

This is the second book of Kawakami's I've read after Heaven, & like the previous one it's existential & profound despite it's calm, stoical surface. In describing in wrenching detail the loneliness of a woman in her thirties, Kawakami resists all kinds of easy moralising. She avoids performing a standard psychological deep-dive. We know the protagonist is living through forms of trauma because of her circumscribed life, but not much more.
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