The Tatami Galaxy
by Tomihiko Morimi (Ohta, 2004); audiobook trans. Emily Balistrieri; read by Andrew Grace (HarperAudio, 2022)
Morimi squanders the Sliding Doors premise by firing hadrons at a puerile scenario. The whole-passage repetitions are inexcusable (both logically and stylistically). Readers will come to loathe the narrator’s blethering on about dark-haired maidens, rose-coloured campus life and his four-and-a-half-mat tatami room.