I found a copy of
The Ruined Map in a church basement thrift store that only operates on Thursdays where the price of books is pay-what-you-want. Kobo Abe's name was faintly familiar to me, and the description sounded intriguing, but mostly I liked the cover. This is only the second Japanese novel I've read (when I first started my world books project, Teru Miyamoto's
Kinshu: Autumn Brocade was the first book I read as part of my undertaking).
The Ruined Map is a roughly 300-page detective novel, the first 275 pages of which read much like any detective novel (though with some gorgeous imagery and some distinctly Japanese events) and then the last 25 pages just kind of blow your mind. At least, they blew my mind. It was confusing as hell, but I really liked the turn the book took at the end. Up until the end, I have to admit I found the book to be kind of a slog and occasionally a not-good kind of confusing. It's hard to explain without being explicit, but I wish the book had done what it did at the end earlier and more. As it is, my review of it would be
The Ruined Map: I really liked the end.
