Kafka - Shinsekai Yori/From the New World is split into six sections, titled: 若葉の季節, 夏闇, 深秋, 冬の遠雷, 劫火, and 闇に燃えし篝火は. I've just come to the end of part one, "Season of Young Leaves" and I thought I'd share my thoughts. "What would happen if humans developed telekinetic powers?" Everything seems happy-go-lucky on the surface, but children are disappearing, and no one seems to take notice. These ideas taken by themselves may be a bit hackneyed, but I was most drawn in by the book's presentation. From the New World is presented to us as a memoir, a cautionary tale from the 'new world' to an even newer world and an investigation of a past now lost — all at the same time. While there are a couple of anachronisms, and I have to wonder how the narrator was able to remember some (info dump) things she shouldn't have been able to understand at the time in full, the writing itself hews fairly close to this pretext. I have been vague so f...
Japanese book club for three bibliophiles and Japanese-English translators to share the novels they're reading, want to read and have read.