Scan barcode
A review by foxconfessor
Go by Kazuki Kaneshiro
4.0
This book jumped around a lot and I wish it was much longer, but I really enjoyed it. Favorite passage:
“I saw this show the other day about a retirement home for guide dogs in Hokkaido. It’s this place where old dogs that can’t do their job anymore can go to live out their last days. The fact that a place like that even existed moved me so much that I couldn’t take my eyes off the TV. And then they showed a woman saying goodbye to her guide dog. It was a blind woman and a male golden retriever couple, and she just held him in her arms completely still for a good hour until finally the staff had to pull them apart. As the car drove away from the retirement home, the woman leaned out of the window and waved, shouting, ‘See you,’ and ‘Bye-bye,’ and the dog’s name, but the dog just sat there and watched the car go. But that’s the way it had to be. It’s how guide dogs are trained. They aren’t allowed to show any excitement, and they aren’t allowed to bark. Even after the car was gone, the dog didn’t move an inch from where they said their goodbyes, and he kept looking in the direction the car disappeared. For hours. The woman who’d been by his side for ten years wasn’t there anymore. He must have been so devastated he couldn’t move. They said goodbye around noon, and in the evening it started to rain. Really hard. The dog that had been looking straight ahead until then looked up like he was watching the rain come down and started to howl. Waoon waoon. Like that—again and again. He didn’t look the least bit sad or pathetic. He bayed with his back stretched, and the line from his chest to his chin perfectly straight like a beautiful sculpture. I cried my eyes out. Waoon waoon. Just like that.”
“So what are you trying to say, Sakurai?” I asked.
“I’m trying to say that I want to love someone the way that dog did. His howl was more beautiful than any music I’ve ever heard. I want to be the kind of person that can love someone right and then cry the way that dog did if I lost someone."
“I saw this show the other day about a retirement home for guide dogs in Hokkaido. It’s this place where old dogs that can’t do their job anymore can go to live out their last days. The fact that a place like that even existed moved me so much that I couldn’t take my eyes off the TV. And then they showed a woman saying goodbye to her guide dog. It was a blind woman and a male golden retriever couple, and she just held him in her arms completely still for a good hour until finally the staff had to pull them apart. As the car drove away from the retirement home, the woman leaned out of the window and waved, shouting, ‘See you,’ and ‘Bye-bye,’ and the dog’s name, but the dog just sat there and watched the car go. But that’s the way it had to be. It’s how guide dogs are trained. They aren’t allowed to show any excitement, and they aren’t allowed to bark. Even after the car was gone, the dog didn’t move an inch from where they said their goodbyes, and he kept looking in the direction the car disappeared. For hours. The woman who’d been by his side for ten years wasn’t there anymore. He must have been so devastated he couldn’t move. They said goodbye around noon, and in the evening it started to rain. Really hard. The dog that had been looking straight ahead until then looked up like he was watching the rain come down and started to howl. Waoon waoon. Like that—again and again. He didn’t look the least bit sad or pathetic. He bayed with his back stretched, and the line from his chest to his chin perfectly straight like a beautiful sculpture. I cried my eyes out. Waoon waoon. Just like that.”
“So what are you trying to say, Sakurai?” I asked.
“I’m trying to say that I want to love someone the way that dog did. His howl was more beautiful than any music I’ve ever heard. I want to be the kind of person that can love someone right and then cry the way that dog did if I lost someone."