Review: Slow Boat

Slow Boat by Hideo Furukawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At the very end the author says this book was inspired by the story "A slow boat to china", by Haruki Murakami. I read that story recently and I confess I don't really see it. I mean, there are definite parallels. While Murakami discusses three Chinese he met in his life, Furukawa discusses his three ex-girlfriends. But while Murakami's stories seem almost incidental and inconsequential, Furukawa's ooze of importance and finality (and they all tie into the fact that he cannot leave, which becomes a life obsession almost). 

Regardless, I enjoyed this book. Only after having finished this book did I realized I had read a short story by Furukawa (Model T Frankenstein), which was also strange but definitely interesting. I look forward to reading more by the same author. 

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