Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [0]
THE RUINED MAP
Kobo Abe was born in Tokyo in 1924, grew up in Manchuria, and returned to Japan in his early twenties. In 1948 he received a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University, but he never practiced medicine. Before his death in 1993, Abe was considered his country’s foremost living novelist, and was also widely known as a dramatist. His novels have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been bestsellers in Japan. They include The Woman in the Dunes, Kangaroo Notebook, The Ark Sakura, The Face of Another, The Box Man, and Secret Rendezvous.
Also by Kobo Abe
NOVELS
Kangaroo Notebook
The Ark Sakura
Secret Rendezvous
The Box Man
The Face of Another
The Woman in the Dunes
Inter Ice Age 4
SHORT STORIES
Beyond the Curve
PLAYS
Three Plays by Kobo Abe
NOTE: The ornaments and maps are by Robert Steele Wallace.
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, DECEMBER 2001
Copyright © 1969, copyright renewed 1997 by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Japanese as Moyetsukita chizu by Shinchosha, Tokyo. Copyright © 1967, copyright renewed 1996 by Kobo Abe. This translation originally published in the United States in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1969.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Abe, Kobo 1924–
[Moyetsukita chizu. English]
The ruined map / by Kobo Abe ; translated by E. Dale Saunders
299 p. 22 cm.
Translation of: Moyetsukita chizu.
I. Japan—Fiction.
PZ4.A13 Ru PL845.B4
895.6’35Cdc19
eISBN: 978-0-307-81370-1
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
THE CITY—a bounded infinity. A labyrinth where you are never lost. Your private map where every block bears exactly the same number.
Even if you lose your way, you cannot go wrong.
APPLICATION FOR INVESTIGATION
Particulars of request: Ascertain the movements and whereabouts of the missing person.
Name: Nemuro Hiroshi.
Sex: Male.
Age: 34.
Profession: Section head for sales and expansion, Dainen Enterprises.
Comments: The missing man is the applicant’s husband. No communication whatever since his disappearance six months ago. Everything necessary for the investigation will be made available.
I hereby make official application for investigation and enclose herewith the requisite fee. Furthermore, I swear to observe the strictest secrecy concerning all information, to make no disclosures, to make no abuse of any knowledge obtained.
2 February 1967
T— Detective Agency
Chief of Section for the Signature of applicant
Investigation of Persons Nemuro Haru
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
About the Translator
I PRESSED down the clutch and slipped the gear into low. The incline was a little too much for the light, twenty-horsepower car.
The surface of the street was not asphalt but a rough-textured concrete with narrow grooves about five inches apart, apparently to prevent slipping. But they did not look as though they would be much help to pedestrians. The purposely rough concrete surface