Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami Published by Counterpoint Press on November 1, 2017
Genres: Fiction, Literary, Women, Urban
Pages: 189
Format: Paperback
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Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize, Strange Weather in Tokyo is a story of loneliness and love that defies age.
Tsukiko, thirty-eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei," in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.
As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time's passing is marked by Kawakami's gentle hints at the changing seasons: from warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms. Strange Weather in Tokyo is a moving, funny, and immersive tale of modern Japan and old-fashioned romance.
Hello!
Well, this wasn’t really the way I wanted to come back to the blog in the new year, but here we are. I promise at some point there will be a full rundown of what’s been happening in my neck of the woods lately, which honestly during the pandemic hasn’t been much.
Let’s get back to the reason that we’re really here. I finished my first book of the year officially. It’s Hiromi Kawakami’s Strange weather in Tokyo. It’s a translated book which I think that though the book is well translated it loses a bit from Japanese to English. It’s a beautiful story of Tsukiko in her life during her 30s, where she experiences a relatively lonely life when she meets her old teacher “Sensei” at a bar one night and then after they soon begin a strange relationship of talking and relating to each other.
I found the book lovely in the way it related Tsukiko’s lonely life and the way she longed for conversations with Sensei throughout the story because he continued to challenge her way of thinking.
Let me know if you have read this book or plan to read this in the future. Also I have been getting an abnormal number of followers lately on Goodreads and though I am no longer officially People are still trying to follow me. If you would like to see my book updates before they go live here check me out on BookHype. I hope to see you all very soon with a more proper update and all the new things that might be coming here.
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