Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa) was a short novel of 147 pages, telling the story of a young woman named Takako who was dealt a devastating blow by her boyfriend Hideaki. Without batting an eyelash and in the most casual and nonchalant manner he announces he is leaving her to marry another woman. Turns out Takako had been Hideaki’s bit on the side for a year. Her emotional life was not helped by the fact that she works in the same office as Hideaki and his fiancée. In a flash she lost not only her boyfriend but also her job, as she had to quit to save her sanity.
Takako’s mother, seeing the condition her daughter was in, intervenes by contacting Takako’s uncle Satoru, who runs the Morisaki Bookshop in the Jimbocho book district of Tokyo. Satoru offers his niece free accommodation if she could help him run the shop part-time.
Thus we are transported to the busy Tokyo streets where bookstores are packed together for blocks. I liked how Yagisawa got into Takako’s head by exposing her insecurities and her perceptions. I can imagine a real twenty-five-year-old having difficulty navigating the streets and feeling unsure if a new young man is interested in her or not. Satoru on the other hand is laid-back and a bit eccentric for Takako, but in time they develop a close bond. One part of his personality that Takako finds odd is his carefree acceptance of his wife Momoko leaving him five years ago. The second part of the book deals with Momoko’s sudden reappearance and her effect on her husband and Takako.
I liked the simile Yagisawa used to describe how Takako felt when she left to go to the bookshop for the first time, after living a hermitic existence, post breakup, at home:
“Above my head, the sun was glaring down at me like a teenage boy.”
Even though she was starting a new job in a new place, the fact that she likened the sun to a boy (like her ex, Hideaki) shows that he was still on her mind.
I am part of a couple where my partner has no interest in being inside a second-hand bookstore for more than a few minutes. I could appreciate, as well as laugh at, the remark made by Sabu, one of the Morisaki Bookshop’s most loyal customers:
“Going to a used bookshop as a couple is a preposterous idea.”
Sabu, when in the shop with his wife, has to ask or beg for a few minutes more. I say that to Mark all the time too.
Since most of the novel takes place in a bookstore, the names of many Japanese fiction authors come up as customers are in search of their works and as Takako herself learns about them and eventually enjoys reading them. I was pleased to find a brief translator’s note at the end of the book, wherein Ozawa mentions some of these authors and who among them have had their works translated into English.