Like the setting of Beckett plays, Kōbō Abe sets his entire novel in an unknown town. A nameless character in a box narrates the whole book–a “Box Man”, who shed his identity in society and decide to live, anonymous, inside a box. What I’m trying to say is, he literally lives his life walking around in a cardboard box. This Box Man shit started when he saw a box man, who made him feel unsafe, then intrigued, then started living in a box in his apartment himself, before knocking one out in the box and becoming a box man.
By excluding time, space, and identity, Able is able to establish themes of existentialism in the very beginning and look at existence as existence itself, without context. There are many things in this book that seem absurd at first, but the absurdity becomes (somewhat) realistic once you get on board on how absurd everything in that (or this) world is. So, the guy masturbates in a box, becomes a box man, peeks out the box to stare at the same woman and realizing that someone else is staring at him stare at her and the person staring at him staring at her is him. The Box Man is now realizing that his anonymity is nothing unique, that there are other Box Persons either in the world that surrounds him or in his own mind.
I also love that the instructions of making a box-man box are included in the book and that some of the text in the book is upside down (because, supposedly, what you are reading is written by the narrator on the inside of the cardboard box).
There are hypothetical voices throughout the book and that can sometimes be frustrating and confusing. Is the guy talking to himself? Who else is there? He’s walking around in a box and what I’m reading is written in the inside of the box, so, if there’s another voice, then that voice must also be inside the box, right? There are many instances where I wonder if the passage I’m reading is of any importance at all. However, considering what the book is trying to achieve, I think it’s hallucinatory feel, and sometimes scattered tone matches the narrator’s state of mind. I guess if a novel that deals with existentialism, through a guy in a box, present itself as enjoyable, it won’t make much sense.
The plot about the murder comes in a little too late and develops too slowly. I’m not sure if that is deliberate (maybe Ade’s intention was to frustrate the reader more?). But honestly, if you read a book like this, you won’t give a shit about plot. I, myself am much more intrigued by the notes he writes to himself in the box, the notes that blur the lines between different time and space; i.e., on page 100:
For lovers of Beckett, Pinter, Sartre and other absurdists, maybe The Box Man is worth reading. Also, if you’ve ever thought of living in a fucking box, give it a read as well, to learn how its like.
What happens when a man encounters another man in a cardboard box. Stop-motion short film by Nirvan Mullick, inspired by the Kobo Abe novel “The Box Man.”
