What gives the book cohesion is Murakami’s introduction that combines his own reading history with an unhurried assessment of each of the writers whose short story is included. I-novelsBut first, Murakami’s reason for his initial reservations about Japanese fiction before immersing himself, in his thirties onwards, in Japanese writing. However, it’s in the nature of Murakami’s empathetic telling of each writer’s work that there is not a discouraging word about the I-novelists introduced. So, if this appears a bit random by avoiding a chronological sweep of modern Japanese writing, it only makes more convincing Murakami’s comparison of the contents to fukubukuro, i.e. They are reportedly sealed, so you won’t know the contents till you buy one, but the total value of what they hold is more than the selling price of the bag.

Source: The Hindu July 28, 2018 18:46 UTC