The vice and virtues of middle age are espied with an eagle eye in this hardboiled story about a mid-career gangster. Unfolding thorugh chiseled sk...
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Dec 21, 2011
Gavin
rated it: 
There it was. Eyeing me. I'd never read Japanses hard-boiled before and I wasn't sure if I should start now. Reluctantly, I grabbed the book and started reading. Bullets. Death. Dames.
Fifty pages later I knew I had to do something about this book. When I brought it back to the library, the libraian looked at me with nervous eyes. This book had hardly ever been checked out since being acquired. "It was good," I said. She never asked me, but I told her anyway. Sh More...
Fifty pages later I knew I had to do something about this book. When I brought it back to the library, the libraian looked at me with nervous eyes. This book had hardly ever been checked out since being acquired. "It was good," I said. She never asked me, but I told her anyway. Sh More...
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Oct 14, 2011
Felix
rated it: 
Кендзо Китаката – один из первых королей японского хардбойла. Автор нескольких десятков романов, обладатель всех престижных национальных наград – от приза Рампо до приза Ёсикавы, бывший президент гильдии японских писателей-детективщиков. Несмотря на это, “Пепел” – его первый перевод на иностранный язык. И в этом нет ничего сенсационного. Романы про якудза – диковинка даже для англоязычного книжного рынка.
По этой причине появление “Пепла” на русских прилавках – большая радость, хотя More...
По этой причине появление “Пепла” на русских прилавках – большая радость, хотя More...
Nov 26, 2008
Dj
rated it: 
I just finished reading Kenzo Kitakata’s Ashes. It was a really intriguing read about a middle-aged Japanese yakuza. The book sounded so intriguing before I bought it. I have been on a Japanese novel kick ever since I read Out by Natsuo Kirino. But, the first couple of dozen pages seems really boring and slow. It was told in two parts, one from the outside, with the main character, Tanaka, being seen in third person. The second part of the book was told from Tanaka’s internal perspective. The st
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Oct 27, 2010
s t a r .
rated it:
A great piece of introspective hardboiled Japanese fiction. Instead of a detective as so many writers of hardboiled fiction are apt to fall back on (likely and rightly in attempts to follow the success of Raymond Chandler et al), it tells a story centered in yakuza politics – played close enough to the chest not to give too much away, but enough that the personal experience of a middle-aged yakuza is very real to the reader. The first half is written in the third person with fairly little clues
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Nov 18, 2011
Robin
rated it:
Oh that poor little fish! Thank goodness Tanaka did not keep a fluffy animal.
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