I have no idea how to adequately write a review of a book that I so fundamentally did not get. How baffling this whole book was for me is best exemplified thusly: my copy has letters missing (the 'th's at the start of sentences were missing as well as the letters 'ft' if they followed each other) and I am not even sure if that wasn't in fact on purpose. I feel the need to point out that this is totally my fault - I know nearly nothing about Japan, so I wasn't even sure if the places visited by the protagonist are real or not. It felt a bit like I am lacking the framework needed to understand this book.

I read the words but didn't understand their deeper meaning. I did not get this, in fact I am kind of embarrassed how totally I did not get this. Readers with a greater background in Japanese literature might get more out of Slow Boat than I did, but I liked it well enough to recommend it to readers who are up for a challenge. I did appreciate the explanation of the novel’s surrealistic nature, which I found interesting but puzzling. Part of the novel suggests that simply doing the best we can with what we have toward the people we love will have positive if unforseeable consequences, even if we do not stay with those people forever.įortunately, Hideo Furakawa includes an explanation of the book, which he calls a remix of Haruki Murakami’s story, “Slow Boat to China.” Familiarity with that story might help a reader appreciate Hideo Furakawa’s remix, but I haven’t read it so I can’t comment on that. Or perhaps he is about to challenge fate. Perhaps the narrator is simply coming to terms with his life, coming to accept that he is on a slow boat to nowhere. Not a way out of Japan, necessarily, but a way out of the life for which he seems destined. It’s sort of a commentary on Japan over the course of the last few decades, but it’s also personal, a commentary on Japan as seen from the standpoint of a man (or boy) at various stages of his life, looking for a way out. The third time he decided to leave metaphorically, leading to another new girlfriend and another disaster.

The second time he was planning to join his new girlfriend at the airport. The first time he was in grade school, chasing after his girlfriend, whose parents were taking her away. Three times, he has tried and failed to leave Tokyo. Slow Boat is almost existential in its depiction of a man who feels hopeless, powerless, and trapped in a heartless Tokyo. Each love represents (at least in his mind) a failed attempt to leave Tokyo, either physically or metaphorically. Slow Boat is a novella-length story of three loves, told by a man who recalls his past. Published in Japan in 2003 published in translation by Pushkin Press on June 6, 2017

Slow Boat by Hideo Furukawa