false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171659224m/112484.jpg 112484 2 Hikaru Okuizumi's <I>The Stones Cry Out</I> traces 20-odd years in the life of World War II veteran Tsuyoshi Manase, a timid bookseller and amateur geologist who struggles to suppress a troubled conscience. More novella than novel, this brief but keenly realized story--for which Okuizumi won the Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan's highest literary awards--is a stark, disturbing, but ultimately redemptive meditation on remembrance and mortality.<p> At the novel's outset, Manase, weakened by malaria and hunger, finds himself languishing in a jungle cave with other hapless soldiers, many of whom are near death. The scene is hellish, fuel for future nightmares. "Even the most ordinary pebble has the history of this heavenly body we call earth written on it," a faltering lance corporal explains, a cryptic and riveting truth that sustains Manase and that he spends the rest of the novel attempting to unravel. When the war ends--and with the corporal's words still lingering--he opens a bookstore and then devotes himself to collecting stones. This obsession puzzles the woman he marries but becomes his only means of mooring a war-shadowed life. <p> Throughout, like some mute audience, is his immense and patiently gathered stone collection, evidence of Manase's desire for order and his need to understand something more enduring than his own passing life. <I>The Stones Cry Out</I> is a heartbreaking and harrowing tale, one whose most remarkable achievement is that, like the stones of its title, it reveals something greater than itself. <I>--Ben Guterson</I> 108303 1999 The Stones Cry Out total:44|5:10|4:18|3:10|2:6| 44 164 63 9 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri May 08 22:51:52 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 20:56:19 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Nov 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 06 21:27:58 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 11 07:36:04 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Tue Aug 21 20:40:53 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 21 20:41:26 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat May 23 04:01:08 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 04:06:00 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Dec 10 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 11 19:59:50 -0800 2008 Mon Apr 06 17:38:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue May 20 21:09:45 -0700 2008 Tue May 20 21:10:22 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Fri Oct 31 22:27:14 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 25 11:32:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sun Aug 12 09:18:27 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 12 09:18:27 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Sun Sep 07 23:58:00 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 08 00:01:08 -0700 2008 kick bayonet in the gut.]]> 4 0 false false Sat Oct 03 17:41:35 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 17:41:35 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Sep 22 14:59:11 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 14:59:11 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Sep 18 13:01:50 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 13:01:50 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Sep 11 11:10:23 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 03:45:48 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 11 11:10:23 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Wed Aug 05 12:08:50 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 05 12:09:36 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sat Aug 01 21:19:53 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 21:19:53 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Jul 19 12:59:51 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 12:59:51 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sun Jul 12 17:10:21 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 17:10:21 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jul 07 07:58:31 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 07:58:31 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jul 05 13:00:41 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 00:52:48 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Jun 27 00:58:14 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 27 00:58:14 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=112484