The Face of Another

Kōbō Abe (E. Dale Saunders)
Vintage • 2003

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.
Viac

HODNOTENIE:    ***"Obličej netvora přivolává osamělost a osamělost dělá netvory." (s.57).  Výbuch v laboratóriu zohaví japonskému vedcovi tvár. Napriek enormnej snahe lekárov sa im nepodarí prinavrátiť mužovi ľudskú podobu. Istý čas sa preto túla ulicami mesta s obväzom okolo hlavy, až kým mu nenapadne vytvoriť si vlastnú dokonalú masku. Je spokojný, dokonca po nasadení masky vyzerá o päť[...]

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.