The Face of Another - Softcover
The Japanese novelist Kobo Abe has often been compared to Kafka and this 1966 novel suggests an elegantly chilling postscript to The Metamorphosis. Abe's narrator is a scientist who has been hideously deformed in a laboratory accident, a man who has lost his face in a society where "losing face" is a synonym for humiliation. Alienated from his fellows, sexually rejected by his wife, the injured man painstakingly sets out to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. Yet once he achieves his goal, he realizes that he has not fashioned a disguise, but an alternate self -- a self that is capable of anything. The Face of Another is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Inside Flap:
Like an elegantly chilling postscript to The Metamorphosis," this classic of postwar Japanese literature describes a bizarre physical transformation that exposes the duplicities of an entire world. The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident-a man who has lost his face and, with it, his connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him.
His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self-a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity and the social contract," The Face of Another is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.
From the Back Cover:
His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self-a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity and the social contract," The Face of Another is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.
"A fascinating book.... The world of Kobo Abe is one in which intellectual concepts have the emotional impact and motivating power of psychotic compulsions."–Newsweek
"A major novel... Since The Woman in the Dunes, Kobo Abe's stock as a novelist has been very high. The Face of Another raises it still more."–The Christian Science Monitor
"Probes the edges of a waking nightmare....The central, shaping metaphor of face and facelessness is brilliant, and Abe's relentless pursuit of its every implication is powerful."–The Saturday Review
"A major novel... Since The Woman in the Dunes, Kobo Abe's stock as a novelist has been very high. The Face of Another raises it still more."–The Christian Science Monitor
"Probes the edges of a waking nightmare....The central, shaping metaphor of face and facelessness is brilliant, and Abe's relentless pursuit of its every implication is powerful."–The Saturday Review
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPenguin Books Limited
- Publication date1972
- ISBN 10 0140034943
- ISBN 13 9780140034943
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages224
- Rating
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
The Face of Another
Published by
Penguin Books Limited, Harmondsworth
(1972)
ISBN 10: 0140034943
ISBN 13: 9780140034943
Used
Paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. Paperback in good condition. Covers are scuffed, and edges are rubbed. Page block and page edges are tanned, and page block head is also blemished. Pages are otherwise clear and unmarked throughout. LW. Used. Seller Inventory # 541507
Buy Used
US$ 62.33
Convert currency