Re: Part II (Chapters 11 through 17)
The bit about inventions occurred to me in part because it's a theme in the only other Abe book that I've read, "Kangaroo Notebook". The main character works for a company that (if memory serves) produces stationary. At the start of the novel, the protagonist has just invented the title object, a notebook with a cover pocket designed to carry a smaller notebook. And then, seemingly unrelated, he start growing radish sprouts in the place of leg hair. Which leads to a subterrainian journey. Complete with vampire nurses. Needless to say, it's a much more bizarre novel than "Woman in the Dunes" but it struck me that invention is a theme that runs through both -- and a very apt theme for an author whose work is so novel and inventive.
I hit another couple of chapters today, and this line in chapter stood out to me: "But everyday life was exactly like the headlines. And so everybody, knowing the meaningless of existence, sets the center of his compass at his own home."
The narrator had just scanned the newspaper for some mention of his own disappearance, and found a hodgepodge of world events that, ultimately, had little significance for him personally. I found myself wondering what newspapers really communicate to people -- at least on the 99% of occasions like this one, in which nothing reported really has any direct effect on your circumstances at the time.
And maybe it also gives us some clue as to the narrator's view of domestic life -- I take the quote to be a shift to the narrator's point of view, and not Abe's own comment on domestic life. "LOVE YOUR HOME", then, serves as a kind of paliative for the realization that all of the news in the world doesn't add up to a meaningful life. But I get the sense that he inwardly sneers at the idea that a rich home life is really meaningful. Rather, it's a kind of false compensation, a distraction that keeps you from dwelling too much on the ultimately unimportance of everything.
One other thing just occurred to me. All of this is couched in the continuing description of sand sifting into everything. So maybe the sand is, for the narrator at least, indicative of the way this dissatisfaction slips into his home life, and seems to dirty up everything.
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) I won't give away spoilers, just let me know when you get there. I think you'll know what struck me. 
