This is a collection of Japanese short stories, some of which are extraordinarily beautiful. I thought the strongest story in this collection was the first one, "Portrait of Shunkin" about a blind woman who lived her entire life with her boyhood servant yet she always abused him physically and emotionally. I also very much liked a particularly short story called "Terror" about a man's phobia of travelling by train. The weakest story in the collection I found to be "The Blind Man's Tale" which told the story of a blind man who was the masseur of Lady Oichi. I found that story had too many characters whom I could never keep straight. I also could never tell who were friends and who were enemies because that kept changing all the time. ( )

4/17/22

Short stories. Some good some odd ( )

I loved 'Some Prefer Nettles' and had high hopes for this collection. Sadly, I was left with a sense of disappointment. Maybe the translation didn't do the original works justice - there were times when I felt that the text didn't read seriously enough for the subject matter - but I think that perhaps I just didn't connect with the stories as well as I might. ( )

much, much better than i expected. but it did have that peculiarity that japanese fiction always seems to have. ( )