Title: 『恋する寄生虫』 (こいするきせいちゅう) Author: Sugaru MIAKI (三秋縋) Published by メディアワークス文庫 309 pages
This novel has been adapted into manga by ホタテユウキ which is published by Kadokawa (角川コミックス・エース) and is divided into 3 volumes. A film adaptation is scheduled for 2021.
Quick rating: 😄 then 🤨 Sugaru Miaki really knows how to write gripping stories of love and hopelessness. If the book would have been just that, it would have been perfect to me, but it introduces medical/supernatural elements that I found overly complex and unconvincing.
Review
This is only the second book I read by Sugaru Miaki, but I can already say that he has a very distinctive style and tone. I really love the atmosphere of his novels, even though I find them a little too depressing for a relaxing read.
In the postface of 『いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ』, Miaki said that he likes writing about 落とし穴の中で幸せそうにしている物語, and I think that this applies to this novel as well.
I loved the first half of the novel. Our two protagonists have each their problems that prevent them from having even the most basic form of social life. The description of how they meet, get along with each other and try to overcome their difficulties was really good, and I could have read hundreds of pages of it. I really love how Miaki describes this kind of relationship, and even though this is not my usual read, I enjoyed the first half of the book very much.
However, I did not like the mechanism behind the story. If it were simply the story of two loners who try to help each other, I would have loved the novel until the end. But there is much more to it, with some supernatural elements, and unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. These elements include medical conditions and parasites, and while it gives an interesting and unique flavour to the love story, I also found that it was unnecessarily complex and unconvincing.
In the end, I think that I loved Miaki’s other novel, 『いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ』, because it contains topics like murder and vengeance, so while it was a love story, the novel also lined up with my personal taste in fiction. On the contrary, I am not a fan of SF or magical realism, so 『恋する寄生虫』 was much less engrossing to me.
To sum up, I think that 『恋する寄生虫』 is a great book, and it was simply not for me. I would have loved it if it was simpler and more realistic, because I do enjoy Miaki’s writing very much. All the parts on the parasites thing and how it affects our protagonists left me perplexed and I started losing interest for the story at some point.
Title: 『いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ』 Author: Sugaru MIAKI (三秋縋) Published by メディアワークス文庫 364 pages.
Sugaru Miaki is best known for the novel 『恋する寄生虫』 that has been adapted into a manga by ホタテユウキ and will get a film adaptation in 2021.
Review
22 year-old Mizuha kills a highschool student when drunk driving. However, his young victim has the power to put off distressful events, and Mizuha is ready to do anything to make up for the accident.
It took me a while to get into the novel, but once I did, I loved it more and more as the story unfolded.
I did not like the beginning of the novel because it had some similarities with Norwegian Wood, a book that I did not like despite its being such a famous novel. One thing that I was not a fan of in Norwegian Wood is that the protagonist is a rather dull and uninteresting character, yet all the women of the story feel attracted to him. Similarly, Mizuha is the kind of person who usually goes unnoticed but he still manages to draw the attention of his schoolmate and his beautiful neighbour. Some topics like correspondence or suicide were also similar to Murakami’s novel.
However, when the story kicks off after the car accident, the novel takes an unexpected turn of events. I thought it would mainly be a story about youth, love and depression (a little like Norwegian Wood), but the story suddenly turns into a thriller-like scenario with a revenge theme, mild gore scenes and some suspense.
The end was also surprising, changing tone again to come back to a more romantic line of story, but introducing some heavy topics like domestic violence and school bullying.
Overall, I find that this story was engrossing and entertaining, but at the same time, it also made me feel depressed at times. The end was not what I was expecting, and the book turned out not to be the relaxing read I thought it would be.
In the afterwords, the author writes: 『いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ』は、二度と抜け出せない穴に落ちた人の物語でした。しかし僕はそれを単に薄暗い話としてではなく、元気の出る話として書いたつもりでいます。とてもそうは見えないかもしれませんけれど、でも、そうなのです。(p.364) I agree that it does not look like it at all… At least, I did not have this impression and felt quite sad when I closed the book.
『いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ』 is a beautiful love story that deals with heavy topics and borrows from other genres like thriller and speculative fiction. It might not be a 薄暗い話 but it is not rose either. I do recommend it, but it might not be the best read if you feel depressed at the moment. Despite what the author says, I would not describe this novel as “元気の出る話”.
I will definitely try to get my hands on 『恋する寄生虫』!
Title: 『アンフィニシュトの書』 (The Unfinished Book) Author: Shinya ASASHIRO (浅白深也) Published by 電撃文庫
I could not find much information about this book or the author…
Review
I bought this book to get into light novels (this is the first Dengeki book I read), and I was very surprised by how entertaining it was. When I chose this book, I thought it would be some kind of love story, and I was delighted when I realised that it was in fact a very nice mystery.
This being said, the story is very predictable and the mystery extremely easy to crack (in my opinion). At around one third of the book I was able to predict how the story would unfold and what would happen. Apart from some details and minor twists that I had not foreseen, the story did not have much to offer that I hadn’t already guessed. It felt like reading a detective book for children at times.
However, this did not prevent me from enjoying the story. Even if I think that the book could have challenged the reader a little more, following the protagonist in his adventure was extremely enjoyable and the story engrossing. I liked the characters and the settings, I liked the mechanism behind the story and overall, had a very pleasant time reading this book.
If you want to read a light novel with an interesting plot mechanism and a whodunnit flavour, this book is perfect. If you want to read a murder mystery that challenges you to find the culprit, you will certainly find 『アンフィニシュトの書』 too easy. Finally, if you are looking for easy books, I found this one quite easy to read. There is a repetitive pattern too, which makes it easier and easier to read as you get used to the vocabulary, characters and places.
Overall, this book was perfect to me because it was a mix of things that I love in novels: crime, mystery and books. If the author decides to makes a series around this theme, I will definitely be there for the other titles!
Title: 『愛がなんだ』(あいがなんだ) Author: Mitsuyo KAKUTA (角田 光代) Published by 角川文庫 218 pages
Mitsuyo Kakuta has written an impressive amount of books, including novels, essays, translations and children’s books. She won the Naoki Prize in 2004 for her novel 『対岸の彼女』, translated into English by Wayne P. Lammers under the title Woman on the Other Shore.
『愛がなんだ』was first published in 2003 and adapted into a film in 2019 (director: Rikiya Imaizumi).
Review
Teruko is in love with Mamoru and always makes herself available for him, even if this means cancelling other activities with friends or absent herself from work.
I immediately loved Teruko and felt an immediate sympathy for her. Rather than identifying myself with the protagonist, I felt like a friend of her and really wanted to bump into the story and tell her to stop acting like she was!
I enjoyed the story and I found that the depiction of Teruko was very well done. However, I would have liked the novel better if it had gone into a more profound study of character to understand why Teruko feels and acts like she does. Obviously, the topic of the novel is to ask the question “what is love?”, but I personally don’t think that Teruko’s behaviour has anything to do with “love”, I think it is more something linked to what she is, what she experienced, her childhood, her relationship with her parents, and so on. As it is, I felt a little weary of Teruko’s behaviour in the end because the novel did not explained why she would like act like that.
But the novel remained a pleasant read until the end and at times triggered strong emotions in me (I really ended up hating Mamoru). I enjoyed reading it, but I also suspect that it might not be the best novel by this author. I will try to read the Naoki prize winner 『対岸の彼女』 one of these days.
I plan on watching the movie too, here is the trailer:
Title: 『いま、会いにゆきます』 Author: Takuji ICHIKAWA (市川拓司) Published by 小学館文庫 429 pages
This novel was first published in 2003 and soon became a bestseller. In 2004, the story was adapted into film by Japanese director Nobuhiro Doi (土井裕泰). In 2018, Korean director Lee Jang-hoon (이장훈) made a remake of the film, under the title 지금 만나러 갑니다 (in Japanese: Be With You – いま、会いにゆきます). This film, featuring stars like So Ji-sub (소지섭) and Son Ye-jin (손예진), has become a blockbuster in Korea and was released in Japan in 2019.
When the Korean movie came out, the idea of watching it did not even cross my mind, because it is not the kind of films that I enjoy watching. At the time, I did not know that it was an adaptation of a Japanese novel. Though I had already seen the cover of 『いま、会いにゆきます』several times in bookshops or on Amazon, I failed to make the connection until I saw a copy of the book with the obi advertising for the Korean movie.
Review
『いま、会いにゆきます』 has a beautiful story with interesting and likable characters, it deals with a heavy topic (the death of a mother and wife) but remains positive and at times even funny. Finally, it gives precious life lessons.
I only have positive things to say about the novel, but it was not quite the kind of books that I enjoy reading. I would never have read this book in English or in my mother tongue, it is simply not the kind of novels that I usually read.
This being said, I was engrossed in the story, and I read it very quickly. It took me less than a week to read and I even managed to read 200 pages on a single day (in Japanese, this is undoubtedly an achievement). There are a lot of dialogues in the book, and I found it easy to read in Japanese.
I liked the structure of the book, how past and present progress together, I liked the characters, their inner struggles and their unconventional love story, I liked the writing style of the author and how the dialogues made me feel very close to the characters.
I also liked how the author managed to talk about heavy topics with an overall positive attitude. The story is certainly not a lighthearted one, but, while it has some sad moments, I personally did not find it depressing at all. Towards the end, though, I started feeling a little bored. As a result, I may have lacked involvement, precisely at a time when the story was at its peak in terms of emotions. I also felt bored when reading dialogues including the six-year-old Yuji (I often find children’s conversation not to be that exciting in novels), but was grateful that they were so easy to read in Japanese.
Overall, I recommend this novel. Even I, who is not the best public for this kind of stories, read it until the end without thinking once to give it up, so if you like stories that include family bonds, children and first love romances, you will love it for sure.
Reading challenge update: one challenge completed!
Title: 『マチネの終わりに』 Author: Keiichiro Hirano 平野啓一郎 Published by 文春文庫
This novel is a best-seller in Japan and has been adapted into film in 2019. It tells the love story between Satoshi Makino and Yoko Komine.
Satoshi, 38 years old, is a talented guitarist of classical music. After one of his concerts, he meets the reporter Yoko Komine, 40 years old, who lives in Paris and will be soon dispatched to Baghdad. We follow the long-distance relationship of these international lovers.
This review is divided into:
Book review I (spoiler-free)
The audiobook
The music (yes, the books has its soundtrack!)
Book review II (spoilers)
Review
I could have loved this story very much, but I did not enjoy reading the book. There were too many things in the novel that bothered me, and while I could see that the story had a strong emotional potential, I just could not feel any sympathy for the characters nor care about them.
This being said, I very much want to watch the film, I don’t know if I will like it, but the trailer looks good and I love the music. I kept listening to the main track 『幸福の硬貨』 during the long one and a half month it took me to read the novel. To me, the music brings the emotional dimension that I was unable to feel while reading the book.
What I disliked the most in the whole novel is how elitist it is. This is true of the setting and the characters.
The setting
『マチネの終わりに』has a very ambitious setting.
The story takes place in Japan (several cities), Paris, Bagdad and New York. Unfortunately, I find that the Keiichiro Hirano did not succeed in building the atmosphere proper to each place. We knew a scene happened in Paris for example, because the author would give very precise locations like name of streets, public gardens or subway stations, but I found the descriptions insufficient to give each place its particularities.
Furthermore, I found that naming with such precision all these places in Paris sounded pretentious. It felt like the author was displaying his knowledge of the city but did not invite the reader to follow him by explaining what kind of place it is.
As a French reader who knows Paris well, it was easy to picture the places mentioned, but I doubt whether a Japanese reader who does not know Paris can have the same reading experience. Similarly, I was not able to feel that some scenes actually happen in New York, because I don’t know the city myself, and I didn’t feel like the book was bringing me there.
Instead of sharing, instead of allowing the reader to learn something and to experience living in a foreign country through the characters, the novel only shut out the reader who is not cultivated enough or who has not travelled enough.
The characters
This elitist way of telling the story finds echoe in our two main protagonists: Yoko Komine and Satoshi Makino.
I found that Satoshi was the character I could the most relate to, but I really had a hard time with the female protagonist Yoko. She is so well educated, so perfect and has so high standards that I kept rolling my eyes each time she said something. I have nothing against culture obviously, but I didn’t like how culture was constantly handled as something sacred. I found Yoko extremely snobbish, and I could not feel sympathy for her, let alone identify with her.
I would not be surprised if the privileged, highly cultured and refined world of the characters prevented many readers to be able to identify with them. Again, it did not feel like the author was sharing something with the reader. In the story, secondary characters (like Sanae or Richard) cannot share the profound intellectual and artistic awareness of our two protagonists. To me it felt like the reader was also treated the same way: either you belong to the same elitist world than Yoko and Satoshi, either you don’t, but the novel will not introduce you.
I also found that all the other characters were often neglected. They appear to serve the plot, but we never really know them, their motivations and sentiments. As a result, I found them uninteresting and was bored everytime we had to cope with one of them.
The plot
As I said, I find the story interesting, but unfortunately, I find the mechanisms of the plot very unconvincing. I just could not believe that things could happen as they were described. As a result, I was more frustrated than emotionally involved.
Finally, what bothered me the most is certainly that I could not feel involved or even interested in each character’s life. I expected each character’s personal life to be interesting and the love story to be exciting, but in 『マチネの終わりに』, I found the love story to be interesting only because the other parts describing each character’s personal life were boring. As a result, I was bored most of the time, and even when the plot did raise my interest, I remained sceptic and detached.
Conclusion
『マチネの終わりに』is a best-seller in Japan and has a lot of good reviews too, so it certainly has a lot of good things in it that I was unable to see, and the story must have found echo in many readers. Usually, when I don’t like a novel, I still can understand why other people do. With 『マチネの終わりに』, however, it remains a mystery. If you have read this book, I would be very interested in knowing your thoughts!
The only reason why I finished 『マチネの終わりに』is because I had bought the excellent but expensive audiobook. I listened and read at the same time in order to improve my listening.
I have never been disappointed by an audiobook I bought on audiobook.jp, but the audio version of 『マチネの終わりに』was really excellent.
The narrator and each character are voiced by different voice actors. The voice actors were all excellent, and I particularly enjoyed listening to Takayuki Masuda (増田 隆之) who plays Satoshi Makino. He really brings the character alive. I also liked the narrator Nozomu Sasaki (佐々木 望) very much, he made the audiobook very pleasant to listen to.
The only thing that I did not like that much is how Yoko always sounded so serious and delicate. But it does match the character very well so I think that it was intended.
The audiobook does not contain background noise or background music that would make it sound like listening to a film. However, it does contain tracks of classical guitar played by guitarist Shinichi Fukuda (福田進一). I really love this addition, but there are only three or so occurrences. It only happens when Satoshi himself plays guitar in the novel. I find that they could have added more tracks and more often, for example each time a piece of classical guitar is mentioned.
Finally, the pace of the audiobook is very slow. While it makes a perfect listening practice, it can also be frustrating to advance so slowly.
幸福の硬貨
The tracks used in the audiobook come from the CD 『マチネの終わりに and more』interpreted by Shinichi Fukuda (福田進一). There were two releases of the CD, the second one adding more tracks.
I find it so interesting that there should be a soundtrack for a book! The tracks on the CD follow the chapters of the book, so you can listen to the pieces that are mentioned in the novel. It is a nice addition to the reading experience, especially if you are not an expert in classical music and find all these names of classical pieces a little abstract.
Most of the pieces mentioned in the novel are real pieces of classical guitar. However, Keiichiro Hirano also created a fictional one: 『幸福の硬貨』. In the story, it is the main music theme of the fictional film 『幸福の硬貨』 directed by Yoko’s father. The name 『幸福の硬貨』 comes from one of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, to be precise, the fifth elegie of the Duineser Elegien, and I guess that is why many people translate it in German (Münzen des Glücks) rather than English (Coins of Happiness). It is an important element in the story and has a lot of meaning for both protagonists.
I hope that I am not mistaken, but what I understand is that composer Soyoka Hayashi (林そよか) composed a piece for 『幸福の硬貨』, which was released in the CD 『マチネの終わりに and more』, interpreted by guitarist Shinichi Fukuda (福田進一). This version of 『幸福の硬貨』 is the one used in the audiobook. You can also find covers of it on YouTube if you search for Soyoka Hayashi’s version.
For the film, however, a new version of 『幸福の硬貨』 has been created, this time by composer Yugo Kanno (菅野祐悟). This is certainly the most popular version of the two, having been featured in the film. It is interpreted by guitarist Masaharu Fukuyama (福山雅治) himself (who plays Satoshi Makino in the film).
I highly recommend that you listen to Yugo Kanno’s version of 幸福の硬貨 if you intend to read 『マチネの終わりに』, there are numerous covers on YouTube. It is a beautiful piece for guitar and easily conveys all the contradicting emotions both characters must have felt.
Spoilers – more about the characters and the plot
The characters
Yoko.
Clearly, the author wanted Yoko to be a global character, but I do think that he got carried away. Her mother is Japanese, her father has Croatian, Yugoslavian and Austrian origins, and her fiancé is American. She studied in England, Switzerland and the United States, she lives in Paris, works in Bagdad, and later moves to New York. She speaks Japanese, French and English perfectly, she also speaks German (she reads Rilke in German), she can read Latin (because she turned to studying Latin and Greek when she got frustrated with learning the kanji), she can also speak some other languages like Romanian, and to complete it all, she can quote the Bible by heart (rolling my eyes).
I mean, it’s great to have such a rich experience and to know so many languages, but what bothered me is that it just looks like Yoko is packed with all the cool things the author could think about. It does not feel real in the novel, it just feel extremely elitist and pretentious.
Similarly, the author placed Yoko in prestigious, upper-class residential areas. I don’t know New York enough to have a clear vision of what living in Chelsea represents, but I can tell you that not everyone can afford to live rue du Bac, in the 7th Arrondissement. It is not as simple as to say “my character will do what rich people of this country do”. Readers of this country might end up associating the character with a certain social class and moral values. I am sure that Japanese readers would not feel it this way, but as a French reader, I kept feeling that Yoko had something unpleasantly bourgeois in her.
There was also an episode that made Yoko unlikable to me. When she comes back from Baghdad, suffering from PTSD after having survived a bombing, she has a panic attack in the metro when she realises that a young man of Arab origin is watching her. The man is certainly French of Maghreb descent, and I really felt bad for him, not for Yoko. I understand very well that surviving a bomb attack is a traumatic experience, but I think that the author could have chosen another trigger for Yoko’s panic attack. As it is, it only supports the negative image I have of her.
Moreover, I find this whole PTSD thing unconvincing. It was all tell and not show. I knew she was suffering from post traumatic disorder because the narrator told us so, but I could not feel what Yoko must have felt, I could not experience, through her, what it means to witness and survive a bomb attack.
And finally, I just find Yoko boring. I had this impression right from the beginning, when they all eat together after Satoshi’s concert. The conversation was lively with people telling jokes, but Yoko would always try to come back to serious topics. She would also display at length all her capacities as if she was doing a job interview or something. (rolling my eyes)
The other characters.
I found that the other characters were neglected. Two characters only seem to be there to serve their part in the plot: Jalila (ジャリーラ) who is Iraqi and Seiichi Sobue (祖父江誠一). I particularly found that Jalila was completely in the background, faded so to speak. She could have been an interesting character, but we never truly get to know her. Granted, the story is about the love story between Yoko and Satoshi, but they only meet three times and the novel is 464 pages long, so there was ample space to develop other characters.
When Yoko, Satoshi and Jalila spend an evening together, Satoshi and Yoko start talking about Yoko’s father’s film 『幸福の硬貨』. The film is about the resistance against the Ustashe, a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organisation inspired by Nazi racial theory, who slaughtered Serbs and Jews during WWII. Satoshi asks where the title of the film comes from, and Yoko explains that it comes from German-language poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s fifth elegie from the Duineser Elegien. And then Yoko realises that Jalila does not know Rilke and cannot follow the conversation:
I guess that the author did not intend it to sound this way, but I found Yoko’s attitude condescending: Poor Jalila is not as well educated as we are, of course she does not know European poets, she has not studied in Columbia University and Oxford, so how could she be as intellectually and artistically aware as I am…
Later, it is said that Jalila has difficulties to understand the meaning of Rilke’s poem:
ジャリーラは、その難解な詩句の意味を理解しようと考えながら、少し戸惑っている様子だった。
It looks like well educated people like Yoko or Satoshi can understand Rilke without problems, and other people like Jalila cannot. This is ridiculous. Obviously, you cannot just take one of Rilke’s poems, read it, and pretend that you understand it all!
It feels like Jalila is only here to make Yoko look good by contrast. For example, Yoko and Satoshi can speak Japanese, French and English, but Jalila can only speak English. To me, however, it had the opposite result. Jalila is in a distressing situation: she had to flee her country because she was being threatened, she left her family behind, she is a refugee in a country whose language she does not speak. And what about Yoko? She is reading Rilke’s poems aloud, translating it on the spot in English and reading it in German too on Satoshi’s request… (rolling my eyes)
Another character that I found needed more attention is Sanae Mitani. Even though she plays a central role in the story, we only know very little about her past, her motivations, her feelings. As a result, when she finally plays her part, she only appears as a bad person, she is just the bad guy of the story. I would have liked to know more about her own sufferings to understand why she acted like she did. She does have more space in the novel towards the end, but it is after the events, and it comes a little late in my opinion.
The plot
The story borrows the topic of the forbidden love that will never be fulfilled. But for a love to be impossible, there has to be things that get in the way, like social conventions, social class, customs, parents, religion, and so on. None of these affect our characters. They are grown-ups, and they are not burdened by social conventions or pressing parents.
In order to make their love impossible, the author had to use some mechanisms, but to me the result felt scarcely credible.
First of all, there is Sanae Mitani’s fake email to Yoko. This is really an ugly thing to do, and I would have liked to feel that Sanae had to act this way, that her own sufferings made it impossible for her to resist the temptation. As it stands, I just could not buy it. Would a grown up woman really do such a nasty and stupid thing? Even a child would realise this action is bound to be discovered.
Sanae’s action was unconving to me, but what was even more unrealistic and improbable were the protagonists’ reactions to the email. It just does not make sense! They are in love, they think of marriage, they don’t see each other often but spend a lot of hours talking via Skype. Yoko flies to Tokyo to meet Satoshi and when she arrives she receive an email, supposedly by Satoshi, to tell her that their relation is over. And she accepts it?? Obviously, this is the time for a “we need to talk” scene. Anyone’s reaction would be to want to meet and discuss it in person. But Yoko? She shuts down her phone and later delete all messages from Satoshi without reading them.
Things must have been even weirder for Satoshi. They were supposed to spend several days together in Japan, and suddenly, Yoko says that she “cannot go on like this anymore”, does not answer his messages and becomes unreachable.
Later in the story, Yoko’s PTSD and the guilt of the survivor are called upon to explain her behaviour, but as mentioned earlier, I just could not believe in Yoko’s trauma. It didn’t feel like Yoko reacted like she did because she was suffering from PTSD, but rather that she was suffering from PTSD because the author needed something to explain her behaviour.
Another key element of the disastrous turn of events is Yoko and Satoshi’s utter respect for the other’s decision. This really drove me crazy. Those two protagonists are so perfect and so understanding that they are constantly thinking “I must respect the other’s decision”. The other just let them down suddenly and without apparent reason, and they are okay with that? Then why should I care about their love story if the characters don’t care about it themselves?
It looks like Yoko never gets cross, like she does not have emotions. When Richard, who insisted on marrying her, cheats on her and asks for a divorce, she does not get angry or depressed. She even prays for Richard and Helen’s happiness (rolling my eyes). When Sanae confesses to Yoko, Yoko similarly prays for Satoshi and Sanae’s safety and does not look angry at Sanae at all (rolling my eyes). I mean, if this state of mind was the result of a long internal conflict, with Yoko struggling to not hate Sanae, why not? But no, Yoko is so perfect that she does not need to make an effort to think this way.
To me, this whole “love story” was all about putting feelings and emotions aside and behaving like respectable grown-ups. It is not the story of lovers who will fight against social conventions to be together no matter what. It is the story of lovers who don’t even try to put up a fight when their relation is in danger, give up easily and end up in a conventional marriage, each one on his side.
As a result, this book is not a romance at all, even though it is sold as a 恋愛小説. I would even say that it is the opposite of a romance. When I first heard about this book, I thought that it was great to have a love story involving two characters around 40 years old, especially in Japan. There seems to be tons of romance for young people, but I think that love stories for adults are less common. In a society where you are expected to get married and have children, characters who fall in love at 40 is certainly refreshing and appealing for readers of that age. I thought that this point was one of the reasons why the book was such a best-seller.
But what happen in our story? Yes, they fall in love when Yoko is 40 and Satoshi is 38. But then? They separate and they both marry someone they do not love. Two years later, they both have a child. While Satoshi eventually learns to love his wife, Yoko’s fate is more tragic: her husband cheats on her, they get a divorce, and she only get to see her son three days a week.
You thought that you’d read a story that says it is never too late to fall in love, but you find yourself with a book that is telling you: it is not too late to fall in love, but if you do, it will only make you unhappy.
I also find it unnatural that both characters end up marrying and having a child just after their separation. None of them was really interested in marriage when they met. Yoko easily discarded her fiancé because she was attracted to Satoshi, and Satoshi was single at the time. But soon after their separation, they hurriedly marry and have children, as if it was a race or something. It sounds artificial: the author just wanted to make sure that they would not be able to go back to each other easily or at all.
Finally, I was expecting the last scene, at the end of the matinée, to be very emotional and I was bracing myself for some tears, but no. I could not feel anything, even though I was willing to break in tears with Yoko when Satoshi plays 『幸福の硬貨』. Maybe it comes from Satoshi’s “for you”, whose double meaning is explained in Japanese at that moment. I found it a little ridiculous to be honest.
This review ended up being very long 😅 I am glad that I read and listened to 『マチネの終わりに』until the end. Despite all the things that bothered me, reading this book, which was rather difficult, is a big achievement in my “reading in Japanese” journey!
Inside That Japanese Book 