“The Woman in the Dunes” by Kobo Abe (post 2): Narrator and Protagonist have Dialogue about becoming a Writer

Three-quarters through this 241-page novel, there have been a couple of interruptions in the story for a dialogue between the narrator and the protagonist (a teacher who is held captive with a woman in the dunes).

Although the teacher and the woman never ask or learn each other’s names, the narrator addresses the teacher by his name, Niki.

After the teacher thinks, “If and when he got back safely it would certainly be well worth while setting down this experience,” the following dialogue occurs between the narrator and the teacher:

“—Well, Niki, I am amazed. At last you have decided to write something. It really was the experience that made you…

—Thanks. Actually I’ve got to think up some kind of title…[But]…No matter how I try to write I’m not fit to be a writer.

—This unbecoming humility again. There’s no need for you to think of writers as something special. If you write, you’re a writer, aren’t you?

—Well, it’s generally considered that teachers are prone to write indiscriminately.

—But professionally they’re pretty close to writers…

—…Saying you want to become a writer is no more than egotism; you want to distinguish between yourself and the puppets by making yourself a puppeteer…

—That’s severe…” (1, pp. 111-113).

Comment

What is the author’s own subjective experience that is the basis for wanting “to distinguish between yourself and the puppets”?

It may be the author’s sense of having more than one personality, and his wondering which one is the real person and is going to be in charge.

My answer is that they are all parts of one person, and they must cooperate, each doing what he or she does best. 

1. Kobo Abe. The Woman in the Dunes [1962]. Translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders (1964). New York, Vintage International, 1991.