In Search Of A Distant Voice – Taichi Yamada

‘What the hell is up with this guy?’ Yoshie glared down at Tsuneo from where she stood. ‘I mean, what the hell! This whole thing is a fiasco! What’s happening here! Isn’t the match- maker going to take responsibility for this?’ ‘How can you say such a stupid thing?’ shouted her mother. “Who’s being stupid?

Who’s being stupid!’ Yoshie cried at the top of her lungs. Then, running over to the alcove, she started grabbing the gifts and throwing them around the room. ‘This is all crap! It’s crap!’ “Yoshie!” “Yoshie darling!’ Tsuneo knelt there trembling amidst all the shouting, trying to control his sobs. Damn her. Damn that woman with the voice. Director-General Sait6’s driving was smooth and even, with- out a wasted movement.

It struck Tsuneo that he himself would never have been able to remain so composed after all that had happened. On the other hand, Mr Saité hadn’t said a single word for the first twenty minutes after they left Yoshie’s house. Just now they were merging onto the Shuto Expressway from the Yoga entrance. Mr Saité had said he’d drive him to his dorm, in Edogawa ward. Tsuneo had declined the offer, only to be told, in a tone that sounded like a command, that it was no trouble, so get in.

Mrs Saito had remained at Yoshie’s house. If he’d been the matchmaker, he doubted it would even have occurred to him to drive the future groom to his dorm, not after he had caused such a ruckus. He would have told him to find his own damn way home. Tsuneo hadn’t asked Mr Sait6 to take on the role of matchmaker.

It had been Mr Saitd’s idea to go talk with Yoshie’s parents, to tell them that there was a ‘serious, likeable young man’ in the office with ‘a warm side’ to him who might make a good match for Yoshie. Mrs Sait6 must be having a miserable time right now. When Mr Sait6 led Tsuneo out to the car, he had heard her mutter- ing to herself at her husband’s back, repeating the same In Search of a Distant Voice phrases: ‘I don’t understand it at all, I really don’t.

reader will follow him : step for step, page for page, on. nis : i 4 quest to redeem his es : soe ee au Yomiuri pias : ; S as etnade! s grasp “ef life s dred . me Sia m and he ee fe 5 a : and epee : a undercuts, moments of intense reflection provides his orig- ae ire foe ae, psychological | books with 7 bot a relevance,’ 0 es “Trish Tinea Bers a ore nthe hough L; — Serva i IN SEARCH OF A DISTANT VOICE Taichi Yamada worked at the world-renowned Shochiku film studios until he set out on a highly successful career as a free- lance scriptwriter and novelist.

Winner of the Yamamoto Shugoro Prize for the best human-interest novel in Japan, Strangers was published as his English-language debut in 2005. Praise for Strangers: ‘A ghost story of the highest order’ David Mitchell, Independent on Sunday ‘Shocking precisely because it is such a profoundly moving exploration of loneliness . . . In the balance of realism and sur- realism lies the key to Yamada’s achievement.’ Eileen Battersby, Irish Times “Taichi Yamada’s Strangers cautions us to beware looking back. A tale of vampiric phantoms, it unfolds against a backdrop of busy Tokyo and begins when a divorced, down-on-his-luck TV writer indulges in a trip back to his old neighbourhood.

Observer ‘The interplay of traditional ideas about spirits and cold modernity is what lies behind the power of this sharp, chilling contemporary ghost story. The Scotsman ‘A memorably uncanny tapestry, and a powerful atmosphere, of heat and rain and sorrow … The powerful mood of Strangers lingers well after its graceful, downbeat ending has passed.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: f20f524fcbb106ab
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 8,698,314 bytes (8.295 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 197
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 245.66 minutes
• Total Words: 49,132
• Total Characters: 268,608
• Average Words per Page: 249.4
• Average Characters per Page: 1363.49

Most Frequent Words

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