Any time I start something from B.Yoshimoto, it is out of Japanese fiction need....but I am always disappointed. it is not that I do not like her way, but it doesn't seem enough japanese or american or european....I feel confused, many many words, when the elegance would have lead to an end without any explanation, while the american view would have asked for more details and explanations....maybe it is BJ originality, but not for me.... The somber, mysterious aura from the book can linger in your mind for days. Beautiful prose that reads like poetry. I found myself all persuaded there are people like them, circumstances bizarre like those, and struggles like theirs. But the moment it attempts to explain why they come out this way, that's when I felt the story falls apart. "It has to be something epic to explain such such vulnerability, such fragility." Does it? To me, it fails exactly because it tries too hard to justify pain and suffering.Too much symbolism to my taste - at least at this point in my life. But I could lose myself in the rhythm of her prose...
What do You think about The Lake (2005)?
Mostly disappointing, blend and uninspiring. It could be the fault of translator though.
—EmmaK
Strangely ethereal, yet involved and entangled and comfortably mysterious.
—novak
I will mostly remember The Lake as the book I read in Stanley Park.
—kavanden1964
