Alfreien’s Reviews > The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea > Status Update

“As he hurried to banish from his mind merely dutiful concern for this reticent, precocious, bothersome child, this boy whom he didn’t really love, Ryuji managed to convince himself that he was brimming with genuine fatherly affection. It”

“Noboru had a pleasant vision of the lightning in the adults’ gaze illuminating the life on shore that Ryuji dreamed about and Fusako’s wholesome household as they crashed noisily into rubble—but his excitement had led him to overestimate the power of his imagination. He had been expecting an impassioned reaction.”

“She had been quick to interpret the reality, and inasmuch as her banal interpretation was the cause of all her agitation, no clever excuse from him would be to any purpose.”

“Nor had he mentioned his concept of ideal love: a man encounters the perfect woman only once in a lifetime and in every case death interposes—an unseen Pandarus—and lures them into the preordained embrace”