It wasn't that I disliked this book, so much as I was consistently confused as to why people liked it so much. It struck me as rewarmed Jonathan Carroll from the beginning, with a passive and strangely thoughtless protagonist and a plot that makes Lost look coherent. As the book goes on, he faces a number of dream-like challenges, all somehow linked to something that happened in the Russo-Japanese War... but it's obvious that it will continue to be dreamlike and amorphous. It's like looking through a kaleidoscope while listening to an accountant tell you about his day at work.

Eventually, it amorphously and dreamily resolves itself into a happy ending for not much reason, at which point you're given the idea that it was all for the best really and alls well that ends well. Jolly good show and all that.

And that... is it. This is a book that doesn't even try to insult your intelligence.

What utter tripe.

However. Paul Bryant's review on this page is genius, and you should read it. It's compelling high art.