This is quite a strange story, in that our protagonist/narrator, Kazu, is dead.   Before Kazu died, he was homeless and living in a cardboard and tarpaulin hut in Ueno Park, right next to Tokyo Ueno Station.

All too often we are shown the shiny-shiny capitalist face of Tokyo that those in power wish us to see, the Olympics, etc., but never do we see, or hear, those who are cast aside, unwanted and unneeded by a system that some just can't keep up with.   Tokyo Ueno Station is their story, told by a ghost of one of the many people that society has no place for any more.

I know it sounds all rather depressing, but i didn't find it so because it's a view of Tokyo that is told in such a unique and interesting way, keeping our attention when most writers would have lost it, making us realise, consider and re-revaluate.   How many homeless people die on the streets every year and no one ever gets to hear their story, or realise the truth as to why they were homeless in the first place, this book makes you think about those things: they are important.

It's certainly a fact in the UK, where i live, that the government deliberately maintains a homeless population in order to keep the threat in front of people of what will happen to them if they don't comply with society's demands.   I presume this is the same in Japan:   "Do you want to end up like them, Salaryman?   Well you'd best work hard, do lots of overtime, and do as you're told -- or else you'll be living in Ueno Park too!" ( )

The sad observations and reminisces of a lonely ghost who was a lonely man. Born the oldest of 8 children he still pretty much lived on his own since early adolescence, working away from his wife and two children. While he retains his internal connections to his remote home and family, he never enjoys real companionship. ( )

Beginning was phenomenal, I was annotating like crazy. After around the middle though, I started to lose interest. I felt like maybe I just didn't know enough about Japan to understand a lot of the parts. The writing style is beautiful, though. ( )

What a book! It was not at all what I expected when I bought a book about a haunted train station, but it was so much better. there are many stories of men who have suffered bad luck, who were born into poverty and suffered one loss after another. I found this one exceptional for a number of reasons. One was how thoroughly it painted a picture of its main setting, from the plant life to the buildings and businesses to the people to the issues of its governance. And second was the mindset of the narrator, Kazu, who certainly feels his many losses, but who continues to go on doing what he feels to be the right or responsible thing, never wanting to be a burden on anyone else, even after spending decades laboring to support family members that he rarely saw.

Exceeded my expectations. ( )

Kazu, the narrator, was born in 1933, the same year that the emperor was born. His son was also born on the same day that the emperor's son was born. However, Kazu's life couldn't be more different than the emperor's life. Kazo, now dead, reflects on his life spent away from his wife and two children as a laborer. Ultimately, he becomes homeless, living his life in a park in Tokyo. In death he lives on in the busy Ueno train station in Tokyo, reflecting on his past life which wasn't much different than his afterlife. ( )