The Box Man by Kobo Abe Paperback Book 9780241454596

A spellbinder from beginning to end an edgy masterpiece Chicago Sun TimesThis is the record of a box man Anonymous and alone the box man peeps out of his cutout eyeholes and watches the world from behind his four cardboard walls At first repulsed by the strange phenomenon of people who have decided to abandon society and live in boxes on the Tokyo streets he has found himself drawn into the anonymity and voyeurism of their life As he becomes obsessed with spying on a young nurse his identity slips away in Kobo Abes eerie disorienting and seductive masterpiece of uneaseFunny sad and destructive an invention with its own crazy pull it gnaws at the reader a stunning addition to the literature of eccentricity The New York Times