First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

Tucked away on a narrow side street in Tokyo is the Torunka Café, a neighborhood nook where the passersby are as likely to be local cats as tourists. Its regulars include Chinatsu Yukimura, a mysterious young woman who always leavese behind a napkin folded into the shape of a ballerina; Hiroyuki Numata, a middle-aged man who’s returned to the neighborhood searching for the happy life he once gave up; and Shizuku Tachibana, the café owner’s teenage daughter, who is still coming to terms with her sister’s death as she falls in love for the first time.

While Torunka Café serves up a perfect cup of coffee, it also provides these sundry souls with nourishment far more lasting. Satoshi Yagisawa brilliantly illuminates the periods in our lives when we feel lost – and how we find our way again.

It’s the end of the workweek—yay! I hope the week has been kind to everyone and that you’re all ending it on a high note. Just like that, we are nearly through with the eighth month of the year. August, interestingly, is also referred to as the Ghost Month, often considered an ominous period, when businesses experience slowdowns and travel is discouraged. Nevertheless, I hope you’re being showered with blessings and good news. How time flies! Time takes its natural course, with little regard for us. I hope the first eight months of the year have been promising. As the year progresses, I hope everyone is given plenty of opportunities to grow and improve. With the weekend finally here, I hope everyone has a great one. Thankfully, Monday is also a holiday here in the Philippines as we commemorate our National Heroes’ Day. That is one more day of rest for us. It is another long weekend!

It’s time to dress down and spend the long weekend resting from the rigors of a demanding career, pursuing your passions, completing household chores, spending time with loved ones, or simply relaxing. However, the start of the weekend has been damp here in the Philippines. It has been raining relentlessly. I sure hope my countrymen are safely in their homes, especially as the streets are starting to flood. It is going to be another damp weekend here in the Philippines. It has been this way since the start of August. The monsoon season has certainly been making its presence felt. Ironically, the southern part of the country has been experiencing extreme heat caused by the super El Niño. Regardless, wherever you are in the Philippines or in the world, I hope you’re all doing well—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Anyway, with the end of the work week comes a fresh First Impression Friday update. In July, I embarked on a literary adventure into a territory closer to home: Asian literature. This comes after I spent the first two months of the year reading the work of Latin American writers and the succeeding four months reading the works of European writers. Apart from being part of the region, I have often dedicated July, my birth month, to the works of Japanese writers, as Japanese literature is one of my favorite literary traditions. Speaking of Japanese literature, I am quite excited about the news of Haruki Murakami’s latest novel. I am eagerly awaiting its English translation, as it promises to offer a different dimension of Murakami’s prose. I also had several works of Asian literature on my reading list. It was therefore a foregone conclusion that I would extend this journey into August. With August drawing to a close, I am slowly wrapping up this memorable literary adventure.

I am going to conclude this literary journey in the same manner I commenced it: by reading a work of a Japanese writer. In July, I started this journey with Mieko Kawakami’s latest translated novel, Sisters in Yellow. I am now concluding it with Satoshi Yagisawa’s latest translated novel, Days at the Torunka Café. This is also my third novel by Yagisawa. Originally published in 2013 as 純喫茶トルンカ, Days at the Torunka Café is set in the Yanaka neighborhood of downtown Tokyo, where the titular Torunka Café is situated. The novel opens with Shūichi Okuyama, a twenty-one-year-old college student who works part-time at the Torunka. During a slow Sunday afternoon, he was working with the owner, Isao Tachibana, and Tachibana’s high school daughter, Shizuku. There were barely any customers. The only sounds filling the void were music and the ticking of the clock. 

Shizuku was also poking fun at Shūichi’s aimless college life. The solitude that embraced the room was broken by the arrival of a young woman in a black coat and a scarlet scarf. She ordered Colombian coffee, which Shūichi served. However, the moment their eyes met, she seized his hands and said, “We meet at last.” The young woman is Chinatsu Yukimura. She claimed that she and Shūichi knew each other, baffling the young college student. Chinatsu said that while they had never met each other in this life, they were lovers in a past one during the French Revolution. During their former life, she was a man named Etienne and Shūichi was a woman named Sylvie. This naturally baffled Shūichi, yet he listened intently to what she related. He was unsure what to make of what he was hearing. Meanwhile, Shizuku was delighted by the drama unfolding. Her father also listened with amused patience.

Beyond her unusual claim of a former life, everything else about Chinatsu seemed normal. On her return to the café, Chinatsu was more courteous, bringing sweets as a gift. Apparently, she lived nearby and found the café by chasing a cat. This unsettles Shūichi because it mirrors his own story of discovering the café. Chinatsu then became a regular visitor of the café, spending her Sunday afternoons there, quietly reading and occasionally engaging with Shizuku, who encourages her to share her story. Quite a lot has happened already even though I have just passed the fifty-page mark. Nevertheless, this story unfolding immediately reminded me of similar Japanese novels set in cafés and other innocuous places; Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Michiko Aoyama’s What You Are Looking For Is In the Library come to mind. They all explore the characters’ lives and their concerns.

Interestingly, even Yagisawa’s Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop offer the same aspect. They are about observed human behavior and the complex interactions that we have with those around us. In a way, these books instigate a simulacrum of introspection, mixed with curiosity and even confusion. The story of Chinatsu was also an incredulous one. But this shock factor reels the readers in, as it did with me. Apparently, their story is one of three in the novel; this storytelling format is apparently prevalent in Japanese literature. Regardless, I am looking forward to how the story/stories develop. I am still a little heartbroken from More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. I guess this is a nod to Yagisawa’s ability to command human emotions with his writing. This is going to be a quick read, but I want to relish it, especially with the rain outside.

How about you, fellow reader? What are you reading this weekend? I hope you’re enjoying your current book. Happy weekend!