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176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would plant - feed it, protect it from the elements - you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn't true, then it's best to just let it wither on the vine.As the saying goes, if you love them let them go, but if Tsukiko finds she can’t accept being apart she must do something about it. Which feels inevitable right from page one where we see the two as a mirror of the other when she orders
‘tuna with fermented soybeans, fried lotus root, and salted shallots,’ while the old man next to me requested ‘salted shallots, lotus root fries, and tuna fermented with soybearns.’Quickly it is detected that they fit together beyond their food choices, but in their shared quietude and loneliness. Tsukiko comments they ‘had a similar rhythm, or temperament.’
“Había algo en aquella casa que me provocaba incomodidad. Era como si encargara varias piezas de ropa hechas a medida y al probármelas descubriera que unas eran demasiado cortas y otras eran tan largas que las arrastraba por el suelo al caminar. Entonces me quitaba la ropa, estupefacta, comprobaba de nuevo las medidas y me daba cuenta de que eran exactas. Así me sentía con mi familia.”Tsukiko no se gusta, está convencida de caer mal y sospecha que algo no debe de andar del todo bien en cualquiera que quiera acercarse a ella. La soledad muchas veces responde a eso, a no querer a nadie a nuestro alrededor que nos recuerde constantemente lo poco que nos gustamos, lo deficientes que somos. Quizá por ello entabla relación con Matsumoto, su antiguo profesor ya jubilado y abandonado por su esposa hace más de quince años, al que encuentra por casualidad en una taberna en la que se entregan a placeres que ambos comparten, la comida y el sake.
“Nos encontrábamos por casualidad, paseábamos por casualidad y bebíamos sake por casualidad. Cuando le hacía una visita en su casa, me presentaba sin previo aviso. A veces estábamos un mes entero sin vernos.”Nada parece suceder durante buena parte del relato. Con una exquisita sencillez, todo parece inane, sin sentido, y, sin embargo, todo lo tiene, todo nos revela un sentimiento, una sensación, un pensamiento, cada encuentro es significativo, alegórico.
"Even when we were at the bar, I tended to only take notice of Sensei. But Satoru was always there, along with the usual crowd of familiar faces. And I never really acknowledged that any of them were alive in any way. I never gave any thought to the fact that they were leading the same kind of complicated life as I was."Often, the author gives us indirect peeks into the loneliness of others—so subtle that you could easily miss it, that sharp feeling of difference:
"Out on the street, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t the only one here, that I wasn’t the only one feeling lonely. But this wasn’t the kind of thing you could tell just by looking at the passersby. The harder I tried to see, the less sure I was about anything."
"The bar owner’s car was white and boxy, unlike the sort of streamlined cars that you often saw these days in the city."Tsukiko and Sensei's story seems rather alarming—he is old-fashioned, a tad misogynistic, and 30 years her senior, while she describes herself as compulsively childlike and is far removed from various ideas of feminine propriety—and we are compelled to ask: what brings them together despite all their differences? They are both gourmands, yes—in fact, the book begins with showing us their similarities rather than differences, and this is illustrated through the food items they each order—but they are also both lonely. It is this that holds them back from each other somewhat; it is this that makes their relationship worth reading about despite its predictability and problematics; it is not the workings of a romance that we're being made privy to here but something else entirely. Loneliness is vulnerability—this book is best read with that kept in mind.
"I had long ago gotten used to that particular kind of uneasiness. It was just dissatisfying in some way. It felt as if I had ordered a bunch of clothes that I had every reason to think would fit perfectly, but when I went to try them on, some were too short, while with others the hem dragged on the floor. Surprised, I would take the clothes off and hold them up against my body, only to find that they were all, in fact, the right length. "