The Sea and Poison is the third book by Shūsaku Endo that I have read, and while it isn't quite as good as Silence and The Samurai — both written after this book — it is does at least explore themes beyond Endo's comfort zone. Religion takes a backseat in this one, and Endo chooses instead of write about the Japanese's role and atrocities in the Second World War, as well as personal liabilities and accountabilities for those acts.

Instead of setting the story on the battlefields, however, the story is set in a hospital, where doctors perform vivisections on American POWs. The protagonist is a doctor that was somehow involved in those horrific experiments, and it is about how he, along with his colleagues, chooses to deal with the murder of the POWs for the sake of the war.

The premise of the book may sound gruesome, but the book is actually surprisingly subtle. It is, after all, written by a Japanese writer. Or perhaps Endo just hadn't found it in himself to write about violence and torture — two areas that he wrote so well in Silence and The Samurai. The Sea and Poison takes a more muted, stoic approach to the work that the doctors performed secretly, as well as the subsequent toll it took on the individuals involved.

Honestly, if the book had been longer, I may not have been so kind. However, Endo's story here is short and to the point. A very economic telling of a haunting tale that resonates deep in the mind longer after the story is done.