Bullfight
by Yasushi Inoue
Old Book of the Week , June 12, 2017
Phinney Bullfight
An executive at a fledgling newspaper in Japan, just after the end of World War II, decides, perversely, to gamble the future of his enterprise on a bullfighting tournament (a Japanese bull vs. bull variety known as "bull sumo"). That's the entire premise of this lovely, tiny little book, one of the first in Inoue's prolific career; without ever departing from the mundane details of the scheme—numbers of tickets sold, yen spent, bulls shipped—Inoue builds it into a existential drama of human ambition, desire, boredom, and self-destruction worthy of Simenon, James M. Cain, or Camus.
An executive at a fledgling newspaper in Japan, just after the end of World War II, decides, perversely, to gamble the future of his enterprise on a bullfighting tournament (a Japanese bull vs. bull variety known as "bull sumo"). That's the entire premise of this lovely, tiny little book, one of the first in Inoue's prolific career; without ever departing from the mundane details of the scheme—numbers of tickets sold, yen spent, bulls shipped—Inoue builds it into a existential drama of human ambition, desire, boredom, and self-destruction worthy of Simenon, James M. Cain, or Camus.
— Tom
Bullfight was reviewed in Newsletter #142 on June 12, 2017. For more like this, and other bookish news, sign up for the newsletter .
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