To appreciate [Lieutenant Lookeast] fully it is necessary to have some knowledge of the background of Japanese modes of life and thought. Moreover, several of these pieces are not so much short stories in the accepted sense as character or descriptive sketches, evoking people, an atmosphere and a place. Looked at in this light, however, they have a brilliance and humour which is frequently memorable.

The title story, written in 1950, describes the peculiar behaviour in a postwar Japanese village of a former lieutenant of the Imperial Japanese Army and tells of the ironic circumstances in which he lost his sanity in Malaya during the Second World War. The writing is satirical, at times biting, yet understanding of human foibles. It is also an outstanding piece of characterization which underlines the fact, sometimes forgotten these days, that a large proportion of the junior officers in the old Imperial Army...