A slim, potent, and dense novella. The easy (lazy) comparison is to Rashomon, and the way we see Misugi change from thin and narrow to nuanced and vital and then to a defeated husk of a man is expertly drawn. This kind of framing device has an odd effect: if it was done in a more modern novel it would feel a little hackneyed and cheap (I am thinking, admittedly, of Cloud Atlas a bit here, and its insistence on lampshading every single switch in narrative focus) but the austerity and elegance with which Inoue handles it feels crisp rather than willfully postmodern.

Reading online, I see this book lauded for many things but mostly for its progressive treatment of the women who inhabit Misugi's life; I get that, and they're beautifully written and well-drawn, but I'm not sure I see the book as a feminist text. Inoue deliberately bookends the novella with the unnamed poet reflecting on Misugi — first as an anonymous, faceless, and ultimately, self-absorbed man — and then as a person who is untethered from the world, forced to understand a certain shade of emptiness. It is this change that enchants me, and has stuck with me for the past few weeks since first reading it.

★★★★