The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea

One of the best books I read this year. Its short length if just right for what is trying to convey, and all the characters are written excellently. Descriptions of the decaying, but industrious harbor of Yokohama is also a poignant frame for the novel overall. On purely formalistic terms, I think this novel is excellent.

This book dealt with nihilism, or as some of the characters in this book expresses it “the emptiness of the world”, in an unsettling, but also in an honest and beautiful way that really speaks to me. Some of the characters find sparks in the emptiness that truly moves them, but they all realize in some way that the sparks are either impermanent, false or unrealistic, and for one of them something one has to give up.

How does one deal with the emptiness: Fill it with blood? Glory in death? Adventure? Living truly honestly? Or perhaps compromising somehow is the only realistic option. As someone who was, and still is to some lesser degree, a disillusioned youth, I appreciate this book for its beauty in its portrayal of dangerous, but honest, nihilism, apathy, and disillusionment.