All the Lovers of the Night

A beautiful piece of luminescent, almost poetical prose that throbs with intensity. If there were a novel to read about loneliness, atomisation and alienation, then All the Lovers of the Night could be it. These themes—coupled with that of feeling you're misunderstood or that you don't quite understand how the world works—are recurrent in other Kawakami works, but they also reflect the current (Japanese) zeitgeist evident also in the novels of Sayaka Murata. Fuyuko Irie, the narrator of this novel, is an all-too-believable character. The book focuses on her descent, but also her redemption and (almost literal) enlightenment. The pace for much of the novel is slow, almost mundane—and Kawakami is not for everyone—but the final chapters are electrifying in their intensity. The leitmotifs of light (how we see—both literally and metaphorically) and music (especially Chopin—a nod here perhaps to Ishiguro's Nocturnes) feature strongly. Irie's decision to pen the words "All the Lovers of the Night" at the novel's close speaks to her empowerment—doing something spontaneously and autonomously for the first time.

By Mieko Kawakami