Secret Rendezvous
Abe, Kōbō. Secret Rendezvous. Secker & Warburg, 1979. Hardbound. First published as Mikkai in 1977 in Tokyo by Shinchosha Company. Translated by Juliet W. Carpenter. 'Lost with him in the labyrinth,' reads the flap copy of this hard-to-find edition of Abe's Kafka-esque satire of bureaucracy, 'we come to sense with him the seductiveness of the hospital and of its philosophy: that to be truly civilized is to embrace disease.' The signature dark humor of the great Tadanori Yokoo's jacket design portends the novel's missing wife narrative as the reader is beckoned into the back of a clown-colored ambulance before being jolted by a murky photo of a mysterious woman lying just beyond its cheerfully drawn curtains. Yokoo has cited influences varying from Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast of Push Pin Studios to filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and has collaborated with artists ranging from Butoh founding father Tatsumi Hijikata to electronica pioneers Tangerine Dream.
