Thank you Net Galley. (Four and a half stars) A weird and wonderful novel/novella. A truly interesting commentary on self, identity and life paths. Should be read keeping in mind the nature of Japanese society and culture, though many aspects are universal. Fascinating.

Strangely compelling read - in fact also the preface and afterword by renown Japanese writers/critics are truly part of the reading experience. They both refer to an important mining tragedy just at the time the book was being written. And, one of the reviewers breathes a sign of relief that the author has not turned this into a recounting of that tragedy specifially - to add to the too-many naturalistic books out there. We are warned that there is no plot - the writer needed to warn readers who might have been thoroughly irritated (I think some were anyway) - but there is definitely a sequential drive in the plot - we want to see how he's going to take the appalling life underground in the miner. How is he drawn in (by a local hostelier who draws him into the work) - the hostelier offers him a job seeing as how he has run away from Tokyo in protest. Is this better than an end to it all he was contemplating - since he lived to tell the tale, and the mining experience was hellish, he did carry on. Written as a serialisation for a newspaper, it does read somewhat along those lines - slightly extended scenes at times But it is surely a masterpiece and utterly gripping.