Kangaroo Notebook
( Japanese - Kangaruu noto ( カンガルー・ノート ) - 1991 )
novel by Kobo Abe
translated by Maryellen Toman Mori
Published: Knopf - hardback - 1996
ISBN: 0679424121 / 9780679424123
Turtleback Books - hardback - 1997
ISBN: 1417718927 / 9781417718924
Random House Value Publishing - hardback - 1997
ISBN: 0517198223 / 9780517198223
Vintage Books - paperback - 1998
ISBN: 0679746633 / 9780679746638
Synopsis
One morning, while pondering the stress of his latest assignment at his uninspiring job, the narrator of Kangaroo Notebook feels an itching on his leg that seems to indicate an unusual hair loss. The next morning he wakes to discover that he is sprouting small radishes on his shins. After battling to be seen in his local medical clinic, he enters a hospital, where a physician prescribes hot-spring therapy in Hell Valley.
Hooked to a penile catheter and an IV bottle, the narrator begins a harrowing journey on his hospital bed through the underworld that seems to lie beneath the city streets. Here, he seeks health not so much as he seeks simple explanations for what is happening to him and the strange people he meets: abusive ferreymen, waiflike child demons, vampire nurses, a chiropractor who runs a karate school and works a sideline as a euthanist.
( Japanese - Kangaruu noto ( カンガルー・ノート ) - 1991 )
novel by Kobo Abe
translated by Maryellen Toman Mori
Published: Knopf - hardback - 1996
ISBN: 0679424121 / 9780679424123
Turtleback Books - hardback - 1997
ISBN: 1417718927 / 9781417718924
Random House Value Publishing - hardback - 1997
ISBN: 0517198223 / 9780517198223
Vintage Books - paperback - 1998
ISBN: 0679746633 / 9780679746638
Synopsis
One morning, while pondering the stress of his latest assignment at his uninspiring job, the narrator of Kangaroo Notebook feels an itching on his leg that seems to indicate an unusual hair loss. The next morning he wakes to discover that he is sprouting small radishes on his shins. After battling to be seen in his local medical clinic, he enters a hospital, where a physician prescribes hot-spring therapy in Hell Valley.
Hooked to a penile catheter and an IV bottle, the narrator begins a harrowing journey on his hospital bed through the underworld that seems to lie beneath the city streets. Here, he seeks health not so much as he seeks simple explanations for what is happening to him and the strange people he meets: abusive ferreymen, waiflike child demons, vampire nurses, a chiropractor who runs a karate school and works a sideline as a euthanist.