Kangaroo Notebook: A Novel

Book Description

In the last novel written before his death in 1993, one of Japan's most distinguished novelists proffered a surreal vision of Japanese society that manages to be simultaneously fearful and jarringly funny. The narrator of Kangaroo Notebook wakes on morning to discover that his legs are growing radish sprouts, an ailment that repulses his doctor but provides the patient with the unusual ability to snack on himself. In short order, Kobo Abe's unraveling protagonist finds himself hurtling in a hospital bed to the very shores of hell. Abe has assembled a cast of oddities into a coherent novel, one imbued with unexpected meaning. Translated from the Japanese by Maryellen Toman Mori.

Customer Reviews:

Marsupials, radishes, and hospital beds..........2007-05-19

A man wakes up one morning with radish sprouts growing out of his shins. Just the day before, the wise-aleck dropped a note in the suggestion box at work proposing the manufacture of a new product: kangaroo notebooks. Is there a connection?

In the dreamy, surreal world depicted by Kobo Abe, it's not so much that things are connected as that they develop out of each other like the unexpected pattern of a rapidly mutating crystal. Seeking medical attention at a strange urology/dermatology clinic, the narrator of *Kangaroo Notebook* is wheeled into a makeshift operating room only to wake up in a world that may all be a post-op hallucination or--well, it's left up to you decide what else it could possibly be.

In the meantime, the narrator recounts his mock-heroic adventures through a hellish landscape of ghosts, goblin children, ghoulish invalids, and, maybe most peculiarly of all, an American biker. It's like a funhouse ride through an updated Dante's Inferno aboard the self-propelled hospital bed upon which the narrator travels from one bizarre episode to another. What coherence there is to this absurd tragicomedy is strictly of the sort you feel within a complex dream. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it--and, yet, somehow it's rich with the intimations of deep levels of meaning.

It's not particularly hard to write a text like *Kangaroo Notebook.* But it's very hard to do it well. Often such narratives are rambling, arbitrary, and completely dependent on an ever escalating series of shocks--violence, sexual, scatological. All these elements are present in *Kangaroo Notebook,* but Abe manages to imbue it with the `artless' art of a genuine dream--symbolic, transgressive, thematic, enigmatic--and he implants a subtle narrative drive that pushes this comic, yet ultimately disturbing tale forward to its logically illogical and haunting conclusion. *Kangaroo Notebook* is one of the better examples Ive yet come across of a style of wild absurdism that can too often read like an exercise in automatic writing.

A mind-bending novel, Abe's last, and filled with paradox, acute anxiety, and intimations of mortality, *Kangaroo Notebook* is an odd--and yet oddly fitting--final testament from one of the 20th century's more original literary voices.

Bizarre.......2006-01-24

I've enjoyed several of Abe novels, so I decided to try this one. I didn't enjoy it as much as I had his other novels. First of all, you're never really sure if it is a story about someone's real bizarre experience, or if it is a trip through the underworld. At certain points, it's really strange, but then at other points, it is very mundane. Perhaps it is a journey through the underworld, as the underlying theme is death. It explores how to approach the end when it comes.

If you're interested in Abe, then you might want to read this, but if you haven't read Abe before, I recommend trying some of his other books.

Kangaroo Notebook.......2004-05-19

Kangaroo Notebook is a darkly surreal novel, at turns bizarre and ridiculous then just as easily becomes normal and calm. While lacking a sense of continuity through a few odd narrative choices, Kangaroo Notebook remains an interesting experiment into imagination.

One day, our nameless narrator wakes to find that he has radish sprouts growing from his knees. Not particularly alarmed at this, he soon discover to his pleasure that they are edible and quite tasty. A doctor's appointment lands him in the hospital where he is knocked out with drugs. From there, using his trusty Atlas bed as a transportation device, we are led through bizarre scene after bizarre scene, from hairy American martial arts experts to the souls of aborted children who perform plays on the banks of the river Sai for charity.

The narrator is on one hand an interesting fellow - he IS growing radish sprouts from his knees, after all - and his adventures are quite entertaining, but there is a lack within him. He show no great curiosity as to why everything is happening to him, nor does he really seem interested in getting everything back to normal. He is content to go with the flow, and throughout the novel, he acts more as a spectator than an actual character. Almost, but not quite, he is an omniscient narrator, in the sense that his voice does nothing more than record what is happening. Not quite though, because he does participate in a few interesting conversations along the way. Unfortunately, his lack of personality is a definite crutch.

The nameless narrator ricochets from bizarre sequence to stunningly normal locale, then back to bizarre with a speed that is at time dizzying. Often, scene changes are precipitated by the narrator being knocked unconscious, a fairly weak literary device that is used far too often here. The end sequence is the most bizarre of them all, juxtaposing the lengthy normal hospital scene that proceeds it.

The novel ended, to my mind, abruptly and without closure. There is a cryptic message at the end - which, I'll admit, I was expecting something of the sort - but I couldn't really decipher it at first. But, after thinking about the novel for a few hours after I had finished, I realised that the ending was, in fact, perfect.

To my mind, appreciation of this book comes down to a personal choice. If you enjoy bizarre series of events that don't seem to be going anywhere but suddenly illuminate at the end, then by all means read it. If however, you don't like barely connected scenes with a personality-less narrator, steer clear.

Inventive, intriquing, ambiguous reading.......2000-09-13

Kangaroo Notebook is the last book written by Kobo Abe; in many ways, it is a reflection on the approach of death, on being an outsider, and, perhaps, on outsider as a kind of death. "Perhaps" because this book is written in a very ambiguous style that allows, even encourages, readers to find different interrelationships between the parts.

The narrator begins the story at his suggestion in his workplace being selected as the best - his suggestion, originally a joke, was a product, a kangaroo notebook. This leads to the proposition that marsupials are outcasts - the mammal version of each species being more viable than the marsupial counterpart. Within this context, the narrator notes that his shins are sprouting radishes.

Seeking treatment at a dermatologist is the beginning of a series of occurrences - real, dream, illusion, post-anesthetia confusion? This are absolutely delightful, humorous events - a bed traveling in the city through the narrator's mental efforts, of a hell-based sulfur springs treatment, of child demons, of dead mothers in cabbage fields, of an American graduate student studying fatal accidents, of euthansia ...

This astounding romp is a serious consideration of death, our beliefs regarding death (the limbo children) and of suicide/murder/euthansia/accident.

A Dream World Just This Side of Madness.......2000-07-25

"Which situation should I declare 'real' and which one a 'dream?'" This is the question that plagues the narrator of Kobo Abe's Kangaroo Notebook, the last novel written before his death in 1993. We can consider ourselves lucky, indeed, that one of the world's most distinguished novelists left us with this surreal and unique vision of Japanese society that is both disturbingly fearful and hilariously funny.

On a morning that should have turned out like any other morning, the first person narrator of Kangaroo Notebook awakens to find radish sprouts growing out of his shins. Although his doctor in repulsed, the narrator finds he now possesses the strange and unique ability to snack on...himself.

An eerie adventure to rid himself of his malady takes the book's protagonist into an increasingly hostile and mysterious world, one that in turn, is surreal, playful and almost unassailably enigmatic.

The plot is a weird and wild ride to say the least. Unlike Kafka's narrator in Metamorphosis, our slowly unraveling protagonist checks into a dermatology clinic and soon finds himself hurtling on a hospital bed to the very brink of hell.

An attractive nurse, known only as Damselfly, straps him to a hospital bed and begins to administer huge quantities of unknown drugs. A short time later, still strapped to this hospital bed, still hooked up to his IV and still suffering from his mysterious malady, our protagonist is summarily discharged.

A cast of spooky characters is then introduced via visits to a glitzy department store, a cabbage field that serves as the final resting place of the narrator's dead mother and Damselfly's own apartment.

One of those characters, the hirsute Mister Hammer Killer, an American karate expert, has such a love of violence that our narrator once again finds himself confined to a hospital.

His situation only worsens with the arrival of the "Help Me! Club," a club whose members consist solely of demonic chanting children.

The sexy Damselfly, herself, turns out to be a bit of a vampire. Her quest to collect enough blood to win the "Dracula's Daughter" medal is nothing short of relentless. Despite these bizarre plot twists and turns, the finale of Kangaroo Notebook is undeniably perfect and, almost surrealistically, makes perfect sense.

Abe's typical protagonist is an "outsider" who is haunted by a sense of alienation and anxiety over the fragility of individual identity. Although seeking relief from society's pressure to conform, he still yearns for communal emotional connection.

These universal themes, combined with an ironic, satiric and often bizarre manner of expression, have led many to assume that Abe's writing bears a closer resemblance to Western writers, Kafka, in particular, than to traditional Japanese literary models. Yet Abe's fiction reflects his strong Japanese heritage in its vividly imagistic prose, its abundant incorporation of Japanese cultural icons and its satirical treatment of Japanese psychosocial dynamics.

Kangaroo Notebook is one of Abe's signature triumphs. He deftly uses a swiftly-moving barrage of morbidly fascinating images, characters and places to reflect cleverly-disguised, but recurring themes, and he balances hysterical humor with deadpan lines, such as, "Something's really odd." Sure, we think. You don't say.

Surrealistic fiction is so often not given its due since the bizarre and original happenings must, of necessity, supplant traditional storyline and character development, thus distancing readers emotionally. But for those readers who have achieved intellectual maturity and originality of thought, surrealistic fiction offers insights surely lacking in more mainstream works.

In Kangaroo Notebook, Kobo Abe takes us on a masterful, dizzyingly original romp to the razor-thin line between life and death, a theme-park of his own life and art.

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

The Lord of Castle Black (The Viscount of Adrilankha, Book 2)

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Super Reader
Succeeds at mimicing a scholarly dissertation
Book 4 of the Khaavren series-the plot thickens!
Now that the full series is published...
To state the matter in its simplest form...

The Lord of Castle Black (The Viscount of Adrilankha, Book 2)
Steven Brust
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0812534190
Release Date: 2004-04-06

Book Description

With his bestselling novel The Phoenix Guards, Steven Brust took readers to a time a thousand years before the events of his popular Vlad Taltos novels. Its sequel, Five Hundred Years After, was hailed by Science Fiction Chronicle as the best fantasy novel of the year.Now Brust has returned to the Khaavren epic, first with last year's The Paths of the Dead, and now with its direct continuation, The Lord of Castle Black....a novel that gives Vlad Taltos and Khaavren fans alike a new look at one of Brust's most popular characters, the Dragonlord Morrolan.Along the way, we'll also encounter swordplay, intrigues, quests, battles, romance, snappy dialogue, and the missing heir to the Imperial Throne. It's an old-fashioned adventure, moving at a twenty-first-century pace.

Customer Reviews:

Super Reader.......2007-08-04

As well as following the adventures of the intrepid club of youth, The Lord of Castle Black takes an enjoyable detour into the history of the young dragonlord Morrolan, and how he became involved with witchcraft, a floating castle, and obtained a great weapon from Sethra Lavode.

Throw in a war, the Necromancer and plenty of other shenanigans and a good time is had.

Succeeds at mimicing a scholarly dissertation.......2005-04-25

This purports to be a scholarly dissertation about an imaginary world. Unfortunately, it succeeds. There is a reason that dissertations are not published in mass media. They are boring and overly wordy. I love Steven Brust books and the fact he will try new things, but this just couldn't hold my interest. It is still better than a lot of books out there, but it isn't great and that is what I have come to expect from Brust.

Book 4 of the Khaavren series-the plot thickens!.......2004-11-05

As others have mentioned, this may be Book 2 of the Viscount trilogy, but it's actually book 4 of a series, and you DO need to read the previous 3 in order to appreciate this one.

I have noticed, as time goes by, that there is a pattern to opinions about the Khaavren series: those who started reading Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series first, and bought one of the Khaavren books because it was by Brust, don't seem to appreciate the Khaavren books as much. Those of us, on the other hand, who started on Brust with this series, or with some of Brust's other fantasies entirely, seem to enjoy the Khaavren books more. I believe it's a question both of writing style, and of one's definition of action. Thus, if you really, really like the Vlad Taltos books, and you expect these to be similar, it may be that you will be less than enchanted with these.

I believe that those who have read a lot of older literature - Dumas, as many have mentioned, and definitely Shakespeare - will enjoy this book, and the Khaavren series, more than the Vlad Taltos fans will, on average. (Of course, every reader has a unique background and a unique perspective - don't let me stop you from reading!!) Certainly a background of the Three Musketeers (and not the movie, people!) helps one appreciate what's going on here - but a knowledge of, say, the battles in Shakespeare's Richard and Henry plays, does not come at all amiss. And a comfort level with the intricate language of Shakespeare, as well as the overwrought prose of Dumas, gives one the stamina to follow Paarfi's extensive perorations.

Let me also mention that there's a dash of Romeo and Juliet in here, with lovers from different houses and their disapproving families. Those who feel that there is not enough action in this book, apparently do not consider a good heartbreaking love story to be action. But it is! So is the evolution of the magic taking place - if moving hundreds of warriors via magic/mental powers, over hundreds of miles, which has never been done before in this world, is not action, then what is? There are no slow moments if one is interested in emotion and magic as well as in swords and battle; there is always something happening between people.

As with previous books in the series, if you do like it, it has an effect on you: you talk funny for days afterward, if not weeks! Hey, if you are planning on taking the GREs or GMATs, this series is a terrific vocabulary builder!! There will be nothing in the verbal section that you can't handle, if you enjoy and appreciate Paarfi!

In short - if you already like this series, this volume is a must; if you like Dumas and Shakespeare, you'll like this; if you like Vlad Taltos, then start in on this series in cautious, easy steps.

Now that the full series is published..........2004-06-30

The full VofA series (Paths of the Dead, Lord of Castle Black, and Sethra Lavode) has now been published. So I am submitting a new review.

There is one thing you must know about this book: it is incomplete. If you buy this thinking it is one book of a trilogy, you will find it disappointing. Dozens of characters are brought in unintroduced and then left unresolved, and almost all of the plot threads are left hanging.

But ... if you get the whole VofA series and read it as though it is one novel, you will probably not mind any of this. Because all the flaws have to do with this book being nothing but the middle section of a single story. And if you actually get the full story by reading the other books, that works.

No one would read "The Two Towers" and attempt to treat it as a work in isolation from rest of The Lord Of The Rings. The same should be true of this book.

This part of the full novel deals mainly with the the reunion of the four guardsmen and the backstory of Morrolan (who comes off as much more complex than the inscrutable and testy warrior-wizard of the Vlad books).

To state the matter in its simplest form..........2004-03-19

This is really the fourth volume in a series that started with 'The Phoenix Guards.' This are alleged histories (or historical romances) penned by Paarfi of Roundwood, who has an imaginative approach to the events surrounding the cataclysm of Adron's disaster, when the Orb was lost, and it's recovery and the return of the Phoenix heir. What sets these novels apart from the other series Brust set in the world of Vlad Taltos' is the different styles of the narrators.

Taltos' is not really a teller of tales. His style was (actually will be) matter of fact, pithy, and the stories relied on their unusual plots and interesting characters more than their prose. Paarfi however writes in a style that combines courtly with tongue in check. He frequently uses paragraphs that are single sentences of close to 100 words. Brust pulls this off beautifully, but, unless you are a fan of twisted language (like me), it can be a bit off-putting to the reader lately arrived on the scene. For me, just reading Paarfi's ornate sentences is a pleasure all on it's own.

Don't get me wrong. There may be several thousand extra words and continuous displays of oblique irony, but the plot is as busy as can be. The Lord of Castle Black places all of the players on the stage and sets them to their tasks. Zerika returns from the Paths of the Dead with the orb, Morrolan re-establishes his family estates. Piro, Kytraan, Ibronka, and Roaana join forces with their older predecessors Khaavren, Tazendra, Pel and Aerich. And all are arrayed against the pretenter Kana. Behind everything, Sethra Lavode, the sorceress, weaves her plans. Soon the 9th (or, maybe, 10th) battle of Dzur Mountain will take place and we will discover, to our delight, that more volumes are planned.

Thus, something dramatic happens with regularity. Our heroes banter and go to battle with both swords and frying pans. Even the villains of the piece are worthy. Those who have come to love Steven Brust's curious world where elves are the common folk and us humans are Easterners, and viewed with suspicion. I'm not sure if it's absolutely necessary to start out by reading the Taltos books (Jhereg, etc.), but starting with The Phoenix Guards might be the best plan. It's available in paperback and will either win you over or convince you to read elsewhere.

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The Lord of Castle Black
Steven Brust
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTOJG8

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