet-thoughtful plot; a strong narrative voice; a small cast of characters semi-quarantined together in a (relatively) small area; a sharp, satirical political ethos...this book was obviously written with my wholehearted enjoyment in mind. And it starts out in a hilariously promising way: our protagonist, who because of his obesity and underground dwelling-place is known as Mole, leaves the latter-day "ark" - actually a vast, abandoned stone quarry converted into a survivalist bunker - to run some errands in town. He's almost finished his ark, which is designed to withstand the coming (according to him) nuclear winter as well as isolate him from his abusive father. But he is distressed by the fact that he has yet to hand out any invitations to others to accompany him into the brave new underground world. In the course of his wanderings he encounters a shady but possibly sympathetic insect-dealer who is peddling mounted "eupcaccias": apocryphal insects whose legs have atrophied due to the fact that they never travel, instead staying in the same place and using their mouths to move in a tight circle, excreting and consuming their own excretions at the exact same rate.

(Let me just pause a moment here to note that if you're easily grossed out or don't think it's cool to read about solid waste, this is not the book for you. It shares with Joyce's n  Ulyssesn and Saramago's n  Blindnessn the dubious honor of including at least one graphic shitting scene, and its spiritual center is a gigantic, oversized toilet used for flushing all manner of things out to sea.)

Mole pretty much knows the eupcaccias are bogus (the insect dealer has concocted an entire mythology about them, in which they dwell on an imaginary island and inspire an imaginary tourist trade), but it doesn't matter: he still finds them so allegorically compelling that he's immediately convinced the insect dealer should join him on the ark. Along with a male/female con-artist team who work the craft bazaars drumming up business by pretending to be interested in the rinky-dink merchandise, they both end up back at the bunker, where Mole introduces the other three to his stash of beer, chocolate, jerry-rigged weaponry, holographic air photography, and, of course, giant, ultra-powerful toilet.

One of the real strengths of the novel, I think, is Mole's narrative voice. Despite being an abused, unattractive loser with delusional paranoia, the twisted alternate-reality he creates for himself is oddly compelling. He tends to be so fixated on tiny details - the clever mechanical workings of the booby traps he's set up throughout the quarry, for example - that he never has to acknowledge the lunacy of his entire project. (His methodical obsession with obscure details reminded me of the narrators in the works of Kenzaburo Oe and Kazuo Ishiguro, as well as Samuel Beckett - high praise indeed, in my world.) It quickly becomes apparent that Mole imagines a full "crew" for his ark - over three hundred people - and yet it racks him with anxiety even to admit three new faces to his sanctuary. At the same time, once he's committed to inviting the three of them, he can hardly let them "escape"; they might spread the word around about how to get into his ark. He's filled with adolescent fantasies about power and sexuality; he envisions everyone on the Ark addressing him as "Captain," yet even the other outcasts, like the insect dealer and the shill, have more leadership ability. And his sexual understanding has never progressed beyond that of a twelve-year-old boy with a pile of porn stockpiled under his mattress. Yet he kids himself that he's in control of the situation, that he'll continue to control the running of the ark even after hundreds of people join it, even after he's sealed off the entrances from the encroaching nuclear winter. Meanwhile, the female half of the shill-couple has absolutely no trouble manipulating him with a single tug on her fake-leather skirt.

This brings me to the reason I'm lukewarm about The Ark Sakura: the gender roles in it really just bummed me out. Which makes me a little bit frustrated with myself, because the gross, masturbatory interactions in the book were so cartoonishly over-the-top that their satirical nature can hardly be doubted. Take this passage, in which Mole and the insect dealer take turns slapping "the girl" (nobody ever bothers to learn her name) on the ass:

        "One of these would supply about enough electricity for one twelve-watt bulb, and that's it," said the insect dealer, and launched a second attack on her backside. There was the sound of a wet towel falling on the floor. He'd scored a direct hit, in the area of the crease in her buttocks. She emitted a scream that was half wail.

        "Eventually I intend to convert all those old bikes in that pile over there. With twenty-eight bikes operating at the same time, charging up the car batteries, there would be enough energy to supply an average day's needs."

        Pretending I was going to activate one to show them, I drew closer to the woman and laid a hand on her myself, not to be outdone. It was not so much a slap as a caress: that prolonged the contact by a good five times. Using her hand on the handlebars as a fulcrum, she swung herself around to the other side, bent forward, and giggled. On the other side, the insect dealer was waiting, palm outstretched. It was a game of handball, her bottom the ball.

See what I mean? It seems silly even to be offended by such an obviously absurd set of events. A little later, Mole goes from zero to creepy in three-point-two seconds when he momentarily fancies himself a sensitive guy:

Perhaps I shouldn't have said so much. But I wanted to impress it on her that I, for one, was not the sort of man who could go around brandishing the traditional male prerogatives. I was a mole, someone who might never fall into a marriage trap, but whose prospects for succeeding in any such scheme of his own were nil. Yet I was the captain of this ark, steaming on toward the ultimate apocalypse, with the engine key right in my hand. This very moment, if I so chose, I could push the switch to weigh anchor. What would she say then? Would she call me a swindler? Or would she lift her skirt and hold out her rump for me to slap?

Abe is plainly using Mole's interactions with "the girl" to point up his own ridiculously immature, even delusional, outlook on life, and the panting ease with which he lets himself be led around by his schlong. His fetishized image of the girl takes over his life and undermines his decision-making power, and yet he remains totally unable to relate to her as a person. The one time we hear her express her own reality, he immediately makes it all about himself. I think all of this is quite well-done, actually.

And yet, reading it made me feel tired. I mean, the downside of portraying Mole's inner world is that Abe HIMSELF is relieved of the need to make "the girl" into any kind of interesting character. And hey look, she's the only female in the book (if you don't count the roaming horde of junior high school girls lost somewhere in the quarry). And oh huh, how unusual, a single, fetishized female in the midst of males endowed with subjectivity. You don't say. Ho hum. Wake me after the revolution.

Despite my (possibly mood-induced) reservations, there are many thought-provoking elements in The Ark Sakura. As satirical as Abe's portrayal of Mole is, he's never quite AS nuts as a similar person would seem in America. Japan, after all, is the one country which actually has directly experienced the fallout of nuclear war, which gives Mole's paranoia a different cast. And the fact that he's reacting against the abuse he suffered at the hands of his biological father - a man of the generation that propelled WWII forward - gives the story an allegorical cast; it's addressing the experience of the children who grew up to face the atrocities their fathers committed. I'm reminded of the section of Günter Grass's Dog Years in which sets of magic spectacles circulate around Germany as the children of former Nazis reach adolescence. When the young adults don the spectacles, they see the things their parents have done, and lose all faith. There's a certain similarity here, in Mole's interactions with his bestial father, and his own consequently stunted emotional growth. So too, his use of the giant toilet is significant: he condemns the actions of his father and wants to start over with a clean slate, and yet he himself survives by accepting money to flush toxic waste down the john, washing it out to sea. He's condemning the waste and selfishness of his own father, while simultaneously following in the father's footsteps by accelerating the destruction of his environment and naively imagining he can separate himself from that destruction.

So, certainly not a complete loss. In a different mood, at a different time, probably a big win. But right now, what I want is a well-drawn, realistically sympathetic female character. One not wracked into continual sobs by religious guilt, or flattened to two dimensions by male lust. One that makes me feel the author understands the plain, unadorned humanity of women as well as men. I have Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, A.S. Byatt's Possession, and a biography of Mother Jones on my to-be-read shelf, but any suggestions from you, my bloggy friends, would be much appreciated as well.

به نظرم کتاب بیشتر از هرچیز درباره ی نجات و مفهوم اون در نگاه آدم های متفاوته که قطعا درک و پیشینه و نگاه های متفاوتی دارن. به سبک آبه، ناامیدی او از بشریت و پیش‌بینی تغییر قطعی آدمها در شرایط مختلف رو در داستان می‌بینیم. این که آدم ها عوض میشن..بسته به شرایط بی رحم و خبیث و خطرناک میشن، بخصوص وقتی پای قدرت بی حساب و کتاب و اسلحه و زن به میون میاد. داستان بر خلاف ظاهر فانتزی ش به شدت واقع گرایانه س و همین قوی و پرکشش و جذابش میکنه. ترجمه هم روون و خوبه. به نظرم ارزش وقت گذاشتن داره.

This was a good one, weird and enigmatic yet still comprehensible and engaging throughout. I'd still have to put it second to "The Woman in the Dunes" or "Kangaroo Notebook," but definitely one of my more preferred Abe books.

Early in the book we are told the word sakura means cherry blossom in Japanese, but it's also the word for those who help merchants spur interest in their wares, or to be more succinct: "decoys, shills." We also become aware of an abandoned ornamental stone quarry the apocalyptically-minded protagonist considers his Ark. But what happens with these two concepts collide, I'm afraid, isn't really possible to summarize without quoting the entire text.

Here is a definition of survival, for instance:

Thanks, glad to hear it. So they got down to about eleven people, I think it was. Everybody but the paralytic left the starting line together. So far so good. Then for some reason, right in front of the goals they all stopped. Guess what happened? Everybody just stood there, waiting for the paralytic to hobble down and catch up. Seeing him enter the blue zone, they all went in after him. Strange psychology, don't you think call it superstition or mob psychology—the we're-all-in-this-together mentality. And the funny thing was that the die turned up blue. All eleven survived, but this way the prize stayed beyond their grasp. It wasn't a violation of the rules, though, so not even the judges could complain. At round six, exactly the same thing happened. Incredibly, round seven was the same. It began to seem uncanny. The rain was coming down harder and harder, and the lights came on, although it was really still too early. Even the students, who were usually a source of noise and confusion, stood lined up at the edge of the playing field like so many wet sandbags. Midway through round eight, the committee in charge went into deliberations, and just then the assault began, a sudden fusillade of automatic rifle fire. The sound effects director must have flipped out. All at once the paralytic's knees buckled and he went down head-first into the mud. Some people misunderstood, and laughed. The school physician came running over, medicine bag in hand, but it was too late. The game was called off. What do you think? I think maybe that's what survival is all about.
Over.

(Mind you, this novel was published more than three decades before Squid Game.)

All this is to say this is one of the most moving and absurd books I've laid my hands on. Read at your pleasure.

It has that Kobo Abe tone. Like subdued Surrealism. Soft Surrealism. It's dark, lonely, and to use a common cliche, Kafkaesque.
While not as powerful as Woman in the Dunes, this is one of the author's more charming, grotesque, dreamlike and memorable novels.

Tried it. Didn't particularly like it, couldn't get past the first 10%

کشتی ساکورا، یک کشتی نوح ژاپنی

همه‌ی ما به نوعی با داستان «حضرت نوح» آشنایی داریم. حالا در کتاب «کشتی ساکورا» با یک حضرت نوح عجیب‌وغریب طرف هستیم که به جای کشتی، یک معدن دارد و برخلاف حضرت نوح که هرآنکه نزدیکش بود را می‌شناخت، به کشتی‌ خود راه می‌داد، موش کور (جایگزین حضرت)، وسواس عجیبی در انتخاب کسانی دارد که می‌خواهد با خود نجات دهد.
کشتی ساکورا حول محور مردی به نام موش کور می‌چرخد. نام واقعی او هرگز فاش نمی‌شود و تنها در یک معدن متروکه در نزدیکی توکیو زندگی می‌کند. او این معدن را کشتی خود می‌نامد و قصد دارد این کشتی را با خدمه‌ای توانا راه بیندازد. او مردی گوشه‌گیر است و هیچ دوست یا خانواده‌ی نزدیکی ندارد. بنابراین گاهی اوقات به منظور جمع‌آوری خدمه‌ی مورد نیاز خود، به اجتماعات رو می‌آورد. گرچه همانطور که گفتیم، او به ندرت کسی را شایسته می‌یابد تا پا به کشتی‌اش بگذارد، تا این که یک روز حین بازدید از بازار با کومونو آشنا می‌شود. فروشنده‌ای که هر آشغالی را که در زمین پیدا می‌شود را می‌فروشد! او به موش کور یک حشره‌ی عجیب می‌فروشد. حشره‌ای که با خوردن فضولات خود زنده می‌ماند. اینجاست که کتاب شروع به عجیب شدن می‌کند.
جالب است بدانید که زمان به آب انداختن کشتی، به زمانی تعلق دارد که هولوکاست هسته‌‌ی بشریت را نابود کند. بلافاصله مشخص می‌شود که کوبو آبه، تا حدی این رمان را در پاسخ به جنگ سرد و ترس مردم از انفجار اتمی نوشته است. این کتاب در سال 1984، یعنی زمانی منتشر شد که تهدیدی چون نابودی جهان هنوز خیلی واقعی به نظر می‌رسید.

کوبو آبه، نویسنده‌ی کتاب

کوبو آبه، نویسنده، نمایشنامه‌نویس، موسیقی‌دان، عکاس و مخترع ژاپنی بود. آبه را اغلب به دلیل حساسیت‌های مدرنیستی و اکتشافات سورئال و اغلب کابوس گونه‌اش، با فرانتس کافکا و آلبرتو موراویا مقایسه می‌کنند. او در سال 1951، برنده‌ی جایزه‌ی «آکوتاگاوا» شد. همچنین در سال 1962، برای اثر «زن در تپه‌ها» برنده‌ی جایزه یومیوری و در سال 1967، برنده‌ی جایزه‌ی تانیزاکی شد. او حتی لایق جایزه‌ی نوبل ادبی هم بود و چندین بار نیز نامش به عنوان گیرنده احتمالی این جایزه، ذکر شد، اما مرگ زودهنگام او مانع از این اتفاق شد. از جمله آثارش می‌توان به «یک بخشش»، «نقشه تباه‌شده»، «چهره‌ی دیگری»، «زن در ریگ روان»، «مدفون عصر یخبندان 4»، «آدم جعبه‌ای»، «قتل غیر عمد»، «دوستان»، «جناب روح» و «جوراب شلواری سبز» اشاره کرد.

چرا یک منزوی در گیرودار نجات است؟

در ژاپن حتی کسانی که اوتاکو هستند (کسی که انیمه زیاد می‌بیند) بخش منفعل جامعه محسوب می‌شود. در مقایسه با داستان «کشتی ساکورا»، به این نتیجه می‌رسیم که «موش کور» قطعا یک طرد شده است و چی��ی جز آن معدن بی‌جان خود ندارد. چرا همچین کسی اصلا باید به زندگی دیگران اهمیت دهد؟ درون ذهن او چه می‌گذرد که توسط کوبو آبه انتخاب شده و ماجرایش نوشته شده است؟ کوبو آبه به طور کلی، به زاغه‌نشین‌ها و اهالی حاشیه‌ اهمیت بیشتری می‌دهد. اما شاید این تنافض به نوعی سبب جذابیت موش کور و شاید کل داستان باشد.

ادموند وایت در نقد و بررسی این رمان برای نیویورک تایمز گفته بود که کشتی ساکورا را می‌توان به سبکی رویایی، رمانی با «سخت‌ترین معنا» توصیف کرد. او دامنه و سطح جزئیات رمان را ستود. این رمان عمیقاً در ایده‌های عجیب‌وغریب راوی منزوی خود کاوش می‌کند. اما به نوعی نیز می‌توان آن را یک نوع اکتشاف جذاب از زندگی مدرن در ژاپن و معنای رانده شدن در همین کشور پرطرفدار در نظر گرفت. گرچه رانده شدن از هر کشوری می‌تواند سخت باشد، اما رانده شدن کاراکتری که کوبو آبه به تصویر کشیده، معانی خاصی را در بر دارد. شاید این کاراکتر، بیش از حد می‌دانست، شاید این کاراکتر، ایده‌ای دارد که می‌تواند نجات‌بخش همه باشد. اما دولتی که او را طرد کرده، به احمق‌ها احتیاج بیشتری دارد. شاید ترس دولت از کسانی که می‌فهمند، «موش کور» را روانه‌ی معدن کرده است.
به هر حال، کوبو آبه این رمان عمیق و فلسفی را با سبکی سورئال و جذاب نوشته تا هم یادی از سورئال‌های پیچیده‌ی موراکامی کنیم، هم با سطح جدیدی از ادبیات روانشناختی روبه‌رو شویم که این بار در فرانسه، انگلیس، آلمان یا روسیه اتفاق نمیفتد، بلکه در ژاپن رخ می‌دهد.
در صورت تمایل می‌توانید تحلیل کامل و جذابی از این کتاب را در مقاله‌ای با عنوان «یک تایتانیک شخصی؛ معرفی رمان کشتی ساکورا» که در مجله‌ی کتابچی وجود دارد، مطالعه فرمایید.