How’s everyone liking the book? While I enjoy the poetic strings of descriptions, maybe comparable to those by James Joyce, the story is not speaking to me for some reason! I am really struggling to keep up in terms of interests.
The book is not an easy read, because sometimes it grows a little too poetic in its descriptions and it uses a lot of vocabulary unknow to me. There is not much of a story so far and I am still waiting for the dramatic development announced in the summary. It is sometimes difficult to keep track of the jumps in time between childhood, later life at the ryokan, present life in Tokyo and the current visit at the ryokan. I am glad to have the e-book version with word lookup and a translated version of the book to verify my understanding.
But still it is an interesting book to read and I don’t regret the selection for the book club.
This is not a pageturner of a book. Very little actually happens, and it mostly just conveys feelings and a certain atmosphere. I did like the writing and the world it described, but getting into the book again after pausing each week was hard. I found that reading it all in one go (I don’t mean one sitting, just no other reading in between) let me enjoy it much more.
I’ve finished this book already, but I enjoyed it a great deal! The atmosphere, the characters, the setting, the passage of time, it all really worked for me.
I’m enjoying the book but would probably enjoy it more if I wasn’t battling so much. But I’m impressed that I’ve managed to get this far! I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up with the schedule, but while I’ve been behind a lot of the time, I’m not falling progressively further behind, and I’ve managed a chapter in 4 days a couple of times recently. I am kind of hoping for a little bit more drama but it’s ok if that doesn’t happen.
I’m starting chapter 8 now but reckon I’m unlikely to finish it tomorrow.
I’m enjoying the book a lot. It’s very whimsical (if that word fits; I’m thinking of how everything is very dreamy and vague and there’s no clear connection between events or an underlying plot and all that), and I like the atmosphere that creates.
Nothing much happens, except for how we get to experience a bit of a different life through our protagonist’s recollections of events and bonds with the people around her.
I’m sure it’s not for everyone, but I’m enjoying it even at a set, weekly pace. I’ve been behind due to life reasons until today though, so maybe I don’t get to say that?