Toddler-Hunting & Other Stories

I'm about a third to half way through this collection, and just wanted to enter an enthusiastic "thumbs up" in case I don't get a chance to do a fuller review later. The longish stories mostly take place in post-war Japan (maybe post-post-war is better, after the effects of WWII have largely died down and modernization is in full swing), and reveal an interesting society and women's place in it. [One, 'Full Tide', is set at the beginning of the war.] The prose is simple and straightforward, at least in translation, but the stories are surprisingly powerful and take some odd twists, with characters who often have a twist or quirk of their own. This will be enjoyed not just by 'literery' fiction fans -- my own tastes run to nonfiction or 'genre' fiction, but I've found it engrossing with rests between stories to absorb them.

Although, at first sight, her work does not seem to be appealing, it immediately led me to read through these rather haunting stories. Her writing style is quite eloquent and inspiring. Different from other rather self-centered novelists (e.g., Dazai, Mishima, Natsume, etc.), she stays as a objective narrator in her work, and her structiring ability of plot is almost astonishing. Probably she is a natally most talented writer in modern Japan.