I struggle to find Basho or any talent of haiku in this dreary men's novel. There was the horrible war in which many men did horrible things to each other, in the name of many horrible ideas. Out of that experience of war came a man full of loathing for men and lust for women (well, he may have had that going in). That the latter is a sort of a hero in the former, despite what NPR might think, is to me more Hemingway than Tolstoy. He was a doctor in the army, a sort of pre-Cold War M.A.S.H. doc who ends up in command of his men in a Jap death camp, working for the good of the men, and dreaming of ... well, I won't spoil it. The crazy Japs do some crazy Jap things that are completely unbelievable for someone who knows Japanese culture. (Toast to Empire ... with tea? I don't think so.) For someone who has trained on Hemingway and/or McCarthy, it's an easy, familiar read.