Kafkaesque
The term Kafkaesque is not typically utilized for the purposes of describing theme, but rather mood or atmosphere. Abe pursues that mood and atmosphere with such predatory instinct in the stories comprising this collection, however, that the result can only be termed thematic. The world is situated as a dark and strange place in which weirdness is the norm and every man is guilty of something, whether he wants to admit to it or not. Several stories kick off with an opening line that recalls—thematically speaking—the famous opening of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” while even those that don’t kick off in like that eventually wind up assuming a Kafkaesque feel.
Dehumanization
Unlike the Kafkaesque theme which is about tone and mood and is metaphorically pervasive, the theme of dehumanization is quite literal even as it is explored through Kafkaesque devices. The very first story, “The Irrelevant Death” starts things off nice and simply with the absence of humanity limited to the most common sort: a strange corpse which has been murdered by parties unknown. By the very next story, the limits of dehumanization are being pushed to the extreme with the title figure S. Karma literally having his identity stolen by a doppelganger taking the form of a business card. As if that weren’t bizarre enough, things get decidedly Kafkaesque in the succeeding story in which the main character is transformed into the exceedingly rare title flowering plant which grows native only in Japan.
Identity
Themes related to identity get presented in a variety of different ways. For instance, the identity of the corpse in that opening story is not only never revealed, it never even becomes an issue. Unessential to the story is the identity of the dead man or his killer, but things become even more complex because the main character who finds the body waiting for him in his apartment is never revealed by name, either. Then there are those two transformations of matter: the man whose identity is taken over by a business card and the man who turns into a plant whose fate is to wind up an exhibit in the Botanical Gardens. A later story titled “Intruders” examines identity a little differently through the plot of a man’s castle (his apartment) being invaded by unknown and unrecognized squatters who assumed a parcel of his identity by staking claim to possession of his living quarters without logic or lawful reason or rationale.
