First impressons - The Housekeeper + The Professor

There is a feeling that i have so far encountered with Japanese literature that is really hard to describe but is there in the limited examples I have read so I will have a go at putting it into words.

The most natural way of trying to relate it is to talk about a detached way of describing the characters. The emotions are controlled and kept outside of a narrative that concentrates on telling a story in as efficient a way as possible.

So here we are introduced to the world of the professor with his 80 minute memory, resulting from a previous car crash, and the housekeeper desperate to keep her job to support her son. Numbers are the one point of conversation that unites the mathematics professor and those around him.

Although the toe has only just been dipped in this reminds you of Haruki Murakami in the way the story is told in a fairly controlled way despite the clearly emotional lives unfolding on the page.

Will wait to see how this develops...