Title- Strange Weather in Tokyo
Author- Hiromi Kawakami
Publisher- Granta
Format- Kindle Edition
Pages- 220
Rating- 1/5
Summary- One day Tsukiko Omachi has a chance encounter with her former Japanese teacher, Harutsuna Matsumoto at a bar, several years after passing out from school. Tsukiko is astonished when she realizes that unlike her, he can remember her name perfectly. She chooses to call him "Sensei" and from that day onwards they have several chance meetings from the streets to the bar which eventually leads to, her having feelings for him despite the vast age difference between them.
Review- This book is full of descriptions of food which is sure to make you hungry. It made me aware of various things which are part and parcel of a Japanese life.
Tsukiko, the protagonist and the narrator is a thirty seven year old single woman who neither has friends nor is close to her family. After meeting Sensei, they often eat and drink together though none of the meetings are pre-planned initially. She no longer feels lonely when he is with her and she starts developing feelings for him. Sensei on the other hand is a man whose wife had left him many years ago. He is always reserved and it is difficult to comprehend whether he feels anything for Tsukiko at all.
This book failed to grab my interest. To me the whole book is filled with Tsukiko and Sensei having chance encounters at the bar to have saké and food. The character Sensei seemed very strange to me and his dialogues were even stranger. I kept on holding on to the book for something better but to no avail. If there were some parts dedicated to Tsukiko's school days when Sensei was her teacher and also if there was scope to know more about him, may be it would have interested me. If the climax would have arrived a little earlier and the author would have given more inputs about the change in the life of the characters after the climax, may be I would have liked it. After going through good reviews , I was intrigued to read the book but I was highly disappointed. May be this book is not for me.
0 Comments