Kiku and Hashi are two boys who were abandoned as infants in coin lockers at a train station in Tokyo, and who survived. They are adopted by a couple on a small island in southern Japan, grow up together, and are separated as teenagers. Kiku becomes an athlete and Hashi a singer, and both find their way back to Tokyo, a city that Ryū Murakami presents as a landscape of violence, toxic chemicals, and decay. The two follow separate paths toward a confrontation.
It suits readers who like dark, hallucinatory fiction and Japanese novels that push into extreme territory. It is long and graphic, and it is best for readers prepared for intense imagery and a restless, ambitious plot.
Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1980
- Language
- EN
