Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I would normally be excited by any Japanese novel that embraces the uncanny, a hint of magic realism and time travel. Before the Coffee contains all the above and succeeds in capturing (once again) the unique and idiosyncratic nature of the country's cultural mores. To its credit, Before the Coffee also had me sufficiently intrigued and continually guessing, to the extent I wanted to read on. The novel was, however, let down by an inkling I developed relatively early on that sadly came to fruition. The central tenet behind the novel (or more accurately novella) is that even if you can't alter the past — with time travel back to it from the present — then there is always the cause for optimism: better to regret something you have done rather than the inverse. Fair enough, but hardly revolutionary and compounded here by a descent into mawkish sentimentality. To the charity shop, five out of ten.

By Toshikazu Kawaguchi