Book Review: All the Lovers in the Night, Mieko Kawakami

 All the Lovers in the Night, Mieko Kawakami

Read: 5 - 22/10/2023

My rating: 5 /5 stars

Book of 2023: 12

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance proofreader in her thirties. Living alone and unable to form meaningful relationships, she has little contact with anyone other than her colleagues. But a chance encounter with a man named Mitsutsuka awakens something new in her. As Fuyuko starts to see the world in a different light, painful memories from her past begin to resurface. Fuyuko needs to be loved, to be heard and to be seen. But living in a small world of her own making, will she find the strength to bring down the walls that surround her? Pulsing and poetic, modern and shocking, this is an unforgettable novel from Japan’s most exciting writer. 

Evie T sent me this for my 25th birthday. It’s my third Kawakami novel, and I think it might be my favourite of the three. I read it in October, the perfect time for this novel. It feels autumnal in nature - it lives in the liminal space. Fuyuko, between independent and lonely, a relationship existing somewhere between a lover and a friend, light, between the colours absorbed and left behind. 

A common theme across Kawakami’s novels is isolation. Our protagonists are reclusive, find it difficult to socialise, communicate. In All the Lovers in the Night, we meet Fuyuko, who has secluded herself through freelance work, spending her days filing through books looking for mistakes. Fuyuko interacts with very few people, her life is a routine of work and sleep and survival. Occasionally intersected by conversations or catch ups with Hijiri, the in-between for freelancer and publisher, whom she places on a pedestal. 

A unique aura surrounded her, something like a special layer of light that gave her a brightness greater than the space around her. (19)

She lives to work. Sticks to her routine. Spending her life inside a text - unable to read it, only the surface of the text. By herself. She’s hidden herself away to avoid getting hurt. 

I’d been on my own for ages, and I was convinced that there was no way I could be any more alone, but now I’d finally realized how alone I truly was. (166)

It occurred to me that maybe I was where I was today because I hadn’t chosen anything. (184)

We meet her on the edge of a change. She begins drinking. To open up some social lubrication - we never really know if it’s a conscious decision at the beginning. The drinking becomes her safety net. She feels assured and confident. 

A buzz can feel so good, though - if you don’t overdo it. It loosens you up, makes everything a little softer. (35)

This story explores the relationships that aren’t defined as such. Hijiri explains her pseudo-relationships with certain men. Situationships. Casual arrangements. Fuyuko doesn’t understand them. They exist in the in-between. Not a couple, not lovers, not companions. 

Fuyuko strikes up a conversation with Mitsutsuka. They meet at a cafe for a drink and talk about light, talk about each other, they don’t share a lot about each other. They go so long, undefined, an unspoken bond. 

Almost everybody gets involved before they ever talk about their feelings. (104)

Fuyuko eventually realises how important Mitsutsuka is. How she feels. How much he means to her. It takes a long time - Kawakami talks about not knowing how to feel. 

I can’t tell if I’m actually feeling that way. What if it’s just something somebody wrote in a book? [...]I get this feeling like I’m quoting somebody else’s work. (105-6)

Sadness and happiness are all experienced by someone else before us; we’re simply following their lead. (129)

Kawakami reinforces the importance of female friendship. The constant force in Fuyuko’s life is Hijiri. She lends her clothes, checks in from time to time. Although their relationship begins professionally, they grow closer over the course of the novel. 

I want to know you better, she said. I want to know you. (215)

She touches on wife-hood. Fuyuko’s childhood friend Noriko laments her frustrations with her sexless existence and the removal of her identity as anyone other than a mother. 

I’ve become a total mom, and my husband’s a total dad. And that’s all we are. (159)

It’s like you’re not even there anymore, like your life just vanishes. It’s all about the kids. (163)

The most powerful part of this novel is the denouement of the choices Fuyuko makes, the changes she makes, the way she regains assembly over her life. In the end, she has to live without him. Has to move on, has to deal with his feelings being unreciprocated. She has to choose herself. 

I really liked him, even though I knew nothing about him, and he knew nothing about me, and maybe that was all that this would ever come to, ending without getting off the ground, despite how good I knew it could be, had already been, with more good times than I knew what to do with, but as the days without him added up, I knew that I would burn through every last one of the memories, the anguish and the premonitions, the regrets, the gratitude, all of which would pass, never to return. (214)

Jeeeez! This had me spinning. Had me feeling all of the built up emotion, the memories, the fact-file we curate about a person. The moments we collect in their company, the time we spend thinking of them, gathering snippets of information. Where does it all go? Where do you put it when that person doesn’t choose you back? 

It’s hard, but you know deep down you’ll be okay. You get over it, you move on, you file away that person somewhere, and they weigh on your mind less and less. In time, the times they appear in your head are fewer, the moments you enjoy without wishing they were there, or that you could tell them about it. 

Eventually, you have to choose yourself. You have to choose to keep on living.

This might be my favourite Kawakami I’ve read so far. Fuyuko is a fascinating protagonist. Her inner monologue, her relationship with Hijiri, her feelings for Mitsutsuka, her fascination with light, her dedication to her work, then her reliance on alcohol. 

I really enjoyed this one. Enjoyed is the wrong word I suppose. But I love Kawakami’s writing, her construction of character, or world, of tone. And Fuyuko really has stuck with me.