Junichi Watanabe ( 渡辺淳一, Watanabe Jun'ichi, October 24, 1933 – April 30, 2014) was a Japanese writer, known for his portrayal of the extra-marital affairs of middle aged people.
His 1997 novel 'A Lost Paradise' became a bestseller in Japan and over Asia, and was made into a film and a TV miniseries. He has written more than 50 novels in total, and won awards including Naoki Prize in 1970 for 'Light and Shadow' (Hikari to kage), New Current Coterie magazine prize for Makeup, the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize in 1979 for 'The Setting Sun in the Distance' (Toki rakujitsu) and 'The Russian Brothel of Nagasaki' (Nagasaki roshia yujokan).
He was born in Sunagawamachi (present-day Kamisunagawa) and died on April 30, 2014 of prostate cancer in Tokyo.
Probably one of the worst book I’ve read in my life
This book has talked about the importance of insensitivity from different sections. Such as human body and emotional. Well for the human body part he mentioned such as : our stomach should have the sense of insensitivity or it will probably get sick quite a lot so it will annoy us. Or, we should have the sense of insensitivity for our hearing, cause it will annoy us as well if we are sensitive with all those noises around us. Well dude, this is not something we can control?????? I believe people who has those sensitive senses are definitely annoyed! So it just doesn’t make any sense for me to talk about those things that we can’t even control.
For the importance of being insensitive with emotions, he used a really bad example, which is a mistress has complained to the author about that how she jealous of the man have to leave her every night to go back to his family, and the author’s advice is she shouldn’t care about those things she should just focus on the “ happiness” or she will be really struggling in this situation……I do agree with the author mentioned it is healthy for us to not get angry that much, or do not make division when you being emotional etc, we should be a bit insensitive with those kind of situation. But I just can’t accept he use this mistress thing as an example, cause this is wrong, no matter of what, you trying to put a theory that you think it’s right on a wrong example, how is that gonna work……
It is my first-ever book review on Goodreads. I couldn’t believe that it was the book that triggered me to start writing reviews.
I love this book. I would say it is a simple, thin book but it inspired me a lot. I am a highly-sensitive guy and my sensitivity always consumes me significantly. This book gives me a new perspective on seeing things. The power of insensitivity indeed acts like a parachute helping a free-falling guy to land slowly and safely. Doesn’t it sound great?
I would strongly recommend this book to those who are looking for inner peace and calm in this chaotic world.