This book examines the haunting, sad, and lovely depths of the Japanese soul by interpreting some major themes in fairy tales. The author compares Japanese and Western tales, throwing into relief the formers idiosyncratic figures and themes. Since the book's recognition by a distinguished national literary prize, Dr. Kawai has become a familiar figure in Japanese television, radio, and the press. Even the night sky fades because of light pollution and insects drown in the traffic's roar. The wall between city and nature should come down so that we can re-find a natural beauty in cities and refound them upon another idea of urbanism.
Many men find it hard to move away from their fathers.
Richard Oliver's easy way out would have been to reject him, which at times he tried to do. Oliver's harder task, which he eventually acknowledged to be the right one, was to accept his famous father as a human being, who lived his life as well as he could. In some ways Melting the Stone is a journey around Richard Oliver's father, in others a search for mature masculinity, encompassing emotion as well as thought and deed. And at times these overlap, for the father is the son's first image of manhood. This in turn was the inspiration for him to set up a small men's group, and enter analysis.