Number 83- Tales from the Cafe- Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 Book two in this series translated from the Japanese by Geoffrey Chousselot is more of the same as the first volume.

In a strange little café in the back streets of Tokyo, you can travel back in time, with limitations. You have to wait for the ghost in the corner seat to go to the toilet. You take her seat and when the waitress pours your coffee you will travel back to the time you need to go to.  Once you're there, you cannot leave the seat, nothing you do in the past will change the future, and you can only stay until the coffee gets cold. If you fail to drink the coffee in the allotted time, an unspecified bad thing happens, which almost certainly involves death.

The regular cast from the first book are still running the café but we're now 7 years after book one and the young daughter of the now deceased owner (whose story is the last novella in book one) is now a regular.

We find out more about the ghost in this book and her link to one of the staff.  There seems to be a fairly strong continuity building now and I'm expecting to learn even more about her in book 3.

Slipping back into the world of Funicili Funicula (the café) feels like greeting an old friend you've not seen for ages- coincidentally something that happens in every story. There's a soothing feel to the writing and the whole thing moves at a nice relaxing pace.

I'm sure  how memorable these books will prove to be. The themes are quite repetitious and everyone who sits in the chair has the rules explained by the coffee pourer. This is never skipped in the narration so the same text appears almost word for word in each story.

That's a minor quibble though as these are excellent palate cleansers and well worth the read. There's nothing big or exciting going to happen. These are small scale human dramas. intimately told. It's feel good fiction tinged with some human tragedies at the heart of each story, yet each one ends on a hopeful beat.

If you want a soothing read, I can't think of anything I'd recommend before these. It's the literary equivalent of soaking in a hot bath after a long hard day at work.

Number 26 - Before the Coffee gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 

The first book in my "Cats on the cover" theme for this month is this.

In a café in Tokyo, it's possible to go back in time to whenever you like.  However, there are a lot of rules attached. you cannot leave your seat, nothing you do will affect the present, and you must drink your coffee before it gets cold.

This book tells four stories about regulars at the café and their trips back. One last chance to see a dead relative, to speak to their spouse before the onset of Alzheimer's disease or confront a lover who left them.

It's a gentle and thoughtful novel dealing with some of the eternal themes of life. The central conceit and method of time travel is  uniquely Japanese and probably wouldn't work in any other culture.

No explanation is ever given, which is a good thing. It works, that's all we need to know.

The translation is smooth a very easy, even soothing, read. This is as far away in tone from many of my typical reads as it's possible to get, but I still enjoyed this book immensely. 

The characters are drawn nicely. The links between the stories are cleverly placed.  There are no surprises in the story, but that's not an issue. This is a moving and emotional set of vignettes around an interesting theme. I recommend it without any reservation. An easy 8/10.