Yazarın okuduğum ikinci kitabı Kutu Adam. Kutuda yaşayan bir adamın başından geçenleri, günlüğünü okuyoruz. Üstüne düşünülmesi gereken bir çok konudan bahsediyor görmek ve görülmek üzerine. Kurgusunda bazı anlarda karakterlerden hangisinin gerçek olduğu bile belirsiz hale geliyor. Hatta günlüğü yazan kişi mi anlatıyor okuyan mı o noktada bile şüpheye düşüyorsunuz. Başlarda bu durum kopukluk oluşturuyor gibi geldi. Ama biraz ilerleyince konuyu destekleyen bir anlatım olduğunu farkettim. Sonrasında kitap keyifli bir hale geldi. Bilinçli yapılan bu tarz anlatımları çok beğeniyorum. Bu kitabı da severek okudum.

Yıllar önce Ahmet Gürcan çevirisinden okuduğumda bir hayli zorlanmıştım. Çok sebep var. En başta daha acemi bir okuyucu olmakla ilgili. Ancak şimdi Çetin Güven çevirisini okuyunca yıllar önce "ben bu kitabı mı okumuştum" diye düşünmekten kendimi alamadım.
Bir kere genel metin anlamı konusunda çok farklılıklar var. Bu çeviriyi çok daha rahat okudum elbette. Benden kaynaklanan sebepler bir yana çevirinin temizliği ve akıcılığı gerçekten dikkate değer.
Metin zaten oldukça karmaşık, gerçekle kurgunun birbirine girdiği çok deneysel ve kolajlı bir metin. Metin parçaları, f0toğraflar kurgu ile birleşince bir sarmal içinde buluyor insan kendini. Yazarın klostrofobik atmosfer yaratımı inanılmaz. Kendimi yer yer nefes almakta zorlanırken hissettiğimi söylersem abartmış olmam.
Bazı kitaplar sanırım böyle; metin ne kadar karmaşık, ne kadar zor gibi görünse de sizi içine çekip bir kutunun içi kadar bir yer bile olsa orada yaşamanıza sebep oluyor ya işte bunun keyfi sanırım paha biçilemez. :))
İyi ki bir kez daha okudum. Teşekkürler DQ ! :)

What a thoroughly confusing read! I went into this quite blind and excited to learn as much as possible about life inside a carboard box. I came out of it with more questions than answers. I could not tell you how many box men there are, who the narrator of this book is, or if box men even exist in this weird world Abe creates. The themes are vague, and the plot is almost non-existent, the only thing that is really pushed is the idea that repression will eventually express itself.
Abe writes like if Kafka and David Lynch had a child… it is wonderfully weird. Despite its perplexity, or perhaps because of it, I love this book. I would not recommend it to anyone I know, which only makes me appreciate it more.

I liked this much more than I expected. I planned to say something like "Kobo, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't read it." But I found that I could. There's two or three really good bits amongst a very tolerable amount of po-mo bullshit (writing upside down, photographs, characters arguing over who is writing the story, etc).

Kobo Abe's style is weird, but this book tops it all.

My full review is here:
https://wordsandpeace.com/2022/03/06/...

The Box Man is a novel by the Japanese writer Kōbō Abe, known for his writing that explores themes of absurdity and alienation. The book is characterized by a sense of surrealism and blurring of reality and fantasy. The story follows the main character who chooses to live inside a box, isolated from the world as a commentary on society and the human desire for invisibility and control. The novel explores themes of self-isolation, paranoia, and the human desire for invisibility. The main character faces various challenges and obstacles, including harassment and assault for being a box man. He also struggles with temptation and desire for physical intimacy. The novel is written in a stream-of-consciousness style and uses symbolism and imagery to add to its enigmatic nature.

Didn't really understand what was going on for half of the book. Went to bed with a headache every night because of it. But aside from the plot, I really enjoyed the concept of it.

So this book is weird, and I have to confess that I wasn't always exactly sure what was going on...

Mainly the story reads like a journal of a "Box Man" or basically someone who has decided to drop out of society in favor of wearing a cardboard box at all times. However, you can also tell that Abe has a background in science (medicine), because we are given detailed directions at the beginning regarding the construction of the box and specific details about survival methods, as though we were reading a manual on "How to be a Box Man." The story can be viewed as an examination of the intentionally homeless, existentialists, or a comment on the nature of identity. There's also a lot concerning the act of seeing and being seen. Also, sexual frustration or deviancy seems to have a correlation with choosing the "box."

There isn't a very concrete plotline, but we know that a box man is shot a by an air rifle and also offered 50,000 yen to discard his box. Tension is great between box men and the rest of society. Later, he has interactions with a fake box man and a woman who seems to be perpetually nude. Overall, I enjoyed the format and the issues the story examines. An unconventional read.

մի ամբողջ տարի ձգվեց գիրքը...էն գրքերից ա, որ չես ուզում` շուտ ավարտես, ձգձգում ես, մտածում ես, վերլուծում...մտքերս ամբողջ ընթացքում խառն էին. չէի հասկանում իրականություն ա, մտքեր, ում դեմքից ա խոսում, ինչ ի նկատի ունի.... շատ հավանեցի:

Πειραματικό, μπερδεμένο, γοητευτικά μυστηριακό κείμενο. Πρέπει σίγουρα να το ξαναδιαβάσω.

The Box Man was cancelled by the Atikokan Public Library after men began disappearing and reappearing with boxes over their heads (probably in the young adult section). One less person to read a newspaper on a stick in 1982 was no big thing but in 1987 two people checked out and then checked out. Cancelled is stamped on the title page. Cancelled again on the next, and the next page in case any wives of veterans were tempted to buy a box big enough for their Juice Newton hair-dos. In case any teenaged volunteers were lured by the forbidden cancelled is stamped again in more places inside the book. Someone got carried away with their stamper! (They must have been issued their own stamper that cancellation day.) How bad could the box man trend have been? (I started a broken bones trend when I was eight. Five kids in my elementary school just had to be like me and sport casts. It is dangerously painful to be trendy.) I have no idea where Atikokan is. It could be a place of box people. One day someone came along and packed all the boxes away, including the cancelled book.

Now it's mine. I wish I felt like I had won... The shut your eyes to another view out of your own window man.

Televisions are boxes. The first thing I ever learned to draw (properly) was a box (I skipped the all-too important step of stick figures. Drawing is like math. I'll be able to paint a mural on the ceiling of a cathedral before I'll ever draw a decent stick figure). Shoulder pads (from 1987! Aha!) were boxy. So what the hell is so free about living in a box? It's BOXED IN because you can't get out. Because The Box Man didn't make a case for invisibility inside a box. People are people (okay some are more like stick figures than others). You can be ignored by the person you are sitting next to! Even before cellphones and portable gaming machines people were ignored. Put on the same outfit and vacant expression that everyone else is wearing. Look like you should be there and you'll be more ignored than anyone wearing a cardboard box. It's not hard to go through a day without talking to a single person. Don't open your mouth. Don't smile at anyone. Does it feel like freedom to be ignored? It is freedom if you don't care. What is freedom worth to you if you don't care?

Boxes have been seen floating on their own. Like dust bowls... Is anyone carried away inside?

The Box Man reads like a how-to. I don't care how many times you say that putting on a box means that no one will notice you. I will notice! (I'm really worried about this homeless chick I used to see every day. She looked a lot like goodreads author KI Hope so I called her Homeless KI. She was probably murdered.) He cares in the same telling way of do this and do that on how to be a box man. He shouldn't have felt so "My stuff!" and "Get off my lawn!" But he did. The Box Man is the voyeur feeling of knowing that there are guys who go to peep show booths in triple x shops. I felt as close to him as I feel to those guys. The box should have had a hole for his dick and he could have sat in a movie theater because what he saw was not real. My stuff! Oh, my stuff!

Rupert Murdoch was found sleeping on piles of News of the World. Someone kicked him out of his own and he's going to take up shop in all of our boxes.

What was so contagious about box men? If you see one and there's a part of you that notices that there are box men you will have to become one? YOU DON'T NEED TO BE INSIDE A BOX TO NOTICE PEOPLE! This book was built on a cheap ass piece of cardboard. (Hiding is from self hate. It is not freedom. Any invisibility fantasy I ever had was not about voyeurism. I don't care what the stupid movies tell you about horny teen boys spying on their French teachers.) Kobo Abe, you really don't get it. People who don't notice box men are pretending not to notice them, just as your box man was pretending not to notice themselves. Too bad you didn't have the depth (my box is 3d) to see it.

Kids used to bump my head with my twins on the school bus. They'd ask me if I felt it when they abused her. There's a kind of feeling it too that's called empathy. If you're going to make a case for actual infection you are going to have to do better, Kobo Abe. Get under my big enough umbrella.

Maybe I'd get a disguise like Kobo Abe's thick black frames. Or one with a fake nose and mustache. Four eyes and extra powerful sense of smell! If I mimed a box I could open new invisible doors (this book really was bullshit).

In seeing there is love, in being seen there is abhorrence. One grins, trying to bear the pain of being seen. But not just anyone can be someone who only looks. If the one who is looked at looks back, then the person who was looking becomes the one who is looked at...
Hogwash. You have to look at yourself and MAYBE you'll understand a little bit of what anyone else is about because you bothered to step out of a tiny box to live in. Now why would anyone want to hide. I know why I would.

P.s. I realized that because my uncle is homeless (by choice) I can thank Jamie Foxx (or Will Smith. That's almost as good) for portraying homeless people on the big screen with such compassion.

برای اولین بار بود که یه کتاب رو کاملا به‌صورت ای‌بوک می‌خوندم، اونم بخاطر نسخه‌ی سانسور‌نشده و چقدر سخت بود! عملا این کتاب ۱۶۰ صفحه‌ای ۴۰ روز طول کشید تا تموم شه! هیچ‌وقت با ای‌بوک‌ها ارتباط کتابی نگرفته‌م. بعد از دو سه صفحه از سرِ خوندن اون کتاب به‌کلی می‌گذشتم. انگار حجابی داشته باشن که مانع لذت‌بردن من می‌شن. بوییدن و لمس‌کردن کتاب رو دست‌کم نگیریم! البته قلم سردرگم‌کننده‌ی آبه هم توی این طول کشیدنه کم تاثیرگذار نبود.

کتاب از نقطه‌نظر یه راوی اول شخص غیرقابل‌اعتماد -که از قضا خدا یه ذهن مشوش و آشفته هم بهش مرحمت کرده- روایت می‌شه که واقعیت و تخیل و خواب و خاطره رو مثل یک کلاف سردرگم درهم ادغام می‌کنه و هویت انسان رو هدف قرار می‌ده. داستان راوی‌ای (یا عده‌ای از جمله راوی؟) که جعبه رو به عنوان حجاب برتر انتخاب کرده‌ و هر روز دنیا رو از زاویه دید داخل جعبه نگاه می‌کنه و این جعبه براش یه‌جور مصونیته. شخصیت کاملا غیراجتماعی‌‌ای داره و از دیده‌شدن خوشش نمیاد. دوست داره از سوراخی که توی قسمتی از جعبه تعبیه کرده همه‌جاهای درست و غلط رو دید بزنه، بدون این‌که موردقضاوت دیگران قرار بگیره. توی خیابون‌‌ها و محیط‌های کثیف و نمور و تنگ و تاریک توکیو پرسه‌زنی می‌کنه، طول داستان با اتفاقات زیادی روبه‌رو می‌شه و تراوش‌های فکری‌اش نسبت به اون اتفاقات، ذهن خواننده رو به چالش می‌کشه.
داستان به صورت کلی اشاراتی به تنهایی و انزوای روزافزون انسان در دنیای مدرن هم داره و این موضوع به وفور در بطن داستان دیده می‌شه. اینکه چرا هر روز انسان بیشتر از قبل تمایلی برای برقراری ارتباط با دیگران نداره و به دنبال محصورکردن خودش در یک محیط کوچیکه.
راوی‌ غیرقابل اعتماد، عناصر سوررئال و یه‌جورایی گروتسک و استفاده‌ی موضوعاتی از قبیل همین موضوعات مذکور باعث شدند به کوبو آبه لقب کافکای ژاپنی هم بدن.
کارگردان هیروشی تشیگاهارا که کارهاش رو در سینمای ژاپن می‌پسندم و تحسینش می‌کنم چند همکاری با آقای آبه داشته و از آثارش اقتباس‌هایی کرده که معروف‌ترینشون زن در ریگ روان (woman in the dune 1964) و چهره‌ی دیگری (the face of another 1966) محسوب می‌شن که هرکدوم شاهکار‌ی‌ست در عالم سینما. (چرا مرد جعبه‌ای رو نساختی آقای تشیگاهارا؟!!)



پ.ن: کتاب مرد جعبه‌ای که با ترجمه‌ی مرضیه طرلانی در نشر خوب چاپ شده حاوی سانسورهاییه و این نسخه‌ی بدون سانسور الکترونیکی با ترجمه‌ی فردین توسلیان به صورت رایگان در اختیار عموم قرار گرفته و مشکلی از بابت ترجمه نداره.

پ.ن ۲: چه اطلاعاتی توی اینترنت پیدا می‌شن. جلل الخالق! نوشته آقای آبه عاشق پینک فلوید بوده یا مثلا سمفونی ۹ مالر یا سفر زمستانی شوبرت رو دوست داشته! یا آخر عمری فقط باخ گوش می‌کرده! مرحبا به سلیقه‌ت آقای آبه، مرحبا! با سید بَرِت خدابیامرز مشحور شی.