Despite it being officially Autumn on the East Coast, it's already quite cold, with blustery winds that funnel down the back of my neck whenever I leave my house. So, today, I didn't leave, and instead spent the deceptively blue-skied, sunny day curled up on my couch with Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami (translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell).
We begin in a bar where single, 38-year-old Tsukiko orders the same thing as a strange, but familiar older man sitting at the bar next to her. He recognizes her, and a tinkling of recognition prompts Tsukiko to remember him as her Japanese teacher from high school. It takes her a while to remember his name though (Harutsuna Matsumoto), and so she just calls him "Sensei."
Because they frequent the same bar, a companionship soon develops. They never plan to meet, but if they run into each other, they share a meal and sake, split the bill, and head their separate ways. Such small moments - walking through a market, sharing a drink, picking mushrooms, visiting a coastal island together - are seemingly random, but display the growing friendship, and then romance, that sprouts between them.
Their relationship is full of stops and starts - the two are quite awkward together, and the age difference looms over their heads, but when brief arguments or misunderstandings separate them, they find themselves missing each other. Both live alone, and while content by themselves, they begin to understand and love the other's company.
The story is told in a series of chronological vignettes and not a continuous story line, as in most novels. With a soft longing and nostalgia in the background, and bits of humor sprinkled throughout, Strange Weather in Tokyo is a quiet novel about slow love in a fast-paced, modern world.
This was a nice novel - a quick, enjoyable read. Despite this (or maybe because of this?), it wasn't particularly resonant. Maybe I felt myself drawn out of it because "Sensei" wasn't the type of person I could imagine falling in love with myself, or maybe there just wasn't enough content at the end, which, though expected, came utterly too soon.
6/10 📕