A man named Mitsusaburo is married to Natsumi, they have a newborn son who is mentally disabled. She is coping with alcohol. Then Mitsu's friend commits suicide (it involves a cucumber) which only further sends the two of them spiraling into uncertainty. Mitsusaburo's brother Takashi returns from America and convinces them to go back with him to their childhood home. Here we learn about the brothers' great grandfather and his brother, the latter a major figure in an 1860 peasant uprising. Takashi wants to inspire a similar uprising and, after creating a football team, slowly builds an army which loots the local supermarket owned by a Korean...

I'd go into more detail (and there is a lot more to go into) but I suspect you've already switched off a little. The fact is the book is very good, wonderfully written (and translated), and delves into as many dark and painful recesses of the human mind that you can imagine (fascinatingly so). But it's very convoluted, very dense, and very oppressive at times. After a while, I felt like I had a bag of stones around my neck. Which is a shame because the writing is indeed great. It just feels like he's put far too much into this (did I mention that Takashi seduces Mitsu's wife Natsumi, that there's a murder, an obese gargoyle, an attempted rape, incest, more suicide, a cucumber