SOURCE: Loose, Julian. “Fact and Fuikkushion.” Times Literary Supplement (27 September 1991): 13-14.

In the following mixed review of Beyond the Curve, Loose contends that although Abe “was first recognized for his short stories, this collection suggests that Abe's genius, which is for the detailed and eerily logical elaboration of an absurd or unthinkable situation, requires the larger scope of a novel or play.”

Although Kobo Abe belonged to the same generation as Mishima, his rejection of the prevailing naturalism and lack of interest in earlier Japanese culture are often seen as marking a distinct literary shift. Yet Abe shares with Mishima an intense disquiet at finding himself “a citizen of a nation of self-satisfied people.” “Something or other was definitely odd”: any of Abe's allegories could begin in this way, signalling his extensive indebtedness to Kafka. As the new collection, Beyond the Curve, shows, Abe's originality lies in the...