The Stones Cry Out

A Good Story

There isn't much I need to say beyond this: It was a good story.

Excellent!

Tsuyoshi Manase, the book's protagonist, is veteran of Japan's campaign on the island of Leyte, who is haunted by what he witnessed in the waning days of Japan's last-ditch effort to defend the island.

One of Japan's best recent works

Okuizumi Hikaru's Akutagawa Prize-winning novel of one man's struggle to lead a normal life in the aftermath of war is nowhere to be found on the shelves of most bookstores, even English-language bookstores in Japan.

A lesson on man's place in the universe

This spare, lovely and heartbreaking little novel is based upon one thought: \"Even the smallest stone in a riverbed has the entire history of the universe inscribed upon it.

Mute, but riveting.

As a person who loves to read books, this one doesn't leave your concience right away.

Does life just go on?

This is perhaps THE most haunting and fascinating book I have ever read.

This book ought to be available in every language

If the book falls in your hands read it.

A powerful legacy of war, told with exquisite restraint.

\"Even the smallest stone in a riverbed has the entire history of the universe inscribed upon it,\" Okuizumi remarks in his opening sentence, and he illustrates his belief in this principle by choosing a \"small\" man as his main character, a sometimes helpless man on whom the history of the universe will be written as he struggles with the themes and challenges which have occupied men since the beginning of time.

A fascinating book full of haunting images

This is the kind of book that reminds me of what constitutes great literature.

Wires

\"and his face resembled a skeleton of wires covered with parchment\"
The metaphor of a person wasting away is not unique.