化身

This book (or is it the first story only?) has won the Japan Horror Award, but if there was horror it was certainly subtle. At no point was I scared or disturbed.

The book comprises three stories. In the first story, the narrator accidentally falls into a lake surrounded by sheer cliffs in a rainforest. He can't get out, so he starts adjusting and evolving in order to survive.

In the second story, at a time when the urban legend of 口裂け女 has everyone scared, a young boy goes to a secluded lake again and again trying to catch a fish that no one believes exists. There he befriends a young woman who asks him to keep their meetings a secret.

In the third story, a financially struggling family gets a pet parrot, and their lives change.

I enjoyed the book, the first story especially being my favourite. It was unique and I never knew how it would develop until the end. There was no dialogue at all since the narrator was all alone in the jungle, and a lot of nature vocabulary and detailed descriptions of the environment, which made reading it somewhat difficult but also very rewarding.

The second story was much easier to read, but while there was suspense till the end, the conclusion wasn't entirely unpredictable, I felt.

As for the third story, I liked the setup and the ending enough that I'm willing to forgive the middle. There's tons of talk about the economy, the stock market, and the financial struggles of self-employed designers. The vocabulary was as new to me as it was uninteresting. But while the financial struggles of the family left me cold, the role of the titular bird was interesting throughout.