"Söz konusu olan bir kutu-adamın günlüğüdür: Kafamda taşıdığım, her iki yandan kalçalarıma kadar inen kartondan bir kutunun içindeyim. İşte o anda, kutu-adam benim."

"Eğer insanlar başkalarının bakışlarından kaçarak yaşamaya devam ederlerse, bunun nedeni insan gözünün yanlışlıklar ve sanrılar yarattığına emin olmalarıdır."

Nasıl açıklayacağımı bilemedim, Abe'nin çok farklı bir kafası var...

Seneler sonra tekrar düştüm yolum 'Kutu Adam'a. İlkinin çevirisi ne kadar korkunçmuş, şimdi bunu okuyunca anlıyor insan. Devrim Çetin Güven Hoca en güzel Japon edebiyatı çevirilerinden bir tanesine imza atmış. Nefes aldırdı.

Tabii metin nefes aldırmıyor, aksine nefessiz bırakıyor. Kutu Adam, hakkında isabetli yorum yapmanın ancak çok kere okuduktan, ya da kitap hakkında hayli uzun süre düşündükten sonra mümkün olduğu kitaplardan. Hakkında bir yazı yazacağım zaten önümüzdeki günlerde, o zamana kadar demlenmeye bırakıyorum.

'Kumların Kadını' ile başlamalı, sonra 'Başkasının Yüzü' ile devam etmeli bana kalırsa. 'Kutu Adam' bu ikisinin arkasına gelmeli. Henüz Abe'yi okumamış olanlar için bunu da buraya not düşeyim.

İyi okumalar.

"The Box Man", tal como "The Woman in the Dunes", é um exemplo perfeito de convergência entre o surrealismo e o existencialismo. Conta o mistério de um (ou mais que um?) homem que decide morar dentro de uma caixa de cartão. Faz uso de uma fluência e fragmentação semelhantes a um relato de um sonho, mas esse sonho rapidamente transforma-se num pesadelo psicosexual onde a ideia inicial de "ver mas não ser visto" entra por caminhos do voyeurismo. O conceito, a escrita e a incertidão com que fiquei ao fechar o livro são deliciosamente perturbadores e a escrita do Kōbō Abe é possivelmente uma das mais bonitas que já li.

n  L'uomo-scatolan, va detto subito, è un libro singolare.
Il titolo non lascia spazio all'immaginazione ci dice che il protagonista appartiene a questa categoria. Non un reietto o un emarginato, ma un individuo che ha scelto con consapevolezza questa sua attuale condizione.
La scatola assume la connotazione di un "filtro", attraverso la quale mescolarsi tra la gente, senza essere notato, e vedere sotto una nuova ottica la realtà che lo circonda. Eppure, un giorno, l'esistenza del nostro uomo-scatola viene sconvolta dall'incontro con due "bizzarri" individui che metteranno in discussione ogni sua certezza, minando a quel fragile equilibrio che è diventato oramai la sua vita e facendo scaturire numerosi interrogativi.
Kōbō Abe con questa sua "nuova" fatica non mi ha pienamente convinta; sì straniante e surreale, ma un po' troppo evanescente... Cerca di seminare per tutto il romanzo una serie di spunti di riflessione sulla società, eppure ciò che ho provato leggendo è stata confusione, non è d'aiuto il fatto che la narrazione sia caratterizzata da vari flashback e ribaltamenti improvvisi nella trama. Nel complesso direi che parte bene, ma si sviluppa in maniera troppo contorta e involuta per risolversi poi in un non-epilogo.

Promising as its weirdness may have seemed to me, sadly I failed to connect. Having read and loved The Woman in the Dunes, I like to believe that there was a certain philosophical depth to The Box Man but it clearly evaded me. Other than a few spot-on existential gimmicks, it was mostly a drag for me, since I had lost interest rather early in the book, while the endless monologues following the narrator's non-linear thoughts didn't really help the situation. By no means trash. Just not what I expected.

My experience of Japanese literature is that it can be exceedingly bizarre. The story of the box man (men?) is so enigmatic that I feel it expects the reader to deal with an exceptional level of 'weird'. Who is talking to us? How do we tell the 'real' box man from the/a fake one? Why should anyone want to hide in a cardboard box and spend time scribbling on the inside of it? And if we decide on this way of life, why should anyone shoot at us? What does box-living tell us about looking out on to the world? Or being stared at by odd (and often naked) individuals? Who would construct a periscope to play the peeping Tom on a piano teacher when she is using the toilet? If you think these problems would be of interest to you (and Kafka appeals to you but is not strange enough), you should read this short novel!

This is my second book by Kobo Abe, so I knew going in it would be surreal and strange. The first book I read by him was The Woman in the Dunes. This one I believe is a bit stranger than that one and I admit it's not for everyone. But if you're willing to actually see what this book is about it can have great depths to it. The story really made me think about a lot of things and I like that.

At first glance it seems to be about homeless people. Not just any type of homeless but a unique kind that live inside these giant boxes. They cut little windows and use special materials to fix the box up. They then become like hermit crabs and feel naked without the box..and yes, it's about addiction too..and most likely agoraphobia as well. These people cannot live without the box.

About halfway through the story I had a revelation. I suddenly thought that people can live in a box without actually being IN a box. We do it all of the time. We distance ourselves from others. A lot of people prefer to be alone or stay single instead of getting married. We put up invisible walls around ourselves. We box ourselves in. That's living in a box too.

One character tried to give money to the box man. It made me think this: you can't cure homelessness by throwing money at the homeless person. They need more help than just funds. They need the proper papers, IDs, maybe they don't have a credit history, etc. But there's a lot more involved than just not having the money to rent a place.

The story included some very strange dream like scenes. The one with the fish was very bizarre.

And towards the end the whole story seemed to twist into something else. It was still about the box man but it really turned into something different and a lot darker. I never saw that coming! Wow! What a huge surprise! And the very end was even more bizarre. It did not disappoint though. As I said I was expecting surreal. I would say the end had some elements of horror.

Another theme i noticed in here was voyeurs and watching people. Plus the opposite too: how we tend to not see unpleasant things and sweep them under the rug. Well what's more unpleasant than a box man? The author clearly had this all thought out in great detail including what they ate and how they got food. It's just amazing how many ideas he worked into this book..

این‌جا شهر آدم جعبه‌ای‌هاست.
شرط اصلی سکونت در آن ناشناس ‌بودن است و حق شهروندی فقط به کسانی داده می‌شود که کسی نباشند.

I will admit I'm perplexed by this book. There's a lot going on at the same time as there's very little action, and a dense cloud of unarticulated identities. The questions of identity and perception, originating from and reflecting back upon the self as well as piercing one from an outside source, are the central concerns of the story, and in problematizing common conceptions of these ideas, the narrative itself becomes problematic, approaching meta-narrative and introducing other tangential elements like the questions of authorial identity and intent, and the duality of our own voyeuristic tendencies - watching because we are desperate to be watched ourselves, or else because we're incapable of it.

Linking a lot of these themes is a muted acknowledgment that Japanese society (or perhaps any form of Western-style culture) underlies the tensions at work in the novel. Lurking somewhere just below the horizon, or perhaps looming above and out of sight of the observation window, is the world at large from which the box man has excommunicated himself. This particular aspect is addressed more thoroughly in The Ark Sakura (where one might recognize a re-imagined box man, fake box man, doctor, and nurse), but even here it is significant that the box man withdraws into his corrugated shell, where everything essential in life is literally within arm's reach, where one is responsible to no one but him or her self, and where typical social desires can be sublimated into the dualism of misanthropy and self-loathing.

Just an aside for all you Freudians - it is perhaps the most pivotal revelation of the novel that the primal scene, at least as experienced by the box man, is of a voyeuristic nature altogether different from what we find in the annals of classical psychoanalysis.

آدم جعبه ای یا مرد جعبه ای داستان عجیبی بود خیلی نمیدونم چطور باید در مورد داستان و موضوع بنویسم، خیلی ساده از اسم مشخصه داستان مردی که داخل جعبه هست! اما چرا؟ اصلا کی هست؟ داستان رو کی داره تعریف میکنه؟ شاید بهترین چیزی که میشه براش نوشت یه جمله از متن کتاب باشه

شاید همه‌ی این رویدادها رویا باشد
اما این رویا خیلی طولانی است. آن‌قدر طولانی که فرد شروعش را به‌خاطر نمی‌آورد… (بخشی از کتاب)ه

اما در نهایت این کتاب جذابیت مورد نظر من رو نداشت تقریبا میشه گفت دو سوم ابتدای کتاب بسیار کند و خسته کننده هست و شاید خیلی ها خوندن کتاب رو بی خیال بشن ولی یک سوم پایانی کمی جذاب تر و مفهومی تر میشه. در آخر تعداد ستاره ها رو با ارفاق و دست و دلبازی بسیار دادم

I found this playfully odd, though serious at the same time. I think I overall preferred "The Woman in the Dunes," but there were some parts of this that I preferred over that. I suppose that doesn't really help anyone real much reading this, but with this book I don't think you can hope for that. Oh well, back to the box.

مرد جعبه ای برای من قابل درک نبود. فی الواقع متوجه قدرتِ قلمِ کوبو آبه شدم و حتی بدم هم نیومر از اثر اما احساس می‌کنم اون ارتباطی که باید رو نتونستم باهاش بگیرم. داستان از یه جایی به بعد تماما تبدیل به یک معمایی می‌شد که هرلحظه باید حدس می‌زدی که کی داره برای تو روایت می‌کنه. و خب من خواننده مناسبی برای این اثر نبودم. قطعا در آینده در زمانی بهتر دوباره سراغش میام تا بهتر درکش کنم. پیشنهادم اینه که زمانی رو برای خوندن این اثر انتخاب کنید که در شرایط ذهنی خوبی باشید تا بتونید تمرکز کنید و حتما پیوسته و منسجم بخونیدش‌.