I'm convinced antique and second-hand stores occupy a different place in time-space than the surrounding world. They exist in both the present and the past, and they all seem connected to one another. They nearly always share precariously stacked treasures, faded record jackets, creaking wooden floors, kindly yet eccentric old men behind the counters.
The Nakano Thrift Shop of author Hiromi Kawakami's making is no different. Hitomi works at Mr. Nakano's thrift shop in Tokyo, where she mans the register. Takeo, the taciturn man her age helps Mr. Nakano with deliveries, and Masayo, Mr. Nakano's older sister and an artist, sometimes drops in to help out. Mr. Nakano himself is an older man still imbued with vitality. He runs the shop, has a beautiful mistress, and often sends Hitomi and Takeo out on errands he doesn't want to do himself.
As time moves slowly through the shop, Hitomi finds herself drawn to Takeo, and the two begin a sort-of relationship that's abruptly cut short, due to their inability to communicate properly with each other. Mr. Nakano's relationship with his mistress Sakiko threatens to fall apart, and Masayo's new boyfriend Maruyama suddenly disappears.
Throughout these trials, the four (Mr. Nakano, Hitomi, Takeo, and Masayo) share small moments in the shop, speculating about customers and each other, eating udon in the back room, and taking their turns laughing and offering advice.
This is a quiet novel (and no, that isn't code for boring) with full characters that looks at relationships, both between friends and lovers, with whimsical grace and intelligence.
This story isn't driven by plot, rather it wends its way contentedly between time and characters. The novel is broken into chapters that revolve around a single object, such as an envelope, a gin bottle, and a letter opener. Each chapter focuses on that object and the relationship the characters come to have with it, until the object is almost inextricable from the lives around it.
Despite this close-up on the objects and the lives of the characters, Masayo offers a bit of advice that ends up being one of the main components of the story. She says to Hitomi, "When you get old and far-sighted, you can't look your sweetheart in the eye from close up. You need a little distance, so that you can focus on each other. So that your faces don't look blurry."
Distance appears in all of the relationships between the characters, but like Masayo said, though it is sometimes sad, the distance is necessary for clarity and understanding.
I much preferred The Nakano Thrift Shop to Kawakami's more popular Strange Weather in Tokyo (see the full review in a separate blog post). This novel still held love and romantic relationships as a central point, but I would not call it a love story, whereas I would classify Strange Weather in Tokyo as one.
Instead, this novel focuses more on the mundane moments between people and how relationships are built from those small, everyday shared moments, much like how small, everyday objects sold at The Nakano Thrift Shop have rich stories behind them.
I love novels that exult the everyday, and Kawakami's clever narrative structure, original, endearing characters, and moments of rumination and laughter make for a first-class combination.
8/10📕