All the Lovers in the Night

The second (and last sadly ;_;) book that I bought at the fair this year. This is probably my favourite Kawakami work.

The book centers around a 34 year old woman that works as a freelance proofreader and has to navigate around friendships and relationships for the first time in her life.

What do you gift a woman that has no interests, social life, or seems to lack any personality at all? You gift her one of the most common perfumes, one that is inoffensive and sells well. Like Chloé, for example. Take a stroll to fragrantica.com and you may find the same sentiment echoed with the very first con of the perfume being listed as "Some may find it too common or clean-smelling". That is exactly what the protagonist of this book received, from two separate women on two occasions not too far apart.

Fuyuko has spent her life existing, but nothing more. She has no interests and no inner life, she has no friends. Once she finally got the chance to make some friendships in her 30's, her social ineptitude jumps out in the form of extremely awkward dialogues full of her just repeating the last two words the other person said, or her nodding along, or her not knowing what to say and letting an awkward silence stop the flow of the conversation.

Frankly, in every shape and form, Fuyuko is what people today would call an NPC.

Through the book you get to observe Fuyuko as she slowly comes to terms with herself and I thought the journey was pretty entertaining. I've noticed Kawakami really likes characters that go into monologues, and while I thought it felt too anime-ish in Heaven, I think it has a place in this book. Fuyuko, after all, forces people to go into monologues and just yap about themselves.

I enjoyed all of the characters Fuyuko interacted with, as they offered different perspectives and alternatives to her. Hijiri, her assertive and brutally honest boss was especially great. I love how she went into a monologue on how all of her emotions and expressions are actually completely derivative and not that of herself. But then, at the end of the novel, she seems to be furious Fuyuko channeled her expression into herself, as she got drunk and wore her clothes and heels and got her hair and makeup done. Random hypocrisies like that are visible in almost all characters Fuyuko interacts with. Another amazing moment was when Fuyuko's old classmate catches up with her. She goes on to trauma dump on her about her miserable life she got into because she made the same choices everyone else did. But she sees nothing wrong with ending that with "but having kids was the best decision of my life. You should have children as well, Fuyuko", as if she sees no extreme irony in that statement. Great moment lmao.

A lot of people seem to find this book really boring. Saying it goes nowhere, or that the main character is extremely boring. I honestly don't think that books that focus solely on interpersonal drama and mundane daily life are boring so I got past that easily, but the main character being boring? Yeah, that's kind of the point here lmao. Personally, in fiction that has a clear plot and large story is where I can't stand wet rag characters that seem to have a million other people thirsting after them or wanting to be their friend despite their lack of personality. But Fuyuko isn't really cowardly at the point in her life we meet her in. She switched jobs, and for the first time in her life felt a bit invigorated. She was noticed due to the one thing she's been doing well for over a decade, which was her work. She saw her miserable reflection, and she did do something about it. That's the whole premise of the book! What, can people not handle character development anymore? We watch her struggle with alcoholism just to be able to speak her mind for the first time in her life, I wouldn't say that that's particularly weak willed lmfao.

Well, I don't know why I got so worked up over this. I don't find myself relating to Fuyuko at all, so it's not like I'm projecting or anything. This book just really sat well with me, and I think it provides a lot of good social commentary outside of the main plot.