The Wall

Name: The Wall
ISBN: 9787532773312

安部公房 / 林青华Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaApr 2017

4.2

Word count: 86K words
Chapters: 20
ISBN: 9787532773312

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Summary

*The Wall* is a collection of short stories and novellas by Kōbō Abe. The book is divided into three parts. The first part, "The Crime of S. Karma," is Abe's earliest avant-garde representative work; it won the 25th Akutagawa Prize and established his position in the literary world. In the story, the protagonist wakes one morning to find that he has forgotten his own name. Losing his name strips him directly of his right to exist in reality, and he becomes the target of everyone's criticism. After experiencing various strange and irrational phenomena, he himself turns into a wall. In the second part, "The Raccoon Dog of Babel," the protagonist's shadow is eaten by a strange beast—a raccoon dog—and he becomes a transparent man with only his eyeballs left. The third part collects four short stories. "The Red Cocoon," which won the Second Postwar Literature Prize, tells the story of a homeless man who ultimately transforms into an empty cocoon. "The Flood" tells the story of humanity turning into liquid and ultimately flooding the entire world. The protagonist of "The Magic Chalk" is a poor painter who偶然 discovers that things drawn with red chalk become real when not exposed to sunlight, so he shuts himself indoors and attempts to design a new world. The final piece, "The Project," satirizes capitalism's transformation of everything—even people themselves—into raw materials processed into commodities.

Editor's review

Kōbō Abe's The Wall is a strikingly modernist short story collection that includes such representative works as "The Crime of S. Karma," "The Magic Chalk," and "The Red Cocoon." Through absurd premises and an austere style, these stories portray the loss of identity, alienation, and existential predicaments of people in modern society. "The Crime of S. Karma" is the most famous: the protagonist wakes one morning to find his name has been stolen and gradually loses his social identity, until he is finally swallowed by a wall. This is not merely a surreal allegory but a profound inquiry into the nature of modern existence. Abe was deeply influenced by writers such as Kafka and Sartre, and his work is rich in existentialist philosophical reflection, yet it is rooted in the social reality of postwar Japan, forming a distinctive "Abe-esque" aesthetic of estrangement and the absurd. Reading this book is an intellectual and perceptual challenge. Its prose is concise and precise, its imagery strange and arresting, and its plots advance according to an impossible logic, forcing readers out of everyday experience to reexamine the boundaries between the "self," the "other," and the "world." This is not light entertainment but a "wall" that mirrors the spiritual condition of modern people—cold, hard, and utterly real. The Shanghai Translation Publishing House edition is an excellent translation that conveys the original's austere style and intellectual depth well.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with a strong interest in existentialist literature, the literature of the absurd, or modern Japanese literature
Readers who enjoy Kafka, Sartre, Camus, and similar writers and wish to explore Eastern expressions of existentialist literature
Readers seeking to break away from conventional narrative and experience a distinctive literary imagination and philosophical reflection
Researchers or enthusiasts who wish to understand the spiritual condition of postwar Japanese society and literature's response to it

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking light entertainment or conventional, tightly plotted stories
Readers uncomfortable with or averse to abstract philosophical reflection and surreal premises

Reading tips

It is recommended to begin with the title story "The Wall" or "The Crime of S. Karma," which most concentratedly embody the author's core style and themes
While reading, do not overfocus on the "plausibility" of the plot; instead, try to feel the overall atmosphere and sense of pressure created by its metaphors and symbols
Reading alongside Abe's biography (his childhood in Shenyang, China, and his return to Japan after the war) can help explain the distinctive sense of space and estrangement in his work

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

版权信息
第一部 S·卡尔玛先生的罪行
第一部 S·卡尔玛先生的罪行
第二部巴别塔的狸
一我空想，订立计划。
二出现了奇特的动物，我的影子逃遁。
三回公寓前发生的事情。变成透明人冲过街巷。警队出动。
四关于影子的考察。操作车床的天使们。
五理想。
六笑的如意狸。飞翔的灵柩。
七进入巴比塔，须靠超现实主义方法。
八入塔仪式。布勒东先生的大演说。
九眼球银行。
十下界瞭望室。时间雕刻器。美术馆。
十一用石头掷如意狸。
第三部红茧
红茧
洪水
魔法粉笔
事业

FAQ

How does this book relate to Abe's better-known The Woman in the Dunes?

The Wall is an early short story collection by Kōbō Abe, written before The Woman in the Dunes. Some of its themes—individual isolation, confrontation with one's environment, and the absurdity of existence—are more fully developed at novel length in The Woman in the Dunes. The Wall can be seen as an important key to understanding the embryonic form and core ideas of Abe's literary world.

How difficult is this book to read? Is it obscure?

The book has a certain threshold. Its difficulty comes not from the language but from its unconventional narrative logic and profound philosophical metaphors. It offers no clear answers but instead creates a predicament and a feeling. It suits readers willing to think actively and immerse themselves in the distinctive situations the text creates.

Is this edition unabridged? How is the translation quality?

This edition includes several of Kōbō Abe's most representative short stories and is widely regarded as an authoritative selection. The translation by Shanghai Translation Publishing House was completed by an experienced translator of Japanese literature and does well at accurately conveying the original meaning while preserving its literary quality; it is the mainstream choice among Chinese readers.

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About the author

安部公房 Author

Kobo Abe is a highly representative writer in modern Japanese literature, and his works have a steady readership in the Chinese-speaking world as well. The library holds nine of his works, including The Woman in the Dunes, The Box Man, The Secret Rendezvous, The Wall, and the four-volume Kobo Abe Works Series, which together sketch the core profile of his writing. Because personal details such as his dates of birth and death and nationality are not specified in the library records, public information is limited, so no biographical narrative is given here. Judging from the common categories "social novel, foreign literature, and social science," his writing often takes ordinary people's situations as its entry point and, through parable-like scenarios, examines individual identity anxiety, alienation, and existential predicaments in modern society. Works such as The Woman in the Dunes and The Box Man especially embody this narrative style poised between reality and abstraction, with concise plots and striking imagery that draw readers in with suspense while leaving thought-provoking space. His works have attracted attention in Japan and abroad and continue to influence later literary and intellectual discussion, making them suitable for readers willing to explore the relationship between society and the self through story.

林青华 Author

Lin Qinghua is a Chinese translator and author about whom limited public information is available. What can be confirmed is that eleven works are listed under this name in the library, commonly classified as foreign literature. Judging from the representative works, Lin focuses mainly on modern and contemporary Japanese literature, including Akutagawa Ryunosuke's Rashomon, Hell Screen, and A Basho Miscellany, Tanizaki Junichiro's The Tattooer, and Natsume Soseki's The Floating Bridge of Dreams, as well as works such as An Immoral Education Lecture and The Wall. These titles are largely short stories, essays, and literary sketches that dwell on the darker sides of human nature, aesthetic sensibility, and social satire, placing high demands on a translator's sense of style and verbal precision. Since dates of birth and death, nationality, and English name are not recorded, his personal biography cannot be outlined, but the body of works suggests a sustained engagement with Japanese literary translation that has given Chinese readers accessible texts through which to encounter these writers.