I'm sorry, I tried! Borrowed after a friend who never reads recommended it, but.... >_> 
 I know that the Japanese are taciturn and really like unspoken subtext. I enjoy manly stoicism. However, I cannot understand a "friendship" that consists of one young high-school/college-aged kid foisting himself into the company of a much older, reclusive man who doesn't care about the kid but couldn't even muster the enegery to tell him off. 
 But that's not the bad part. From that summary alone, an author can create all kinds of interesting situations. 
 Arguably, the old guy enjoys the kid's company because he tolerates the visits and walks. But THEY NEVER TALK. They NEVER SAY ANYTHING OF CONSEQUENCE TO EACH OTHER. Gawd, they don't even say enough to get to know each other. It is full of the awkwardness of two strangers with no curiosity. 
 They might take a walk for several hours and say maybe 3 sentences the entire time about the nice weather. The kid will ponder, "I wonder what's going on in his head?" or maybe "A strange expression just passed across his face. Why?" and then shut his mouth. 
 The kid will sit in the guy's house and drink tea, and make really boring, inconsequential chitchat with the guy's wife. If you've seen traditional Japanese wives in action, you know the conversations will be allll politeness and leave you absolutely no openings to hinge a conversation on. 
 Life goes on for the kid, and their friendship continues plodding on with no point! There may have been some secret angst involving a gravesite (or am I mixing it up?), but predictably, the old guy didn't want to talk about it, the young kid was too chicken/polite to ask, and the wife knows diddly-squat. 
 So in summary: 
 GENRE: plotless Liiiiterature about life 
 WRITING STYLE: Japanese-translated, so a bit stiff and quite distant. 
 VERDICT: BORING