Secret Rendezvous

Name: Secret Rendezvous
ISBN: 9787532772780

安部公房 / Tan JinghuaShanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaApr 2017

4.1

Word count: 90K words
Chapters: 5
ISBN: 9787532772780

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Summary

If Kōbō Abe's The Box Man is "a novel of the peeper," then The Secret Meeting is "a novel of the eavesdropper." One summer dawn, an ambulance arrives at the house and takes away the wife. To find her, "I" steal into a vast closed-off hospital. Its deputy director has become impotent due to "human-relationship neurosis." For treatment, he has installed nearly two hundred and fifty listening devices inside and outside the hospital. Still unable to learn his wife's whereabouts, "I" nonetheless comes into contact with figures such as the deputy director, who has been fitted with another person's lower body, and his secretary, a girl with osteolysis. To rescue the girl with osteolysis from the deputy director's control, "I" am pursued relentlessly, with no place to shelter. Knowing the deputy director can hear, "I" begin shouting into the listening devices, admitting that I have become a patient... In a singular manner, the novel dissects for the reader the relationship between the weak and power, revealing the characteristics of modern human society.

Editor's review

Kōbō Abe's The Secret Meeting is a short-story collection that examines the spiritual predicaments of modern people from a distinctive angle, continuing the author's signature style of the absurd and the existential. The eight stories collected here ostensibly depict ordinary encounters and conversations in urban life, but in fact probe deeply into the ambiguity, estrangement, and alienation of individual identity in a highly organized, mechanized society. With a calm, precise, and richly metaphorical touch, Abe constructs psychological spaces that seem everyday yet seethe beneath the surface. In these stories, dialogue itself becomes a ritual; in the labyrinth of words, characters try to confirm the boundary between self and other, yet often sink into deeper loneliness and confusion. Reading them, we sense not only the precise structural sensibility that Abe's architectural background lends the text, but also his profound insight into the individual's inner world during the transitional period of postwar Japanese society. The book's value lies in that it offers no clear answers or consolation; rather, like a prism, it refracts the powerlessness of communication and the absurdity of existence in modern life, prompting readers to reflect on the reality and networks of relationships they inhabit. Its literary texture is austere and philosophically rich, making it an indispensable part of understanding Abe's literary world and a fine text for exploring the theme of "estrangement" in modernist literature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in modern Japanese literature, especially the postwar and existentialist schools
Readers who prefer an austere, speculative style and enjoy textual metaphor and philosophical exploration
Readers who wish to examine modern social alienation and self-identity through a literary lens
Researchers of Kōbō Abe's work or enthusiasts seeking a systematic understanding of his creative style

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking light entertainment or plot-driven popular stories
Readers impatient with texts that emphasize psychological description and lack strong narrative drive

Reading tips

It is recommended to enter the reading in a calm frame of mind, leaving room for thought and savoring the details and blank spaces in the text
Reading in comparison with other major works by Kōbō Abe (such as The Woman in the Dunes and The Box Man) can help grasp his recurring themes more fully
There is no need to finish it all at once; the stories can be savored one by one, each an independent spiritual world

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
笔记之一
笔记之二
笔记之三
附记

FAQ

How does the style of The Secret Meeting differ from that of Abe's better-known The Woman in the Dunes?

The Secret Meeting belongs to the same core body of Abe's work, continuing his austere, absurd, and existential style. Compared with the more concrete "trap" allegory and stronger narrative drive of The Woman in the Dunes, The Secret Meeting, as a short-story collection, focuses more on the subtle, estranged psychological "secret meetings" between people in urban space; its speculative quality and inner tension are more concentrated, and its forms are more varied. The two are complementary texts for understanding different facets of the author's thought.

Is this book demanding to read?

The book has a certain literary threshold. It does not rely on conventional plot momentum but builds meaning through situation, dialogue, and psychological description, requiring readers to actively participate in interpreting the metaphors and philosophical reflections behind the text. Yet for readers with some experience of modern literature, or those willing to accept an intellectual challenge, the intellectual pleasure and insight it offers are distinctive.

What are the features of this edition from Shanghai Translation Publishing House?

This edition is published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House as part of its Japanese literature series. The translation strives to convey accurately Abe's austere, precise language style and usually includes a professional translator's afterword or commentary, helping readers understand the work's background and literary value. The edition is reliably produced and is one of the mainstream choices for reading Abe's work in the Chinese-speaking world.

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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.

Tan Jinghua Author · China · 1951

Tan Jinghua was born in Shanghai in June 1951. He holds a doctorate in literature and is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Shanghai International Studies University, where he formerly served as executive vice president. He has long been engaged in the study and translation of modern Japanese literature. His publications include a biography of Kawabata Yasunari and A History of Modern Japanese Literature, and he has translated more than 140 major works of Japanese literature. His representative translations include Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country, The Izu Dancer, The Old Capital, Thousand Cranes, and The Sound of the Mountain, as well as the Selected Works of Kawabata Yasunari and the four-volume Abe Kobo series, and Natsume Soseki's Light and Darkness. He is a former president of the Chinese Association for Japanese Literature and of the Shanghai Translators Association. His works are generally classified under essays and miscellaneous writings and foreign literature, and he has had a broad influence in the translation and introduction of modern and contemporary Japanese literature.