Tattooed_Mummy reviewed Strange Weather In Tokyo by Kawakami Hiromi
gentle
5 stars
Very gentle story with poetic writing.
English language
Published Dec. 12, 2013 by Portobello Books.
Strange Weather in Tokyo
4 stars
(21 reviews)
Respect 🙇 and sake 🍶
4 stars
Found this book as looking for something that could introduce me to the Japanese culture, and knowing know what I didn't knew at the start I think it did a great job. I liked very much how the food and drink are described, the serving, the eating and it's texture. Showing the importance that food deserves. Though I read the book very slowly (4 months!) I enjoyed that pace and the pace of how the story os presented. I found the evolution of all the characters very interesting.
Jim Brown reviewed Strange Weather in Tokyo by Allison Markin Powell
melancholy love story
My favorite thing about Japanese literary fiction is the tone. Maybe it's wabi-sabi, or maybe it's something else. But this is a love story that involves longing, desire, sake, and tofu. It made me equal parts hungry, sad, and happy.
22 reviewed Strange Weather in Tokyo by Allison Markin Powell
Review of 'Strange Weather in Tokyo' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Superb—just what I, a big josei fan, needed after the incredible storytelling of the "ODDTAXI" anime. This is a delicately-told tale, as seen through the gauze of memory, curious with poky bits of humor in surprising places.
A couple of notes—I think original title, "Sensei no kaban", meaning "Sensei's briefcase", is much more lovely than the English's non sequitur.
Also something really funny about the opening. In English it goes, "His full name was … but I called him 'Sensei.' Not 'Mr.' or 'Sir,' just 'Sensei.'" I was curious what original text could result in this strange sentence, and I went to look on Bookwalker, and—if I may be so bold as to attempt a non-translation—it is, "… but I called him 'Sᴇɴsᴇɪ'. Not '先生', not 'Sensei', but all in small caps, 'Sᴇɴsᴇɪ'" (先生 is "sensei" in kanji, and the small caps are analogous to katakana, the "uppercase" Japanese syllabary; …
Superb—just what I, a big josei fan, needed after the incredible storytelling of the "ODDTAXI" anime. This is a delicately-told tale, as seen through the gauze of memory, curious with poky bits of humor in surprising places.
A couple of notes—I think original title, "Sensei no kaban", meaning "Sensei's briefcase", is much more lovely than the English's non sequitur.
Also something really funny about the opening. In English it goes, "His full name was … but I called him 'Sensei.' Not 'Mr.' or 'Sir,' just 'Sensei.'" I was curious what original text could result in this strange sentence, and I went to look on Bookwalker, and—if I may be so bold as to attempt a non-translation—it is, "… but I called him 'Sᴇɴsᴇɪ'. Not '先生', not 'Sensei', but all in small caps, 'Sᴇɴsᴇɪ'" (先生 is "sensei" in kanji, and the small caps are analogous to katakana, the "uppercase" Japanese syllabary; for the analogy to hold, the author would have typeset it as Sᴇɴsᴇɪ through the whole book). I laughed and laughed.
urn reviewed Strange Weather In Tokyo by Kawakami Hiromi
Review of 'Strange Weather In Tokyo' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
This was great. It made me cry. Yeah, it's a may/december romance between a 70-something and a thirty-something, but it's also just about loneliness, nostalgia, modernity, and being outside the flowing stream of society. The sex is one throwaway vague sentence, which suited me just fine. I'm here for the quiet vulnerability and the power of eating and drinking between humans. ¯
_(ツ)_/¯ can't explain why I liked it so much, but there it is.
This was great. It made me cry. Yeah, it's a may/december romance between a 70-something and a thirty-something, but it's also just about loneliness, nostalgia, modernity, and being outside the flowing stream of society. The sex is one throwaway vague sentence, which suited me just fine. I'm here for the quiet vulnerability and the power of eating and drinking between humans. ¯
\_(ツ)_/¯ can't explain why I liked it so much, but there it is.
\_(ツ)_/¯ can't explain why I liked it so much, but there it is.
Phiznlil reviewed Strange Weather in Tokyo by Allison Markin Powell
Review of 'Strange Weather in Tokyo' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
A lovely minimalistic writing style. A nice simple love story really with a few quirky details thrown in.
