Beyond the Curve by Kobo Abe (.ePUB)
File Size: 2 MB
Beyond the Curve by Kobo Abe
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 2 MB
Overview: Kobo Abe has long been known as a writer whose compelling stories take the familiar into the realm of the surreal with striking originality It is little wonder that this exceptional gift for creating singular tales around highly original ideas has earned him the title of Japan’s most important living author.
Abe’s stories begin simply enough. His people are faced with a challenge, but one that, in Abe’s hands, soon becomes a gripping vision that resonates long after the book has been set aside.
There’s A (we are never given his full name) who comes home from a hard day’s work to find a complete stranger (a thoroughly dead one) in his room. His inability to deal with this “guest” leads him astray—step by step—until he is inextricably bound up in a murder he didn’t commit.
There’s Common, Abe’s typical Everyman, whose troubles begin when he kicks at a rock in the road. A seemingly innocuous act in itself, it is indicative of the mindless life Common has led to date, and marks the beginning of a battle with a second self that seems to have developed a mind of its own.
And there’s the confused hero of the title story who falls victim to an acute case of amnesia. He goes in search of much more than his identity after he realizes that he can no longer recall what lies further on up the road—beyond the curve.
Abe was first recognized for his short fiction (for which he received his first literary award), and in Beyond the Curve it is easy to see why. In story after story, he weaves a tantalizing web of surrealistic supposition—of what if … In this, the first collection of his short fiction, he reaffirms his standing as “a world-class author” with a selection of tales which are at once provocative, captivating, and thoroughly memorable.
Genre: Fiction > General Fiction/Classics
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