A review: All the lovers in the night, Mieko Kawakami
How I review books:
Top notes - a first impression. A practical summary of everything you need to know including a completely biased view on how much I liked the cover.
Middle notes - the foundation. Readability / structure and characters.
Base notes - the impression. Interpretation and everything else.
Top notes:
13 chapters, 221 pages, read in 1 day.
Author Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Originally published in Japan as; Subete mayonaka no koibito tachi すべて真夜中の恋人たち. My paperback version was published in 2023 by Picador, purchased in Waterstones.
The cover captures the essence of the story - beautiful melancholy.
Middle notes:
You feel your way through this book, that is the only way I can describe your journey as a reader. You can not escape the themes weaved throughout – predominantly; light, blue, memories, mistakes, societal expectations of women and choices.
“So no light lasts forever?
Right.
It all disappears?”
Main character – Fuoyoko a copywriter in her 30s who lives alone. There are several characters introduced to us via various relationships with Fuyoko. These relationships remind us that you can live by societies’ expectations of you or not – it doesn’t mean you will be happy or unhappy.
Base notes:
I saw pieces of myself in this book, for better or for worse.
The lasting feeling I had when I put this book down was the fear of being unknown and yet the fear of being known. Sometimes we can create a false sense of safety for ourselves by keeping our world small – whether that means; being alone, focusing on work or not making decisions for ourselves.
In this story the feeling of loneliness comes and Fuyoko perceives herself for the first time in a long time and all of a sudden wants to exist beyond the small world she has built for herself.
“I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I chose nothing. I did nothing. ”
The journey of opening up to others or making choices for ourselves in order to move forward can be a painful and frightening process. What this book shows you is life in its most boring detail, reflection of self and of others and the relationships in our life that are there even if we try to avoid them. The primary relationship we can never escape and the most important one … the one we have with ourselves.
“I’m all alone, I thought.
I’d been on my own for ages, and I was convinced that there was no way I could be any more alone, but now I’d finally realised how alone I truly was.”
Written poetically through the language of light and through a series of narratives.
This book was special.
Ms ASK