The Story Archive

The Ruined Map

Kōbō Abe · 1967 CE · Novel · Japanese · Contemporary

A private investigator takes a missing-person case from a woman who serves him beer at two in the afternoon and can tell him almost nothing about the husband who walked out six months ago. What she hands over is a matchbook from a coffee shop, one photograph, and a brother who behaves like anything but a brother. Every lead opens onto Tokyo's parking lots, phone booths and expressway ramps rather than onto the man.

Open The Ruined Map in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Attributes

Genre
MysteryPsychological
Theme
Identity & SelfIsolation & AlienationMemory & TimeObsession
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanWandererShadow
Plot structure
MysteryThe ChaseLabyrinth Plot
Symbol / motif
The CityThe LabyrinthThe Journey
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
NoirAbsurdist
Culture / tradition
Japanese

Closest analogues