"A Souvenir of Japan": Help!

I try to make a rule to approach each literary text with the hope that I will enjoy and respect it. I am having a hard time with this story. I think part of the problem is not just that the narrator has a tortured vision of her relationship and her surroundings, but that the narrator does not seem sufficiently separated from the author so that I can see how the author hopes I should feel about the narrator's world view? (Should that even matter, you ask?)
I suppose what I am dealing with here is the distinction I have tried to make with my son about reading: is this a bad text, or a text about bad things?

What do you think about "A Souvenir of Japan?" Is it about a woman with an unhealthy vision of intimacy and a culture not her own, or is it a story with a bad attitude? (Or am I putting forth an either-or fallacy?)