[book post] Two short books

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

Both of these are slim books—the former is a novella, and the second, a very short novel. Both of them are told with sparse, careful, and at-times poetic language.

Yet the Vo book, while not bad, is the weaker of the two. In theory, this book is everything I want in a novel: unique worldbuilding, palace intrigue, and awkward threesome-y relationships, hell yeah. And that worldbuilding does work; it was delightful to read about the many varieties of fortune-telling that exist in this universe, and how they're used to pass secrets around, and I also enjoyed the sketches of the different countries.

But a novella is too short of a space to really explore palace intrigue the way the story clearly wants to. And the entire story is told within a "frame", which I think hinders its impact—all the real emotion is held at a steady remove, and all the events have happened some distant time ago; it sacrifices immediacy and intensity for a rather "eh" little bit of worldbuilding, which ultimately made the story feel too flat and fairy-tale-esque for my tastes.

Compare this to the Kawakami novel, which is absolutely transcendent.

At its heart, Strange Weather in Tokyo is a May/December romance, albeit with very literary sensibilities. A thirtysomething woman runs into one of her old high school teachers at the local bar, and they become acquaintances, then friends, and then something more. There's not much more to the story than that. It's told in a series of vignettes, and throughout, it's mostly a quiet little tale.

But oh, how well it's told. While Kawakami's style is, superficially, similar to the sort of precise, sparse language you see in a Stereotypical Iowa MFA Graduate's writing—in Kawakami's hands, that language feels rich and full of meaning, whereas the typical Iowa piece leaves me feeling cold. There's also a whole foodie subtheme going on in the story—every appetizer they order at the bar is described with relish—and, even though I hate foodie bullshit ordinarily—here, I loved it. It's just suffused with a strange, underlying joy that made it a delight to read.

And the portraits we get of Tsukiko and Sensei hit so many achingly precise emotional notes. Tsukiko visits home over the holidays and doesn't really know how to talk to her mother anymore. Another time, she gets frustrated over something stupid and starts crying at a bus stop, hoping no one will notice, because she's thirtysomething, goddamnit, and not a kid. She gets in a stupid fight with Sensei over a sports game and then they can't figure out how to get over it even though it's totally stupid. And there's little moments like so:

I stayed in my apartment until evening, passing the time leisurely reading a book. At one point I felt sleepy again and napped for about half an hour. When I awoke, I opened the curtains to see that it was completely dark out. It was early February, and according to the lunar calendar the first day of spring had passed, but the days were still short. I find something quite carefree about the days around the winter solstice, when the daylight is so brief it seems like it's chasing you. Knowing that it will soon be dark anyway, I'm able to steel myself against that inevitable sense of regret brought on by the evening twilight. This time of year, rather, with its prolonged nightfall—it's not dark yet, soon but not quite dark yet—seemed to play tricks on me. The moment after I realized it was dark, I would feel a surge of loneliness.

Ahhh.

Much like Disco Elysium, near the story's end, there's the barest touch of magical realism, which worked so well I was still glowing when I put the novel down.

I very much recommend Strange Weather in Tokyo.