Review
... a tale of intricately wrought illusion and refined below-stairs debate ... this most delicate of dramas yet encompasses hatred, love, and death ... told with loving humor and nostalgia for the old Japan --The New Yorker
... a wry, affectionate, humourous novel, entirely out of the ordinary, which I shall read again and again ... --James Merrill
... undoubtedly one of the finest novels by a foreign author ever to come out of Japan ... an amazing grasp of the Japanese psyche. --The Japan Times
... a wry, affectionate, humourous novel, entirely out of the ordinary, which I shall read again and again ... --James Merrill
... undoubtedly one of the finest novels by a foreign author ever to come out of Japan ... an amazing grasp of the Japanese psyche. --The Japan Times
Product Description
Originally published by Weatherhill in 1968. Second edition 1977 by Charles Tuttle Inc. The title is taken from an anonymous senryu: Laughing together, They set out. But they return Silent, separate. Timothy Harris, in his introduction to this new and revised edition, writes that Companions is: ... a comedy that is set in Japan, has mainly Japanese characters, is written by an American, and yet draws on a modernist tradition that is peculiarly English, since the chief influences are the novels of Ronald Firbank, Ivy Compton-Burnett and Henry Green.
