So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish: Kobo Abe 安部公房

I've loved Kobo Abe (安部公房 ABE Kobo) since I was fifteen years old. He is a Japanese novelist. I believed he would have received the Nobel Prize in Literature. In fact, Kenzaburo Oe (大江健三郎 OE Kenzaburo) was awarded the Novel Prize in Literature in 1994. If Kobo had been alive, he would have won the Novel Prize in Literature possibly. He suddenly collapsed at his second house he used as work room and died in 1993.

Kobo was interested in something scientific and contemporary. He used a word processor from the beginning of releasing personal gadgets even when it was very expensive. It's a landmark case in Japan where typewriter for Japanese didn't exist like alphabetical countries. Other writers criticized him. Many critics insisted that horizontal writing by work processor would have broken Japanese tradition because Japanese literature was vertical writing. Umm... Current Japanese got familiar with horizontal writing by personal computer and many writers use word processors currently. The criticism suggests the old era, doesn't it?

One kind person translated into English at the comment column of YouTube. Please jump to YouTube page if you like. The video was shot at his second house at Hakone. It shows an old word processor and synthesizer. He worked for only things he got interested in. He led his drama group for 7 years. He took somewhat symbolically meaningful pictures and used them in his books. His favorite motif are ruins, garbage collection point and public lavatory. He was very snobbish. I think he was proud of himself. In the above video, his attitude seemed like that he wised up a student. It wasn't friendly. But, private personality isn't the point. I like his works very much.

Kenzaburo Oe continues to make efforts for the Japanese literary world. For instance, he worked as a member of selection committee of Akutagawa Prize. He makes a lot of speech all over the world. Consequently he was able to receive the Novel Prize in Literature by non-writing works. It could be.