A review by sdwoodchuck
Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami

4.5

 In this collection of short stories, human and animal traits are blended in ways that rarely make coherent sense (for example, in one story a man reveals that he is actually an octopus in disguise; a feat whose physical reality is neither explained nor treated as implausible), but lend themselves to exploring the theme of human strangeness. Every story in the collection features some blurring of the lines between humans and other animals, though never in service to simple cliche or low-hanging fruit comparisons.

I really liked this a lot, and especially appreciate that the juxtaposition of human and animal traits is often used to illustrate the strangeness of human behavior rather than using the human behavior as a “straight man” to animalistic traits. I am a big fan of weirdness in my fiction, and while this sometimes gets a little too cute in its weirdness for my tastes, that’s a minor blemish on a collection I really enjoyed. It’s also surprising how well it works considering not much actually happens, plot-wise, in most of the stories, but Kawakami is the kind of author who can make small emotional shifts feel momentous. 

Kitchen God was the real standout for me; highly recommended!