Rating: 
Summary: A powerful legacy of war, told with exquisite restraint.
Review: "Even the smallest stone in a riverbed has the entire history of the universe inscribed upon it," Okuizumi remarks in his opening sentence, and he illustrates his belief in this principle by choosing a "small" man as his main character, a sometimes helpless man on whom the history of the universe will be written as he struggles with the themes and challenges which have occupied men since the beginning of time. Tsuyoshi Manase is a young Japanese survivor of the World War II battle for the Philippines, but he has not survived intact. In the war's aftermath, he is beset by personal demons that are at least as terrifying as the war itself. An amateur geologist and rock collector after the war, Manase marries unhappily, has two sons, and runs his business as a bookseller. He tries to escape the humanizing emotions which made his life as a soldier such hell, and which allow his post-war nightmares to flourish, by retreating to his rock collection and his workshop. He can never escape the final days he spent in a cave in Leyte, however, a time in which following orders meant closing his eyes and killing the dying, even his friends, as they stared at him with the enlarged eyes of the starving. With taut prose and stunning imagery, Okuizumi generates sympathy for this damaged veteran whose internal war continues long after the peace treaty, and affects, especially, his relationships with his sons. The climax, when it comes, is breath-taking, its power enhanced by Okuizumi's restraint and his belief that the careful reader will figure out the details for himself. As the reader's comprehension of the events grows, so, too, does his understanding of the stones, the river, and the universe which Okuizumi creates here. This is a novella of tremendous power which transcends national boundaries and touches on what makes us all human.
Rating: 
Summary: Mute, but riveting.
Review: As a person who loves to read books, this one doesn't leave your concience right away. After you finish reading it, you evaluate it some more and try to look at it from different angles. I read it a year ago and plan to read it a second time after I am done passing it around. I bought it on line with some others books because it was on special and I wanted to surpass the 25 dollar range for free shipping. See what you get when you aim for that free shipping deal! It is a story about a Japanese WWII veteran who tried to supress his horrible war time experience by immersing himself in the study and collection of rocks. He also chose to get on with a normal life by marrying and having two sons. When you first open the book and lay your eyes on the first paragraph, the words just ascends and you know you are reading a great story. The author expertly weaves memories of the pass into the present, as Manase, the main character is revisited by the same horror, he tried to leave behind. It is wonderful how he uses few words with so many levels of meaning and understanding, that you marvel at this author's talent. The story draws you in, as you start to wonder if all the things that happened in that little cave was imagined or just magnified. This book is more like a short story than a novel, but it reads like a classic. I am truly impress by Hikaru Okuizumi's profound ability to tell so much with so little words. Notice how he mirrors a rock to the main characters being. A rock just laying there, innocuous, but yet when you take a closer look, you can see layers of different sediments, minerals and other little stones, a universe contained full of mystery. This is genuine talent in story telling. And I look forward to reading his future work. And I highly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to challenge their own minds.
Rating: 
Summary: Why?
Review: I am always looking for new Japanese writers translated into English and was excited to see this book. But after having read it, I couldn't figure out why? Why was this book translated? There are so many amazing Japanese writers, why does another bizarre Japanese writer have to be translated. It makes me wonder what people think of Japanese writers when they read these kinds of books. For me he is in the same bizarre and waste of space category as Murakami.
Rating:
Summary: Japanese Tragedy
Review: I thought that this was a deeply moving and thought-provoking novel. After World War Two, Manase's life is dominated by his family and his hobby of lithology. However, he is haunted by memories of the latter days of the war in the Philippines, when he and other Japanese soldiers were trying to survive in the jungle. The past comes back to haunt Manase, and make the present that much more difficult to cope with - indeed, perhaps the past defines the current tragedy of Manase's life. Has Manase really escaped the nightmares of the war? This is a short book, and it's a compelling narrative. I thought that it raised issues of how people cope with trauma, and most interestingly, whether or not the martial ethos in Japan is still a curse despite the fact that the war ended a long time ago. Does the code of death with honour haunt the present as well as the past? A little gem. G Rodgers
Rating:
Summary: This book ought to be available in every language
Review: If the book falls in your hands read it. What a wonderful piece of literature. Just departing from the title you feel the intelligence that surrounds everything that is written on it. A Japanese soldier who have witness the brutality of war in the Philippines survives the war an returns to its native land to take on the family business. He was changed not simply by the horrors he saw but also by an unexpected and unasked glimpse about the eternity of the universe and futility of human might. He perceives that all that can be said about where we come from is condensed in a rock. The odd thing is that a stone is something that nobody pays attention to, but the whole meaning of existence is hidden on it and it cries to be understood. We also could be stones, pieces of matter, which looked upon closely take a bigger dimension if the observer do not fail to understand us. Otherwise our existence is as irrelevant as those stones that we kick while walking on a gravel road.
Rating:
Summary: worth reading
Review: Like all preferences in food, clothing, movies and all opinions concerning what's beautiful and what's ugly, it is very specific and individualized when it comes to reading a book. But I think most readers will come away with something from reading this little brown book, specially if you are equiped with a certain sensitivity to things that are subtle. Wether a new appreciation for rocks and geology on a simplistic level or appreciating how deep a wound war, deprevation and loneliness can cut into a man's soul,there is something to be gotten from this book. To be honest, I finished reading it a month ago and I am still trying to figure out how the author wants me to end the story. But I think this is how it ends: When the younger son ask, "were you there in the cave?" It is not suggesting that the main character is the serial child killer, but rather it implies that this is a common cry of children when they are in danger, wanting to be protected by their parents. Did he really pick up the dying corporal and ran outside the cave or did he kill him as ordered? Was Manase,trying to appease his own guilt about killing another human being by inventing his own heroic version of the event? It is a surreal book that demands your interpretive skills. If a little brown hardcover book can ilicit such emotions and thought long after you've put it down, doesn't it deserve a five star rating?
Rating:
Summary: Simply Stunning
Review: The writing of this book is lyrical in its prose, and yet terrifying in its portrait of lives destroyed by war. I gaurantee you will be haunted by this incredible book long after reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting portrayal of loss and tragedy
Review: There is little doubt that Hikaru Okuizumi is a first rate writer able to spin out first-rate bits of description and thought that translate to English remarkably well. This little book (140 pages or so, large print, small page size) reads so fluidly from start to finish, weaving in and out of past and present so effortlessly that when you're finally finished with it you're amazed at how deep the story actually is in conveying a complex tale of tragedy and loss. I've recommended this book several times over to friends who consider themselves 'book afficionados,' but who actually never get around to reading a book for a plethora of reasons. In most cases the slim size of the book along with its literary acclaim makes the book somewhat approachable and worthy of their time - and without fail my 'literary' friends are able to gobble this book up in a day or two and then spends the next month discussing the 'hot/new/brilliant' book they've just read to all watercooler aquaintances.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting portrayal of loss and tragedy
Review: There is little doubt that Hikaru Okuizumi is a first rate writer able to spin out first-rate bits of description and thought that translate to English remarkably well. This little book (140 pages or so, large print, small page size) reads so fluidly from start to finish, weaving in and out of past and present so effortlessly that when you're finally finished with it you're amazed at how deep the story actually is in conveying a complex tale of tragedy and loss. I've recommended this book several times over to friends who consider themselves 'book afficionados,' but who actually never get around to reading a book for a plethora of reasons. In most cases the slim size of the book along with its literary acclaim makes the book somewhat approachable and worthy of their time - and without fail my 'literary' friends are able to gobble this book up in a day or two and then spends the next month discussing the 'hot/new/brilliant' book they've just read to all watercooler aquaintances.
Rating:
Summary: Does life just go on?
Review: This is perhaps THE most haunting and fascinating book I have ever read. I find myself thinking about it at the weirdest moments over and over again.
Among the many themes in the book, the most compelling is an examination of how unforgettable trauma can crystalize into a lens that forever refracts and warps one's view of reality. The plot follows the life of a Japanese soldier who survived WWII and is trying to return to normalcy in the aftermath. An amateur geologist, he finds escape in the stones he collects, but the horrors he experienced in a cave in the Phillipines are always close by, brought to a terrifying crescendo when an unthinkable tragedy befalls his young son. The ending will leave you questioning what really happened--and whether it even matters, as the mind understands and experiences reality not as a discrete incident of the present but as part of a greater continuum with the past.
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