In this refreshing book, Furukawa proves to be an imaginative and captivating storyteller. The lively imagination and yearning of the protagonist, as well as his amiable first-person narration, have echoes of Japanese literary giant Haruki Murakami, a generation older than Furukawa. Each begins with a concise paragraph of memorable events from the chosen year (2000 lists a Japanese gold medalist in the Sydney Olympics and a possible rapprochement between North and South Korea). The boats are broken up by short, quirky sections called chronicles. The narrator's third girlfriend is arguably the most significant that relationship ends in a spectacular and hilarious way. The story is told by an unnamed male narrator as he wanders around his home city of Tokyo on a rather chilly Christmas Eve, but these scenes are interspersed with memories of the past. At 19, he has an unexciting but steady girlfriend, but he messes up the relationship through a fling with a coworker, a slightly older security guard. Hideo Furukawa’s Slow Boat (translated by David Boyd) is the latest in Pushkin Press’ series of Japanese novellas, and it might well be my favourite so far. "I've never made it out of Tokyo," he declares by way of introducing his failings to the reader, and goes on to share details of failed romances or near-romances going back nearly 20 years to the fifth grade. The first-person narrator is a hapless everyman, baffled by society's conventions, technology, and the mysteries of the heart. Furukawa's playful short novel consists of nine chapters called boats, which can easily stand alone as short stories.
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