Strange Weather in Tokyo - Oct 2021 Book Group discussion thread

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Serendippily
Serendippily
Nov 2021
7:46pm, 10 Nov 2021
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Serendippily
Can you be groomed at 50? I guess you can (brushes hair hastily). The enabling alcohol thing definitely, but I thought she just found he’d got under her skin, whereas most potential suitors she’s found presumptive and restrictive
Little Nemo
Little Nemo
Nov 2021
7:57pm, 10 Nov 2021
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Little Nemo
Maybe grooming is the wrong term but it felt like an unequal teacher-pupil relationship even though they were many years away from the school setting.
GregP
GregP
Nov 2021
8:48pm, 10 Nov 2021
130,433 posts
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GregP
Yes, absolutely you can.

Liked LitNem's 'at a distance' comment. Yes, nicely put.
Peregrinator
Peregrinator
Nov 2021
9:14am, 13 Nov 2021
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Peregrinator
Strange Weather in Tokyo

One of the interesting parts of following a book club is randomness of successive selections. So we move from The Golden Notebook to Strange Weather in Tokyo. I was struck by the difference between these two books: somehow the process of accessing these two needed different words, not just the one of Reading. TGN feels a very architectural book, with layers and elements that the writer intends us to consider how they relate to each other. SWIT is more like a tunnel, although there are orientations relating to youth, age, time and the seasons. I worried about not understanding the structure of TGN, but here skimmed over bits, like the dream sequences, that I didn't understand in SWIT. Another big difference is that TGN was adopted as feminist text. I don't think there is much likelihood of that with SWIT.

What gets in the way of seeing SWIT as love liberating two people through an unexpected relationship is that the terms of the relationship feel disturbingly controlled by the teacher. But maybe it is the sensitivity about controlling relationships that has developed recently, which makes us more likely to see the teacher as scheming and dominating. Maybe to a Japanese reader, Tsukiko's isolation was the result of a controlling society, a rigidity that also confines the Teacher, and the relationship is a thawing from frozen for both. Or maybe the form and development of the relationship is what each seeks, at some level. At the end, after the Teacher's death, their relationship doesn't seem to have liberated Tsukiko to give a "happy" ending. The extent of his power to control even then, or her choice to love someone in her way, even when they are not there? Elsewhere Tsukiko is shown as capable of stopping advances from men that she doesn't want, so I think we have to give her agency here.

I enjoyed the feeling of reading something that was from a different way of life, with other cultural references, and also trying to reduce the story to a Haiku.
Serendippily
Serendippily
Nov 2021
9:25am, 13 Nov 2021
24,104 posts
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Serendippily
Loved that review. I think there is a tension of him being the teacher, which makes it an extra worry where she coincidentally runs into him outside the flat etc. I’ll be in the minority but I think that adds to the book because I think relationships are quite mucky things and it isn’t so easy to know what’s good for you. Was she better talking to no one? Did he stop her forming better relationships? Was she too damaged to make the right choices? Was she less or more damaged after? Like all that
LindsD
LindsD
Nov 2021
12:08pm, 13 Nov 2021
50,797 posts
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LindsD
Also like your review as always. I didn't really get the impression that Sensei particularly had a plan either or was particularly happy. He was definitely controlling though.
Peregrinator
Peregrinator
Nov 2021
4:30pm, 13 Nov 2021
975 posts
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Peregrinator
A review so good it was posted twice 🤣

LindsD - Like you, the underlying queasiness made it an uneasy read, and not the celebration of strange attraction over loneliness that many of the reviews suggest. I kept thinking "You really need to get out more". Uncertainties and asymmetries in power and control are aspects of many relationships (as I think Dipps suggests), but a dividing line is if coercion is involved.

It did feel like a window on another culture, without being a book written, or translated, too much for foreigners. So pouring drinks is a big thing in Japan: pouring your own drink when socialising is viewed as rude, or worse that you an alcoholic. And it would be expected that Tsukiko would pour drinks for the Teacher, being female and younger. How you interpret that, has a cultural element. Certainly, some form of control by the Teacher, but of Tsukiko, himself, his life, their relationship? The seasonal events, especially the cherry blossom parties, are also big - the Japanese Met. Office has to forecast when it will occur across the islands, and its linked to being young adults. So maybe the interest was in trying to understand how this artefact connected to another culture, as Columba comments, and also Hanneke's review about the themes.

LindsD GregP and McGohan's points about translators and the written style 😊.

Strange is the word - and not just the weather in Tokyo.
Serendippily
Serendippily
Nov 2021
4:53pm, 13 Nov 2021
24,106 posts
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Serendippily
Oh yes I think it would be a different book if they weren’t often drunk, a different book if he’d made the first move, a different book if she wasn’t 50 and a different book if he wasn’t her former teacher. So the queasiness was part of what made it interesting for me
McGoohan
McGoohan
Aug 2022
9:11am, 18 Aug 2022
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McGoohan
bbc.co.uk
GregP
GregP
Aug 2022
9:36am, 18 Aug 2022
138,373 posts
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GregP
Shame it's not a recommendation to collect batteries.

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About This Thread

Maintained by McGoohan
Hiromi Kawakami's short novel Strange Weather in Tokyo is our October 2021 choice. It's translated by Allison Markin Powell. Weather forecasts by Darren Bett with occasional scattered showers. Traffic is moving freely around the outskirts but there are long tailbacks at Shinagawa City from an earlier broken down vehicle.

Now, back to the studio.

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