Oh, I only started reading him after my retirement. But without exception, I was mesmerized by his style of romantic narrative like many of his much younger readers. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up Japanese in graduate school, so I am deprived of the privilege to read his writings in their original language. But I still keep one or two of his fictions published in Japanese on my bookshelf in the hope that one day I may read them. In regard to the Nobel prize, I don't think he will get it, though I wish he would, because the adjudicators in recent years tend to favour writers who dig deep into our suffering human predicament in modern times more than love stories which are by no means inferior.