The Ruined Map

Surrealism is not really my cup of tea, but I did enjoy reading this book, which treads on slightly firmer grounds of realism than Abe's other works. The structure is certainly interesting, as the reader is given as few clues to understand the story as the protagonist has in his case, and things get progressively more confusing and unclear. The whole thing has a dreamlike quality to it. I can't say I loved it, but if you are looking for a challenging and slightly avant-garde read with a surrealist bent then this is worth a try.

Kobo Abe, one of the greatest surrealistic novelists, liked to depict, with the precise calculation and unconstrained freedom of mind that Picasso gave his work, entangled and precarious relatiionships between an individual and the society to which he "belongs". In "The Ruined Map", Kobo Abe casts spotlight on his lifelong motif from a different angle. Unlike his other books such as "The Box Man" and "Kangaroo Note", "The Ruined Map" is based on a relatively realistic situation. Almost all characters act apparently normally, and there seems to be nothing that makes us question sanity in the situation that surrounds them. The hero, who is a private investigator, is asked to find a young woman's husband who suddenly disappeared several months ago. He tries to find "rational explantions" of her husband's abrupt disapearance, but however, the notion of rationality soon traps him, challenging his conventional understanding of the relationship between an individual and the society. Kobo Abe explores his unique conception of identity with more restrained techniques of surrealism than in his most famous work "The Women in the Dunes". Yet, an insightful reader should realize that Abe ingeniously embedded the surrealistic subject in a realistic setting.