Skip to content
  • home
  • highlights
  • browse by topic
    • all nonfiction
    • fantasy
    • graphic novels
    • historical fiction
    • history
    • horror
    • literature
    • middle grade
    • mystery
    • philosophy
    • picture books
    • psychology
    • queer
    • science & nature
    • science fiction
    • suspense
    • romance
    • young adult
  • my own books
  • contact me

Hello and welcome! My name is Emma and I've been a bookseller for over a decade. I also write fantasy under the name E. M. Epps. This blog features my Two-Paragraph Book Reviews. One paragraph from me. One from the book. Here's why I keep it short.

You are here: Home > Review: “The Woman in the Dunes” by Kobo Abe
The Woman in the Dunes

Review: “The Woman in the Dunes” by Kobo Abe

Image Emma 23 September 2010

Thumbs down for The Woman In The Dunes by Kobo Abe. Literature.

Oh God I hated this book. I thought that I hated Battle Royale (see my review); as it turned out, I don’t. That was badly written, but a positive joyride compared to this book. The Woman in the Dunes was well-written, sometimes very beautifully so, but I have not one existential bone in my body and therefore it was downright excruciating to read. Plot: man made slave in giant hole in sand. Features woman, plus much sand. And do you think it has a happy ending? Uh huh. (So you might like it. But you’ve been warned.)

“He sat down on the shovel and lit a cigarette. The flame caught at last with the third match. His fatigue spread out into a sluggish circle, like India ink dropped in water – it was a jellyfish, a scent bag, a diagram of an atomic nucleus. Some night bird had found a field mouse and was calling to its mate with a weird cry. An uneasy dog bayed deeply. High in the night sky there was a continuous, discordant sound of wind blowing at a different velocity. And on the ground the wind was a knife continually shaving off thin layers of sand. He wiped away the perspiration, blew his nose with his fingers, and brushed the sand from his head. The ripples of sand at his feet suddenly looked like motionless crests of waves.”


If you enjoyed this post, please share it!
Posted in book review
Tagged Japan, literature, notw, thumbs down
Previous Post: Review: “The Blue Castle” by L. M. Montgomery
Next Post: Review: “The Fairies of Nutfolk Wood” by Barb Bentler Ullman

Secondary Sidebar

Search the reviews….

Disclosure

My bookstore is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, so we will earn a commission if you click through my links and make a purchase. I, personally, am also an affiliate of the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and will likewise make a commission if you click through those links and make a purchase. Having to use Amazon doesn’t fill me with joy, but they’re the only good affiliate program for used books available right now. So…that’s the way it is.

Copyright © 2023. Proudly Powered by WordPress & Inception Theme