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Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Book Group - Oct 2023 discussion thread

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McGoohan
McGoohan
Oct 2023
1:12pm, 12 Oct 2023
53,202 posts
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McGoohan
To clarify the point for GordonG, yes you certainly can have characters behaving that way in fiction. My problem with this book is that it's formed of four connected moral dilemmas and each one comes to a sort-of satisfactory conclusion. It's the conclusion I have the problem with.

The whole dementia storyline concerns a husband and wife. She is, conveniently, a nurse. He is barely literate so the whole thing hinges on a surprise letter he wrote at the start of his symptoms and never delivered. The time-travelling Maguffin part of the plot lets the wife go back to confront him and ultimately find out what the letter contained.

Aware of his dementia he has written that she shouldn't stay with him just because she's a nurse, but should live her own life once he's forgotten her.

In the end, she decides to stay and it is presented as a happy(ish)/right ending, that she has done The Right Thing. It's in a sort of post-script when we see them together again and what I feel is the author/translator showing how loving the wife is by 'not giving up on the husband'. She insists on making him remember her because on occasional days it works. On the days it doesn't, she just berates him in what the author thinks is a loving way.
GordonG
GordonG
Oct 2023
1:29pm, 12 Oct 2023
10,070 posts
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GordonG
Thanks McGoohan for taking the time to explain.
DrPhleecingD
DrPhleecingD
Oct 2023
1:31pm, 12 Oct 2023
54,828 posts
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DrPhleecingD
A book group book I've read!
Didn't like it. Dreary. Odd (not in a good way). I don't even think I bothered finishing it. Meh. I actually hate portmanteau books and films, and this reiterates why. Too many characters to keep track of and to try to care about. I didn't care about any of them. Roughly as interesting as watching actual coffee go cold.
Diogenes
Diogenes
Oct 2023
1:47pm, 12 Oct 2023
81,922 posts
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Diogenes
Anyway, trying not to to read McG's post above, I was just off to read a few pages of this while I take a break from work. I'm on page 63 so far and not feeling any great compulsion to contunue.
LindsD
LindsD
Oct 2023
3:20pm, 12 Oct 2023
64,440 posts
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LindsD
Save yourself the bother :)
Diogenes
Diogenes
Oct 2023
3:26pm, 12 Oct 2023
81,925 posts
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Diogenes
I was wondering whether (given his name) Trousselot was a native English speaker, so I Googled him and discovered he is from Hobart, Tasmania, so the question remains up for debate.
LindsD
LindsD
Oct 2023
3:27pm, 12 Oct 2023
64,444 posts
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LindsD
:) it would be Very Bad Form if he wasn't.
LindsD
LindsD
Oct 2023
3:28pm, 12 Oct 2023
64,445 posts
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LindsD
[I once had a student called Paddy McMurphy* who was German]

[He wasn't, but he might as well have been]
Columba
Columba
Oct 2023
10:25pm, 17 Oct 2023
22,331 posts
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Columba
Finished the book a couple of days ago. A pleasant little book, heart-warming, feel-good...

That being said, I never really connected with it. I don't know if it's because of the cultural difference, or if something inevitably gets "lost in translation" or what. The other Japanese books we've read affected me the same way.

Not sure about the "it doesn't change the present" rule. It does change the present, in that it changes people's attitudes and feelings.

Now to read back.
Columba
Columba
Oct 2023
10:41pm, 17 Oct 2023
22,332 posts
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Columba
Yes, Linds, write a blog. It will be interesting. But tell us you've written it, because weeks go by without my thinking to look at the blogs.

I suppose Hobart, Tasmania is at least in the same segment of the planet (if you segment it vertically, along the lines of longitude) as Japan, so maybe the translator is that much nearer than if he were European.

About This Thread

Maintained by McGoohan
Our Oct 2023 book kicks off Season Seven of the Fetch Book Group. It's written by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot.
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