The Face of Another
Kobo Abe
Vintage
<p>Like an elegantly chilling postscript to The Metamorphosis<em>,</em> 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. <br></p><p>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.<br></p><p><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em></p>Review<p>"A fascinating book.... The world of Kobo Abe is one in which intellectual concepts have the emotional impact and motivating power of psychotic compulsions."–<em>Newsweek</em> <br></p><p>"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 <br></p><p><em>"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."–</em>The Saturday Review*</p>Language Notes<p>Text: English (translation)<br>Original Language: Japanese </p>