Product Description

A classic from the renowned Japanese novelist about isolation and the threat of a nuclear holocaust, The Ark Sakura is as timely today as it was at its original publication.

In this Kafkaesque allegorical fantasy, Mole has converted a huge underground quarry into an “ark” capable of surviving the coming nuclear holocaust and is now in search of his crew. He falls victim, however, to the wiles of a con man-cum-insect dealer. In the surreal drama that ensues, the ark is invaded by a gang of youths and a sinister group of elderly people called the Broom Brigade, led by Mole's odious father, while Mole becomes trapped in the ark's central piece of equipment, a giant toilet powerful enough to flush almost anything, including chopped-up humans, out to sea.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1675073 in Books
• Published on: 1988-03-12
• Released on: 1988-03-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 333 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Abe's first novel in eight yearsan allegorical fantasy at once Kafkaesque, funny and apocalpyticdazzles even when it may confuse. The principal character, nicknamed Mole, has converted a huge underground quarry into an "ark" capable of surviving the coming nuclear holocaust and is now in search of his "crew." He falls victim, however, to the wiles of his first crew members, a con man-cum-insect dealer and his two shills, one of them a pretty young woman. In the surreal drama that ensues, the ark is invaded by a gang of youths and a sinister group of elderly people called the Broom Brigade, led by Mole's odious father, while Mole gets his leg trapped in the ark's central piece of equipment, a giant toilet powerful enough to flush almost anything, including chopped-up humans, out to sea. Abe (The Woman in the Dunes, The Box Man), generally considered Japan's leading novelist, is a literary magician with a very special bag of tricks. Among them is a deadpan matter-of-factness that gives his chilling vision of human destiny much of its impact.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Most of Abe's fiction is about escapes that fail and about people who, failing to escape, evaporate into their own alienation and despair. This novel, his first in eight years, raises no hope for a happier resolution. Mole, the grotesquely fat narrator, seeks refuge from nuclear annihilation and hopes to sell tickets to a selected crew needed for his "ark." In fact, Mole's ark is an abandoned underground quarry, a vast, Piranesi-like complex. But nothing works out as he hoped. His crew usurps his authority and perverts his purpose. Unexpected intruders confound expectation, and Mole becomes trapped in the novel's central metaphoran enormous and powerful toilet. Abe's imagination is vivid but harsh. Yet although the novel torments the mind and heart, it compels unswerving attention. Arthur Waldhorn, City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“A large, ambitious work about the lives of outcasts in modern Japan and such troubling themes as ecological destruction, old age, violence and nuclear war.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“As is true of Poe and Kafka—two writers whose influence does seem apparent—Abe creates on the page an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading, on and on.”
—The New Yorker

“Abe's depiction of the deadly game of survival is hilarious but at the same time leaves us with a chilling sense of apprehension about the brave new world that awaits us.”
—Los Angeles Times


From the Trade Paperback edition.