The narrator, recovering from a stroke that has left him with tunnel vision, looks back to his time in Japan and longs to recapture the euphoria he felt in discovering a new culture. Retracing those days, he introduces the key figures in his life. His rich wife, tired and unhappy in the suffocating heat; his research assistant, the quaint yet efficient Miss Morita; his inscrutable houseboy Hiro; and a host of other intriguing characters.