All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

 

All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami has been translated from the Japanese. Fuyuko is a proof reader who, in order to do her job perfectly, cannot become immersed in the subject of any manuscript she is reading. She, therefore, never actually reads books or becomes aware of happenings outside her working life, so absorbed is she in her work.

Fuyuko’s workmates eventually give up on trying to include her in their after work socialising activities and she spends all of her time away from work in her tiny flat where in her self-absorption she has no interest in reading or listening to music but she finds comfort in drinking beer and, it seems, an extraordinary amount of saki!

Throughout the course of the novel a former co-worker works hard at building a friendship with Fuyuko, and Fuyuko herself ventures forth and eventually establishes a kind of a relationship with a man who says he is a physics teacher and she asks him to talk to her about light, a subject she finds mysterious and full of wonder.

Every page of the book is filled with the minutiae of Fuyuko’s daily thoughts. She lives inside her own mind and finds it difficult to venture out and respond to what is happening around her. It’s an extraordinary book, unlike anything I’ve ever read.

Is it okay if my favourite part is how (but not why) soil soup is made?

Published by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan