The Ark Sakura
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
'One of Japan's most venerated writers' David Mitchell
In this unnerving fable from one of Japan's greatest novelists, a recluse known as 'Mole' retreats to a vast underground bunker, only to find that strange guests, booby traps and a giant toilet may prove even greater obstacles than nuclear disaster.
'As is true of Poe and Kafka, Abe creates an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading, on and on' New Yorker
'Abe's depiction of the deadly game of survival is hilarious but at the same time leaves us with a chilling sense of apprehension about the brave new world that awaits us' Los Angeles Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Abe's first novel in eight yearsan allegorical fantasy at once Kafkaesque, funny and apocalpyticdazzles 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. 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.
