There are three stories in Sanaka Hiiragi’s The Lantern of Lost Memories – and they are essentially the same. Yes, one of the protagonists changes in each story, but what happens to them (and thus the structure of the narrative) is pretty much identical. Once you’ve read the first story you find there is insufficient jeopardy in the remainder for the reader. At least that was my experience.
The other thing that struck me was that, with so much ‘soft fantasy’/magic realism coming out of Japan these days, the debt Japanese literature owes to Haruki Murakami is colossal. And let’s face it, Murakami is pretty much unbeatable.
Ian Gouge - Writer 