Review of All The Lovers In The Night by Mieko Kawakami

A slowly paced romance. 

The sheepish first-person narrator lives a solitary, repetitive existence, two-steps away from becoming a hikikomori. Her relationships are explored in several unremarkable scenes containing a lot of small talk and quaint dialogue. The author has a tendency to conduct most scenes at restaurants, with two characters having a dialogue, which ranges from trite to humorous. Most creative writing workshops will tell you not to do this in a novel. Kawakami doesn’t care about clichés, apparently, and remains popular despite the odd prevalence of awkward and clunky characters having mundane conversations in her work. There is a palpable intimacy to the internal monologues. Every so often she includes something unexpected, as in this book’s questionable sex scene. The main character’s flaw could be considered substance abuse, but the main source of tension is her nascent romantic feelings. There is no mention of trauma though one might surmise it exists under the surface. The protagonist makes such a big deal about confessing her love that it becomes the defining moment of her unfortunate life. In Japan, this book would have us believe, holding hands is third base. For contrast, Kawakami includes a side character who serves as the protag’s polar opposite, throwing herself at men and criticizing Irie’s monkish habits and inability to throw herself at men.

Kawakami famously wrestles with feminist topics, and though she did her time as an idol of sorts in real life, she is passing herself off reasonably well as a literary master in Japan. I find her work inconsistent but generally layered with a few relevant topics, sprinkled with some charm, and well-suited to a quick or audiobook read. Her sentences are not challenging, but her characters possess the strained emotions of a melodrama, and her prose is fluffy.

The male love interest is rather unassuming, extremely unmenacing. Can we explain away Irie’s shattered romantic paralysis as a result of the assault she suffered at the end of high school? We are not given access to how she processed this event. It is merely mentioned in passing. This leaves her with an emptiness she must drag around. And leaves the reader with many questions as to how and why she copes with this insult and considers herself unworthy of love. Why is she self-medicating and denying herself happiness, and letting meaningless work dissolve her youth? In her mid thirties, she has not lived or experienced anything noteworthy. She does not retain any information from her informed non-boyfriend’s monologues. She retains nothing from the countless books she proofreads. She lives in a vacuum of memory. Her greatest thrill is taking a walk once a year on her birthday. A boring person, but one easily sympathized with. In these aggravating behaviors, one can detect a value for simplicity and a shunning of the typical distractions of a overstimulated generation. Elsewhere, middle school kids are getting into things this protagonist cannot even bear to imagine in their dank bedrooms. She will probably turn 80 before her first kiss.

Multiple books and stories by Mieko Kawakami have featured editor and writer characters and All the Lovers of the Night falls into that category. I have remarked earlier about the confusing nature of the publishing industry depicted in Japanese fiction. There is consistency between Murakami’s characters and the works of other authors like Hiromi Kawakami and those represented in the periodical Monkey Business, who describe the lives of writers in a very idealistic light. Contests play a part in the success of the most prominent authors, as far as translation goes. Having traversed the landscape of publishing in America myself, I’ve noticed a handful of differences, but can’t tell whether these differences are the product of Hollywoodization (as in, readers are given a picture of how publishing works, while reality is nothing like it) or whether they are genuine differences. Glancing at the winners of the Akutagawa prize will afford you a wealth of reading material, showcasing the most cutting edge Japanese writers, among whom Mieko Kawakami is quickly becoming the rising star. Other contenders are Sayaka Murata and Hiroko Oyamada. As larger amounts of contemporary international fiction makes its way into English, I often feel longing for left-behind classics. The larger the sample size of what I’ve read by this author becomes, the more my opinion seems to sway toward dismay rather than enjoyment.

Some of her stories make use of quirky magical realism, while her three novels and novella in English are more realistic and serious in tone. While I prefer her whimsical side, I did not dislike most of her longer works. That is not to say that they were perfect by any means. I also cannot gauge what effect translation has on the content, and only speak to my enjoyment of the works.

Kawakami makes intelligent arguments. She satirizes with strong scenes of intense emotions covering a wide range between humor, despair, ennui, and longing, agony, and much more. In this way, her storytelling is effective. Yet sometimes I find it bogged down by simplification, repetition, or explication of the subtext. The most prominent example is the middle portion of Breasts and Eggs. In Heaven, she also takes on a common theme in manga and Japanese fiction, adding very little, I thought, to the prevailing sentiments expressed by other works. Her narration and interior monologs tends to be even wordier than this review. But when it comes to description, she often settles for bare bones realism. I cannot help but compare her works to Murata’s magnificent two translated novels, and sigh.

Even so, I notice merits in Kawakami’s themes, characters, and plots. The straightforward storytelling can be refreshing in an English language market oversaturated by sparkling uber-modern prose rhythms. When seasoned too heavily, contemporary novels often fizzle out on my palette. Leaving me yearning the everyday relatability of Banana Yoshimoto, or the sharp commentary of Kawakami. She has accomplished much in a short time, and one can only hope she will transcend the pop fiction tenants and carve out a long-term career of increasingly complex novels. So far, her production has shown glimmers of greatness, often marred by mundane delivery. But not all authors are interested in depicting grotesque situations. You have Ryu Murakami for that. She rather, infuses her works with an elegance, an atmosphere I find irresistible (in small doses), and intolerable in large doses.