Where do people get their story ideas from? Schenectady of course, everyone knows that.
But seriously, coming up with a decent story idea can be hard. I know because I’m still working on the idea for my novel, which I’m due to begin scribbling after Christmas. Coming up with ideas is easy. Coming up with good ideas is hard. Coming up with an idea that’s big enough and bold enough for a decent science fiction novel takes time.
I like to imagine that I’m capable of thinking “outside the box”. You know, that good old saying. But during a recent visit to Bluewater, raiding Waterstone’s for something interesting to read, I came across an example of someone thinking “inside the box” and I couldn’t resist buying it.
The novel in question is The Box Man, by Kobo Abe. I’m a real sucker for the blurb on the back cover, and this one grabbed me by the nuts, dragged me (squealing) over to the counter and slapped my open wallet down in front of the sales assistant:
“In this eerie and evocative masterpiece, the nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head. Wandering the streets of Tokyo and scribbling madly on the interior walls of his box, he describes the world outside as he sees or perhaps imagines it, a tenuous reality that seems to include a mysterious rifleman who is determined to shoot him, a seductive young nurse given to disrobing, and a doctor who wants to become a box man himself.”
It turns out that Abe is ‘the internationally acclaimed author of The Woman In The Dunes‘ and, would you believe it, they had that in stock too. Marvellous. I can’t wait to finish the novel I’m currently reading and get started on these two.
Anyone else read Kobo Abe?
