Physics Book Reviews

Grave of The Fireflies within the western hemisphere is most well known for its poignant, haunting and heart rendering animated 1988 feature-film adaptation produced by Studio Ghibli. Seldom mentioned however, is the original short story, composed by Akiyuki Nosaka on which the film is based.  Set within the final act of the Second World War, Grave of the Fireflies follows a pair of siblings, an older brother Seita and his much younger sister Setsuko, as they traverse the events surrounding the bombing of Kobe and its immediate aftermath.  Effectively orphaned, the pair are then set adrift within a new chaotic and graphic landscape, whilst struggling to survive. At its core, Grave of the Fireflies is a tribute to the countless war orphans who perished during the conflict, who much like Seita and Setsuko, never found home again.  A deep sense of dissonance lingers for the duration of the story. Locations, which the pair were acquainted with ...

What is a marriage really? - A Quiet Place dissects this very question throughout its pages. Set in Post-War Japan, this piece traverses the inner workings of Japan's civil service through the eyes of a middle ranking civil servant Tsuneo Asai. Asai is what you could recognise by modern standards, as your archetypal Japanese salary man: hardworking, disciplined, highly respected, resourceful, loyal but intertwined with a tinge of rueful pride, great ambitions, and a distaste for the nepotism which is rife within his profession.  It is this pride which, for the entirety of this novel, forms perhaps the strongest of Asai's relationships.  This effective marriage to his job is then challenged, by the sudden and unexpected death of his junior second wife Eiko, whilst Asai is away on a work trip; an unwelcomed intrusion into Asai's work life. One aspect which is telling of the separation between each of Asai's worlds; his home and his work, is that he barely refers to h...