This is a rather odd little book. Divorced Taro, who seems
to have no friends, lives in a rundown apartment building, which will be torn
down once the leases all run out. Over a concrete wall, he can see the top of
the house next door from his balcony. It’s a big, expensive, house, with a sky
blue roof. One day, he sees one of his neighbors trying to climb up the wall.
She’s not a robber; she’s obsessed with the house. Years before, she found a
book of photographs called “Spring Garden”- the house the photos were taken of
is the sky blue house next door. She wants to see the house, inside and out.
The photo book, that is all interior shots some of which show the home owners,
has given the house a kind of mythic beauty for her. As she schemes to get
inside the house, Taro finds himself drawn into her obsession.
Not much happens in the book. They see the house. He sees
the current house under laid by the photos in the book, just like he sees signs
of the rivers and streams that have been tamed and forced into culverts
underground all over the city. The whole world is a palimpsest.
Despite the lack of action, I sped through the book. I, too,
became enamored of the beauty of the house, and how the now overlays the past. Four
stars, even though it is, as I said, odd.
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I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review.
neither of these things influenced my review.
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