This slim volume by the Dutch master begins with two Europeans in a cafe as they discuss the gap between how outsiders view Japan as a place of eastern mysticism and profound beauty and how it is in reality: a place bound to the same blandness and imperfections from which all places suffer. It is also a love story between a Dutch photographer and a Japanese model, whose relationship is doomed from the very beginning due to the insuperable gulf between the two cultures. It is a sign of Nooteboom's mastery of his craft that he was able to create two different narratives and meld them into one cohesive whole.