The Ark Sakura (Vintage International)

good

Very good condition

The Ark Sakura has all the makings of a novel I’d love. It has a Murakami-esque weirdness to it, and I could certainly see where Abe has influenced my favorite author, but the story itself never really comes together. Maybe it’s not supposed to. Regardless, it has sparked my desire to read more Abe, and let’s face it: even Murakami doesn’t have a perfect record (just kidding).The story of The Ark Sakura revolves around a man named Mole. His true name is never revealed, a common theme throughout the narrative, and he lives alone in an abandoned underground quarry near Tokyo. He calls this quarry his ark, and intends to launch this ship, with an able-bodied crew, once the inevitable nuclear holocaust destroys humanity. It’s immediately clear that Abe, in-part, wrote this novel in response to the Cold War and people’s decades-long fear of being blasted into atomic oblivion. The book was published in 1984, at a time when the threat of world destruction was still very real. Mole is a recluse, having no friends or close family, and so occasionally will venture out to nearby social gatherings in order to recruit his needed crew. He rarely finds anyone worthy, until one day while visiting a flea-market he comes upon Komono, a smooth-talking dealer of various weird junk, who sells Mole a eupcaccia bug. The eupcaccia is an impossible creature, who subsists by eating its own excrement. This is where the book starts getting weird.At the same flea market, Mole accidentally gives away an ark ticket to a couple of shills, or sakuras as they are dubbed. A sakura in this novel is someone who tricks someone else, usually for money. Sakura is also the meaning for cherry blossom, which it is more widely recognized for. The shills, a man and woman whose relationship is never clearly defined, steal away to the ark ahead of Mole and Komono, and pretty soon the novel morphs into a bottle-story, and the majority of it from then on is the complicated relationship that these four characters have. They bond, fight, and get strange with one another.The four characters themselves are pseudo-archetypes. The woman seems only to represent sexuality, a fact that continued to bother me throughout the story. Mole and Komono continually objectify her in the crudest manner, and even when she makes attempts to show her intelligence and utility, they can’t seem to see past her skirt. This obviously characterizes them, but I couldn’t quite see Abe’s intent in writing her this way. Mole is the loner and outcast, someone socially inept but who craves companionship. Komono is charisma, able to talk himself in and out of anything, which lends him skills in both sales and leadership. The male shill, who is referred to as simply “the shill” for the length of the novel, is maybe the most complicated character. He changes, is maybe the only character who does evolve, and seems deeper than the rest by the end despite being characterized in the harshest ways at the beginning.There are other characters who weave into the story, mostly at the end, and they seem to serve more as catalysts for the final few chapters than anything. An exception to this is Mole’s father, Inototsu, a rapist and murderer who defines much of Mole’s character and existence.I feel like I should like this book more, and maybe it’s the kind of novel I’d return to for a second reading. Part of me thinks that re-reading it is necessary to fully comprehend it. Another part of me thinks I fully comprehended it and found it lacking. Another part (there’s lots of parts of me), wonders if the entire novel isn’t an allegory for Japan, with each of the four characters acting as part of the country’s ruling history in some way. I could be interpreting it this way because of my recent introduction to pre-modern Japan, but there were some interesting power struggles happening inside the ark that made me think of shoguns and emperors and aristocratic families. The last part of me wonders if the entire novel is Abe’s attempt to free-form write, without editing, and that he didn’t really care if anything made sense or appealed to anyone. I can respect that.I’m not disappointed that I read The Ark Sakura, and plan on tackling Abe’s supposed masterpiece, The Woman in the Dunes, in the near future. It’s an odd way to end my curriculum, at least the literary part, but that’s also what I expect out of Japan. Thanks for keeping it weird!

The Ark Sakura is a wonderfully bizarre novel. Mole (AKA Pig) lives in the vast underground maze of an abandoned mine, which he likens to a ship. There he has made preparations to survive a nuclear holocaust. But every ship needs a crew, so periodically Mole goes out to identify and recruit those he deems worthy of boarding his Ark. Very few are, and in fact our story begins right about the time Mole, on the spur of the moment, finally hands out his first boarding pass. This to an insect dealer, or more accurately to a con man selling fake insects. Trouble is the con's two shills have managed to make off with another boarding pass (key and map). Mole and the insect dealer race back to the Ark hoping to beat the shills there, but failing. What follows is an amazing and surreal story. As the men engage in a power struggle, for which the prize seems to be the female shill; as the female shill struggles to play one against the other in order to keep herself from becoming a prize; as new characters are introduced, and histories revealed Abe's theme becomes clearer. These disparate characters, all with their own histories, their own reasons, share one thing; they all belong to the fringes of society. The Ark Sakura is a novel about alienation, and above all the deep, all consuming nature of loneliness.

Pig, who prefers to be called Mole, has taken up residence in an abandoned stone quarry, slowly converting it into an ark to save humanity during the inevitable nuclear holocaust. He has room for a little over 300 people to become his crew, but must be selective in his choosing. Only those who he deems acceptable will be offered safe harbor in his huge ship.During one of his few outings to buy provisions for the ark, he comes across Komono, an insect dealer, and after lunching with him, offers one of the keys to the ark. Komono asks if he can think on it and walks off to use the bathroom. In the meantime, two sakura, or shills, trick Mole into giving up two keys. They immediately make a run for the ark, followed by Komono and Mole in hot pursuit. When they reach the ark, they discover that they are not alone in the depths of the quarry.The remainder of the book discusses a wide variety of topics from old age in the form of the Broom Brigade, environmentalism, survivalism, murder, loyalty, sex, humanity and nuclear devastation. More and more chaacters are added as the book progresses, each with a different story to tell, making it difficult to follow along and unenjoyable to read. I still am not sure exactly what point the author is trying to make with this novel, or even if there is a point to it. The characters themselves were not believable to me, especially Mole, a big, fat man who is obsessed with the end of the world and the female shill's behind, continually wanting to pat it even when his life is in danger.The only saving grace for me is Abe's writing. He has a very fluid style that's descriptive and easy to read. But, with the piling on of characters and story lines, I can't say that I would add this to a must-read list.

Thematically, this novel is similar to Abe's more famous book, 'The Woman in the Dunes;' it emphasizes a sense of community and connection with others. What I like about it (among other things) is that it's hardly a sledgehammer philosophical message; it allows for vaguery. The main character is a misanthrope whose personal philosophy seems to be the target of criticism, yet he is never overtly punished and is capable of questioning his views. The other characters are liars, criminals and dirty old men, but all are made sympathetic to some degree in the face of global holocaust. As far as the writing goes, it is very straightforward. I think Abe does an amazing job of both developing character and allowing the reader to visualize such an outlandish setting as the Ark.

the narrator spends almost 1/3 of the book with his leg trapped in a toilet. i both love and hate that

Not my favorite of his novels but still... strange and awkward. Again, man alone story. Liked better Woman in the Dunes and Secret Rendezvous.