The Box Man (1973) is an experimental satirical novel by Japanese writer Abe Kobo. Described by most as enigmatic, and some as incomprehensible, the novel portrays a man who chooses to live inside a box, blocking himself off from the rest of the world, for his own protection. From the confines of the box, the box man can observe the outside world without the perceived danger of being observed by others. This aspiration of “invisibility” defines the novel and the man’s struggles with temptation and curiosity. The novel has been interpreted as an allegory for a host of modern issues, including surveillance, alienation, and socioeconomic instability, bringing to life through caricature humanity’s ways of coping with these problems. The novel begins with a sketch of the box man. Having decided to shut himself off from normal life, he now lives in a box, which he describes sometimes in other words, including a “waterproof room.” The box is affixed to his body on a latch on his back. It contains most of the provisions he needs for everyday life, including food and clothes. The box man’s self-isolation seems an eccentric performance of both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions: he retreats from the world like a Buddhist monk, yet his intentions to avoid love and sex and general paranoia about the harm at every twist and turn in his life are distinctly modern in nature. Thinking of the world around him as a place that has gone mad, he contends that living in a box is the only sane thing to do. The box man enumerates the many challenges of being in a box. He suggests that others have retreated into their own boxes but does not refer to any specific encounters. The point in time at which he became a box man is left open, creating an impression that the box gradually closed in around him, rather than originating in a conscious choice to be a box man. He claims that he has been harassed for being a box man, even assaulted with an air gun. He suggests that a nurse, who helped attach the box to him, helped him pay the fee for the box. Most of the novel shifts between a hospital and an adjacent housing block where the nurse and doctor attending the box man live. It soon becomes apparent that the box man is infatuated with the nurse but is trying to resist the temptation of sex. He relates that he was once a photographer, hinting that the voyeuristic nature of photography is not unlike living inside a box wishing to engage more directly in reality. Later, the box man introduces the character of a second doctor. The boundaries between these characters start to blur, and it is unclear whether the box man is one, or both, of the doctors. The box man also suffers paranoid visions of himself as a dead box man. Fearing his mortality and that the box will subject him to a sexually unfulfilled life (it covers his hips, making his genitals inaccessible), the box man relinquishes the box, then finds the nurse and confesses his affection for her. Ironically, this foray out of the box falls flat: the nurse rejects him. Yet, the experience of being vulnerable brings back the box man’s memories of life before the box, both positive and negative. At the end of the novel, the box man again retreats into his box. It is ambiguous whether he will stay there, suggesting that there is a great psychological and moral battle underlying his hermetic existence.

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Kōbō Abe

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The Box Man

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