四畳半神話大系

Initially difficult but entertaining

The book's narrator is a university student (and somewhat full of himself), so maybe it's only natural that he tends to use a wide vocabulary and fancy, roundabout ways of expression. I wouldn't even notice it in a language I was fluent in, but in Japanese it resulted in many, many lookups, and the need to pay extra attention. That said, several passages are repeated multiple times, sometimes even verbatim, so by the end of the book it didn't feel any more difficult than any other book I've read.

Kyoto comes alive in this book, and is almost a character itself. So is student life. While lectures and studies are barely mentioned, we get to explore several サークル, each one stranger than the other. Crazy antics abound, and throughout them all, the narrator keeps bemoaning his luck, certain that the rosy student life he had envisioned is being withheld from him.

While each chapter is almost a repetition of the previous one, the book never felt tedious to me. In fact it felt fresh and entertaining throughout, and the differences between chapters kept me on my toes, trying to work out what was going on and where it would all lead.