Of all the chapters in this book I liked the last one most. It was different because the main character didn’t have a goal to achieve, he was just in search of something to fill his spare time. In the end he discovered several fields of interests: the game of go (which I supposed he had abandoned after his first lesson), poetry (to the point of creating spontaneously a poem of his own), cooking - and in general: interacting with other people.
That’s a difficult question to answer, but I agree this last story resonated, especially Ebigawa’s approach to life:「ただ、心が動いたら、それだけでトライする理由になると思う」
What I also liked about this last week’s reading was how a little comment uttered in passing, or just the example you set by following your heart impacts the people surrounding you. In the case of Masao, he is fortunate enough to be told about the positive impact he had long ago on his daughter (talking about the “crab” view of life) and his wife (talking about the long drive they took after she was laid off). However, it is more likely that we will be unaware that our words or acts have positively affected those around us…
And unrelated, but in the Paperback Writer/ペーパードライバー realm of thoughts, when I read the exchange between Masao and Komachi about why she chose a crab付録 and many “crab” coincidences Masao encountered, it reminded me of this scene from the film Repo Man:
Miller: A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example to show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in looking for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconciousness.
Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?
Thankyou to @2000kanji for all the work hosting this book! My first paper book
This concludes the first session of a book club run by me. I hope that you enjoyed the book as much as I did. I see that many members are still reacting to the readings of previous weeks, so it may take some weeks until all of our co-readers arrive here.
The 5 chapters followed the same structure (a main character has some dream or problem, happens to come to the small library, gets some related books and one surprise book plus a little felt object - and after one or more ‘aha moments’ they see a way to achieve their goal). As each chapter has its own narrator we get 5 different descriptions of Ms Komachi and Ms Nozomi, and little by little we learn more about them.
Thank you @2000kanji for running this book club, what a great job you have done. It has been a pleasure to be in your care!
What a great chapter to finish with, and nice to have echoes of all the previous stories coming together.
Of course we had a happy ending Nice for our main character to find some new meaning to life and enjoyment in his retirement. I also really enjoyed his reconnection with his daughter and wife.
What an enjoyable story this has been. Young, old, male, female. In times when they are feeling lost, confused, disillusioned. Each being inspired by an encounter with a wise stranger, and through the power of books. We even got inspired to read more poetry!
For me I really enjoyed the third story. I was really touched by the impact of motherhood on that characters career, and the joy she found in moving to a new job that not just respected her motherhood, but embraced and cherished it.
We had a nice heartwarming ending to the story and the book. (I don’t really think this could be a spoiler, since this was definitely the pattern of the book, and more generally of the genre)
I was a little worried earlier in the chapter that 正雄 was going to end up falling into 熟年離婚, (at least in the start of the chapter, he didn’t really have any redeeming features, so it wouldn’t have been a surprise if 依子 left him.
I didn’t predict the subject of the conversation with 千恵, did other people? I thought that he was going to ask his daughter for advice on seeking work as a janitor/maintenance man like 海老川
As for a favourite chapter, I started late so raced through the first three stories (and might have missed some of the subtleties). I think one of the nice things about the book (with its collection of personal 生き甲斐 crises）is that different ones are likely to resonate with the reader depending on where they are in their own life. I’m not quite at 正雄さん’s age and stage of life (though technically I might be closer in age to him than the other characters). I really enjoyed Chapter 4 with its story of the rescuing of a ニート （I have fingers crossed that something similar will happen to the ニート in my own family).
Nope. When I read that section I initially assumed it was one of those setups you sometimes get in novels, where A sets up a meeting with B to bring up some important topic, but before they get to that B brings in some random diversion, they have a conversation, A realises that actually that was the answer they needed, and then the scene ends with B saying “what did you want to talk about, anyway?” not realising that it’s already happened accidentally. So I thought it was going to be Masao wanting to talk to his daughter about their relationship and how he had done as a father…
@2000kanji Thank you for running the book club! Thank you for all the references you prepared for us.
It wasn’t the topic of the chapter, but I’m glad Masao didn’t abandoned go after one class! And overall, the chapter is full of hope.
I probably like the second story the best. I think that every story was relatable to me in one way or another, and touched me, so it is really hard to choose.
No, I thought it was maybe about some piece of advice on how not to lose Yoriko or something. It is a strange thing to ask you daughter, but I felt like he worried about it a lot.
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Nice for our main character to find some new meaning to life and enjoyment in his retirement. I also really enjoyed his reconnection with his daughter and wife.