I finished reading A Capella by the pool side today. It's three medium stories (as opposed to short and long stories), completely separate from each other but somehow similar in the sense that each protagonist is a bit of an unfortunate loser.
The biggest loser was the guy from the second story who ran away from a suburban house after everybody had opposed to his marrying his young cousin, to live in Tokyo with random "girl" friends (friends who are girls who take pity in him and let him stay), and only returned when his dad died many years later by when the cousin had already gotten a kid and was about to be divorced, all the while he had become a lonely bartender.
All the stories had a nice rhythm, written using young people's language which made the book light and realistic. While all unfortunate, the book does give some small happy ending to each of the characters (although not much, to be honest).
The first story received the Naoki Prize, which is as prestigious as the Akutagawa Prize in Japan (or the Nobel prize?).
A fitting book to be read at this hotel, based on the title at least (like reading Murakami's Norwegian Woods in Norway) and feeling lazy and anti-active like the characters.
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