Banana Yoshimoto’s way with words is unlike any other author I’ve ever read. The severe lack of plot in this novel is what so well demonstrates it’s purpose, to soothe the reader through the endless cycle of time passing. I regard this novel as rather philosophical, with many discussions of memory, death, happiness and the sheer meaning of life. The writing is so beautiful, the descriptions so mesmerising, the narrator’s contemplations so serious and lovely and devastating, that reading this novel felt very calming and melancholy.

I want to go on living, understanding more. I want to see the world around me. I’m overjoyed by my differences. I don’t know if this that resembles hope is the source of all my desires. When I wander the streets of the city where I was born, attacked by the flood of old, frightening memories, I get an urge to turn to the fading sunset over the skyline of Tokyo and yell ‘Papa!’. It’s all so familiar. I recognise the scent of my own childhood - the smell of the wool on my father’s sweater, the smell of  water straight from the well on the side of the road. I feel it all.