Rating: 7.8/10.
Several short stories with parallel facing text of various time periods – they tend to be rather bleak, and several of them are about suicide. The other ones mostly have themes of loneliness or of people being forgotten about by society.
Sound of a Train Whistle in the Night – a short 2-pager, the girl starts with a prompt and the boy talks about his loneliness and that it is so deep as to want to die, and that her love is like a train whistle to latch onto, and the story ends before the girl speaks.
A Little Darkness – the narrator is visiting Buenos Aires with her parents who had a past history there, and by walking through the city, gets her mother to confide in some past trauma with her involving her own mother’s death.
Genjitsu House – about a woman who talks to a friend who’s just given birth and reminisces how the time during the pregnancy was nicer, how she got special treatment during that time and could look forward to giving birth, and how that’s all gone now. This is one of the more grounded and realistic of the stories.
The Silent Traders – a mother who lives near a park where people throw their unwanted pets over the wall to dispose of them. The story then switches to her taking her children to see their absent father, whom she is resentful about, and makes the connection that children feeding stray pets is like an exchange for companionship to replace a missing father.
Mogera Wogura – an absurd story about a mole who collects humans who have lost their purpose in life, shrinks them, and then takes them underground to nurture them while they recover, while also having an office job in a human company and a wife, and is described/narrated in a matter-of-fact way despite the absurd setup. This is one of the more heartwarming stories, even though he never talks about why he does this.
The Maiden in the Manger – a man who takes a train to an unfamiliar town to buy a vintage adult toy and then gets interrupted by some strange characters before making the purchase, like a gangster type and an elderly and ill customer, but then the story ends abruptly, so I’m not sure what the point is.
Where the Bowling Pins Stand – a taxi driver experiences guilt after unknowingly driving an old woman to a cliff at night, and later finds out that she has committed suicide by jumping off the cliff there, and he is consumed by guilt and relives the decision afterwards, even though his friends told him it’s not his fault.
Love Suicide at Kamaara – an old prostitute in Okinawa who is unable to find clients but takes in a broke American soldier who had deserted, and out of desire for his youth and her own loneliness, and when he decides to leave, she commits double-suicide.
