This is really a novella rather than an novel and one that I found interesting. It tells the story of a fifteen year old Japanese girl called Kazuko who accidentally discovers that she can travel back and forth in time. She is desperate to work out who gave her this ability and believes it is the due to the mysterious person who was hovering in the science laboratory at school. Something had gone wrong and she had fainted at the same time. She knew she would have to travel back in time to work out who the person was.
It was an enchanting story and I was really enjoying it up until the last few pages,where unfortunately I found the story became difficult to believe. I know you are probably shaking your head at me and saying 'Its fiction, it isn't true anyway.' Well I know that, but majority of books you can lose yourself into the fantasy and believe every word of it and for most of this story, I fully believed that time travel was possible. However, the ending swayed a little into the too far fetched area for me and I found myself recalling an episode of Friends where Joey is desperately trying to be taken seriously as an actor in a play. The play looks like an intense and entertaining one until a ladder comes down from the sky to take him into space. You know the one I mean?
I can only hope that the ending got a little lost in translation as it seemed so disjointed to the rest of the story. I would have loved to have seen this story expanded allowing more character development and a more believable ending.
The book actually consists of two stories and out of the two I actually preferred 'The Stuff That Nightmares Are Made Of'' more. The main character of the story 'Masuko' is trying to discover the route to her fears and embarks on a journey to do so. I found it very enchanting and it had a lovely twist at the end of it.
Both of these stories were written in 1967 and I was pleased to discover that they still felt current and not at all dated. If you plan to read this book, I would possibly start with the second one before reading the first.
I would be interested in reading other works by this author as his stories must have seemed very fresh and original when they were written in the sixties, especially as they still stand out now.