The Box Man

Kobo Abe, the internationally acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes, combines wildly imaginative fantasies and naturalistic prose to create narratives reminiscent of the work of Kafka and Beckett.
In this eerie and evocative masterpiece, the nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head. Wandering the streets of Tokyo and scribbling madly on the interior walls of his box, he describes the world outside as he sees or perhaps imagines it, a tenuous reality that seems to include a mysterious rifleman determined to shoot him, a seductive young nurse, and a doctor who wants to become a box man himself. The Box Man is a marvel of sheer originality and a bizarrely fascinating fable about the very nature of identity.

"Lack of emotion in this narrative notebook threatens what shreds of humanity the newsprint world of overcrowded modern Tokyo hasn't already overwhelmed. A philosophical puzzle "with many pieces missing and filled with flights of imagination" passing through the labyrinthine entrances and exits of ego-space that grows more illusive, more allusive ("the clues are numerous, and it is reasonable that the truth should exist in proportion to their number"), not to mention elusive. Deep waters, way out beyond Abe's Woman in the Dunes — a powerful emotional experience."  -  Kirkus Reviews