The very beautiful and elegant prose is not enough to hook me into the novel. The pacing is too slow (the first half moved at a glacial pace that I nearly abandoned the novel), and the discussions on Japanese art that go on and on somehow feel artificial. Still, I found the discussions on Malaysian history during and after World War II interesting as well as that part about the kamikaze pilot and his male lover who is a senior officer in the war. The writing is breathtaking, but I needed some meat to devour in the story to make me love it.