I remember really enjoying the snippets I read years back (in English); I even specifically picked up an English copy of the book to go all the way through one day. Guess what happened. I love that one of the OG books consists of some dude running around sleeping with women and grooming a small child; really puts into perspective how nothing has changed in the last thousand years. 
In other news, I finished 秋の牢獄 | L31 last night! All it took was a forum outage to finally get me to wrap it up.
Reporting back to @Naphthalene @bungakushoujo @nikoru since we were discussing what stories you guys liked most from the book way back, my ranking of stories from the book:
- Second story
- First story
- Third story
I put story three at the bottom, but I still liked it! I liked the whole collection; it wasn’t perfect, per se (hard to achieve that with short stories), but I thought they were all decently written and had some fun food for thought. I left a review here (it’s pretty funny reading everyone’s reviews and what they thought of the book; lots of differing opinions), and I feel like I summed up my thoughts pretty well with this:
The biggest issue most will likely come across is pacing: these stories are unhurried, introspective looks at particularly unique and isolating situations. The author has some neat ideas, and they’re not fussed about getting there quickly. It’s all about the journey, not the destination, and if you vibe with that you’ll likely like this book.
I’ve got one more book by the author on my shelf (竜が最後に帰る場所 | L30??), which I’ll definitely have to pick up down the line.
Now to see what bingo square I can squish this into…
