Abe, Kobo

New York. 1988. March 1988. Knopf. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0394558367. Translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter. 341 pages. hardcover. Jacket photograph & design by Dan Lloyd taylor. keywords: Literature Translated Japan Asia . FROM THE PUBLISHER - A novel about the lives of outcasts in modern Japan which addresses such themes as ecological destruction, old age, violence and nuclear war . . From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY - Abe's first novel in eight years, an allegorical fantasy at once Kafkaesque, funny and apocalpytic dazzles even when it may confuse. The principal character, nicknamed Mole, has converted a huge underground quarry into an ark capable of surviving the coming nuclear holocaust and is now in search of his 'crew.' He falls victim, however, to the wiles of his first crew members, a con man-cum-insect dealer and his two shills, one of them a pretty young woman. In the surreal drama that ensues, the ark is invaded by a gang of youths and a sinister group of elderly people called the Broom Brigade, led by Mole's odious father, while Mole gets his leg trapped in the ark's central piece of equipment, a giant toilet powerful enough to flush almost anything, including chopped-up humans, out to sea. Kobo Abe (THE WOMAN IN THE DUNES, THE BOX MAN), generally considered Japan's leading novelist, is a literary magician with a very special bag of tricks. Among them is a deadpan matter-of-factness that gives his chilling vision of human destiny much of its impact. inventory #9787 ISBN: 0394558367.