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indoorswoman's review against another edition
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.75
spenkevich's review against another edition
5.0
Some books feel like a warm, heavy blanket on a crisp morning, something you take in soft and slow and while you are getting nowhere fast you are everywhere you want to be. The Nakano Thrift Shop by [a:Hiromi Kawakami|637929|Hiromi Kawakami|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1403601895p2/637929.jpg]—lovingly and gorgeously translated by the always impressive [a:Allison Markin Powell|2744065|Allison Markin Powell|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]—was just that sort of book for me and a balm on my soul when I needed it. A quiet little novel about the employees and regulars of second-hand antiques store in Western Tokyo, this book shows how much can be accomplished through the strength of well-written characters without needing much of a plot to propel you forward. The two young employees, Takeo and our narrator, Hitomi, live in the casual world of their employer, the enigmatic and eccentric Mr. Nakano, and slowly take in the local gossip and fall in and out of love with each other. It is such a charming book with a sharp comic sensibility and enough heart to wrap you up in a blissful reading experience as it examines interpersonal relationships and introspective anxieties in a world rapidly changing and speeding up when all one wants to do is slow down and embrace the beauty in the details.
‘Ours was a strange world, in which whatever was new and neat and tidy diminished in value.’
This book was very close to my heart for many reasons. Essentially it is a book that grows storytelling through local gossip, and as someone who is admittedly a workplace gossiper...well, these are my people. One of my jobs is working in a local bookstore with a small staff nestled in our bustling downtown. So much of the casual small store aesthetics and slowly piecing together the stories of locals and locales reminded me of why I love that job and how much I appreciate the people I work with. This is a book about people and their habits, quirks, charms and flaws and Kawakami brings them to life so seemingly effortlessly that by the end of the novel you feel like you, too, have known and interacted with these characters.
The glue holding everything together in this book is Mr. Nakano. An aging and charismatic yet quirky womanizer, Nakano’s offbeat personality is so affable and adorable you can’t help but enjoy him despite the fact that he’s kind of a shit. I feel bad for his (third) wife, who is mentioned but never present despite his mistress Sakiko becoming central to several sections of the novel and an empathetic and lovable character. He has a verbal crutch of saying ‘you know what I mean?’ to dive into his conversations, something a former manager during my Barnes and Noble days also said and why on her final day at our store a good friend signed her going-away card with “I guess we’ll never know what you meant”. Kawakami excels at piling details like this upon small detail after small detail to create a larger-than-the-sum-of-their-parts atmosphere and overall body of the novel. It could be said to be a novel about details, which is, honestly, an aspect of this book I like best.
While there is still a slow-burn forward progress to the overarching narrative, the structure of the book breaks it down to anecdotal storylines by chapter, with chapter titles attached to a different item that crosses the doorway of Nakano’s shop during that segment. Each chapter becomes a different set of gossip and discussions to examine the characters from a new angle or further their introspective ideas about each other. The effect is as if we the reader are handling the characters and inspecting them the way a customer in Nakano’s shop might with the antiques. Many of these discussions provoke sexual aspects, such as a packet of nude photos sold by a shady older customer, or Sakiko’s erotica fiction drafts that befuddle Mr. Nakano because he considers himself too polite of a lover to satisfy these desires. The coziness and cuteness of the novel is hilariously offset with a strong sexual undercurrent with much of the drama surrounding Nakano and Masayo’s (his older sister) love lives (a funny saga occurs early when Nakano bribes Hitomi to casually get info from Masayo about who she is dating, who counter-bribes Hitomi to not reveal anything). Then, of course, there is the sexual tension between Hitomi and Takeo in their awkward on-again-off-again not-quite-dating interactions.
‘...the idea of spending the rest of my life like this — going through my days in a fog of anxiety and fear’
Much of the young love plotline becomes a wonderful examination on anxieties and confidence. Takeo masks his anxieties of life through a quiet aloofness that never gives away much of what he is thinking, which makes him difficult to read for Hitomi. ‘People scare me,’ confides Takeo. But her anxieties over her inability to understand Takeo becomes a springboard of self-realization that she doesn’t even understand her own desires.
Much of these fears is what makes the thrift shop an ideal place for them to be, secluded from much of the world in a warm and supportive small circle of acquaintances. Yet it is also fairly insular as Hitmoi realizes when Nakano’s two mistresses are friends of each other and none of them know anyone outside the local antiques industry. Like the envelope that held the customer’s pornographic photos, described as fitting the photos so snugly it becomes difficult to get the photos in and out, the thrift shop is snug, comforting and secure but also restrictive. These anxieties around growth and change reveal themselves in other ways too. While Masayo may be the most emotionally matured of them all, her mind tends to often be on notions of aging and how to appropriately grow into her age. This is contrasted with Nakano who seems to fill his time with affairs and antiques in order to avoid growing up and looking towards a future which is coming whether they like it or not.
Nakano’s Shop is, in effect, an outlet for the comforts of golden age nostalgia. It represents a return to tradition as well as an escape from modernity. The Nakano family is said to be a long line of land owners who have eventually lost their wealth and the store seems to emotionally be the last link back to the past through the antiques. In Strange Weather in Tokyo, Kawakami explores the waning of traditional society and it’s relationship with nature in an ever modernizing and faster-paced world and many of these ideas are quietly examined here as well. Much like the older lover who despises cellphones in Strange Weather, Hitomi reflects on how increasing connectivity can be damaging to interpersonal relationships, such as her own mental health struggles as she obsesses over calling Takeo during their period of silence:
The slow, soothing pace of the shop is contrasted with Hitomi’s life later in the fast-paced office world. ‘I made copies, I ran errands, I filed vouchers, I created documents,’ she says of her time in a place where people are always ‘glued to their desk,’ hardly anyone speaks to each other and she sees the agitation of those who often stay at work through the night. It is more productive, but does it feel even halfway as fulfilling as the shop?
Like Strange Weather, this book also paces itself and adapts its tone to the changing seasons as a constant reminder of time’s unstoppable progress. Pets and people die, the store must turn towards online auctions to stay relevant, people come and people go. What is lasting, however, are the impressions we make on each other. The conclusion of this book is rather effective in the way it reminds the reader of the impressions left upon us by all the characters, major and minor, in The Nakano Thrift Shop. While I tend to find tidy endings trite, this one really worked and wrapped the novel in a perfect emotional bow. This was one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I have had all year and was a blast of serotonin and good vibes that I truly needed. I even enjoyed this more than [b:Strange Weather in Tokyo|18283207|Strange Weather in Tokyo|Hiromi Kawakami|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375634096l/18283207._SY75_.jpg|2974590]. Cute, charming and comical, The Nakano Thrift Shop was a massive success for me and one I won’t soon forget.
5/5
‘Ours was a strange world, in which whatever was new and neat and tidy diminished in value.’
This book was very close to my heart for many reasons. Essentially it is a book that grows storytelling through local gossip, and as someone who is admittedly a workplace gossiper...well, these are my people. One of my jobs is working in a local bookstore with a small staff nestled in our bustling downtown. So much of the casual small store aesthetics and slowly piecing together the stories of locals and locales reminded me of why I love that job and how much I appreciate the people I work with. This is a book about people and their habits, quirks, charms and flaws and Kawakami brings them to life so seemingly effortlessly that by the end of the novel you feel like you, too, have known and interacted with these characters.
The glue holding everything together in this book is Mr. Nakano. An aging and charismatic yet quirky womanizer, Nakano’s offbeat personality is so affable and adorable you can’t help but enjoy him despite the fact that he’s kind of a shit. I feel bad for his (third) wife, who is mentioned but never present despite his mistress Sakiko becoming central to several sections of the novel and an empathetic and lovable character. He has a verbal crutch of saying ‘you know what I mean?’ to dive into his conversations, something a former manager during my Barnes and Noble days also said and why on her final day at our store a good friend signed her going-away card with “I guess we’ll never know what you meant”. Kawakami excels at piling details like this upon small detail after small detail to create a larger-than-the-sum-of-their-parts atmosphere and overall body of the novel. It could be said to be a novel about details, which is, honestly, an aspect of this book I like best.
While there is still a slow-burn forward progress to the overarching narrative, the structure of the book breaks it down to anecdotal storylines by chapter, with chapter titles attached to a different item that crosses the doorway of Nakano’s shop during that segment. Each chapter becomes a different set of gossip and discussions to examine the characters from a new angle or further their introspective ideas about each other. The effect is as if we the reader are handling the characters and inspecting them the way a customer in Nakano’s shop might with the antiques. Many of these discussions provoke sexual aspects, such as a packet of nude photos sold by a shady older customer, or Sakiko’s erotica fiction drafts that befuddle Mr. Nakano because he considers himself too polite of a lover to satisfy these desires. The coziness and cuteness of the novel is hilariously offset with a strong sexual undercurrent with much of the drama surrounding Nakano and Masayo’s (his older sister) love lives (a funny saga occurs early when Nakano bribes Hitomi to casually get info from Masayo about who she is dating, who counter-bribes Hitomi to not reveal anything). Then, of course, there is the sexual tension between Hitomi and Takeo in their awkward on-again-off-again not-quite-dating interactions.
‘...the idea of spending the rest of my life like this — going through my days in a fog of anxiety and fear’
Much of the young love plotline becomes a wonderful examination on anxieties and confidence. Takeo masks his anxieties of life through a quiet aloofness that never gives away much of what he is thinking, which makes him difficult to read for Hitomi. ‘People scare me,’ confides Takeo. But her anxieties over her inability to understand Takeo becomes a springboard of self-realization that she doesn’t even understand her own desires.
’When Takeo said the word ‘scare’ the fear that I had been feeling this whole week blew up inside of me all at once. That’s because it is scary. I’m scary. Takeo is scary. Waiting is scary. Tadokoro, Mr. Nakano, Sakiko, Masayo, and even Mr. Crane — they were all scary. Even more frightening was my own self.’
Much of these fears is what makes the thrift shop an ideal place for them to be, secluded from much of the world in a warm and supportive small circle of acquaintances. Yet it is also fairly insular as Hitmoi realizes when Nakano’s two mistresses are friends of each other and none of them know anyone outside the local antiques industry. Like the envelope that held the customer’s pornographic photos, described as fitting the photos so snugly it becomes difficult to get the photos in and out, the thrift shop is snug, comforting and secure but also restrictive. These anxieties around growth and change reveal themselves in other ways too. While Masayo may be the most emotionally matured of them all, her mind tends to often be on notions of aging and how to appropriately grow into her age. This is contrasted with Nakano who seems to fill his time with affairs and antiques in order to avoid growing up and looking towards a future which is coming whether they like it or not.
Nakano’s Shop is, in effect, an outlet for the comforts of golden age nostalgia. It represents a return to tradition as well as an escape from modernity. The Nakano family is said to be a long line of land owners who have eventually lost their wealth and the store seems to emotionally be the last link back to the past through the antiques. In Strange Weather in Tokyo, Kawakami explores the waning of traditional society and it’s relationship with nature in an ever modernizing and faster-paced world and many of these ideas are quietly examined here as well. Much like the older lover who despises cellphones in Strange Weather, Hitomi reflects on how increasing connectivity can be damaging to interpersonal relationships, such as her own mental health struggles as she obsesses over calling Takeo during their period of silence:
‘I hate cellphones...there has been no greater evil for love affairs—those that are going well as much as those that are going badly—due to the greatly increased ability to receive phone calls no matter where you are, no matter what the situation.’
The slow, soothing pace of the shop is contrasted with Hitomi’s life later in the fast-paced office world. ‘I made copies, I ran errands, I filed vouchers, I created documents,’ she says of her time in a place where people are always ‘glued to their desk,’ hardly anyone speaks to each other and she sees the agitation of those who often stay at work through the night. It is more productive, but does it feel even halfway as fulfilling as the shop?
Like Strange Weather, this book also paces itself and adapts its tone to the changing seasons as a constant reminder of time’s unstoppable progress. Pets and people die, the store must turn towards online auctions to stay relevant, people come and people go. What is lasting, however, are the impressions we make on each other. The conclusion of this book is rather effective in the way it reminds the reader of the impressions left upon us by all the characters, major and minor, in The Nakano Thrift Shop. While I tend to find tidy endings trite, this one really worked and wrapped the novel in a perfect emotional bow. This was one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I have had all year and was a blast of serotonin and good vibes that I truly needed. I even enjoyed this more than [b:Strange Weather in Tokyo|18283207|Strange Weather in Tokyo|Hiromi Kawakami|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375634096l/18283207._SY75_.jpg|2974590]. Cute, charming and comical, The Nakano Thrift Shop was a massive success for me and one I won’t soon forget.
5/5
nzmerchant's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This book was pure atmosphere with minimal plot but I enjoyed it tremendously. The simplicity of it, and how intricately the story behind each item in the store was woven was fantastic. Even now, I still get visuals of how I imagine the shop to look in my head and I feel as though I’ve been there myself!
yasmin15's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
emblaunn's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.0
Denna lugna vackra skildring av en liten butik i en liten stadsdel utanför Tokyo var underbar.
Bara maten dom äter, hur dom för sig, hur hon tänker, är fascinerande.
Hon påminner mig om många av de andra kvinnliga karaktärer jag läst det här året, självsäker och intelligent, men också liten och helt tokig stundtals.
Kärlekshistorien är precis så intetsägande och ofullständig att den kliar, på ett härligt, djärvt sätt.
Skulle rekommendera för den som behöver en paus i sina vanliga tunga grejer.
Bara maten dom äter, hur dom för sig, hur hon tänker, är fascinerande.
Hon påminner mig om många av de andra kvinnliga karaktärer jag läst det här året, självsäker och intelligent, men också liten och helt tokig stundtals.
Kärlekshistorien är precis så intetsägande och ofullständig att den kliar, på ett härligt, djärvt sätt.
Skulle rekommendera för den som behöver en paus i sina vanliga tunga grejer.
sandranir's review against another edition
3.0
This book reads almost like a play as it is mainly centered in one place: The Nakano Thrift Shop. Four main characters evolve throughout the story: Mr. Nakano, the shop owner; his sister Masayo, the employees: Hitomi and Takeo.
Through a series of vignettes, the reader gets a glimpse into the lives of these people, bound together for a time by a common place.
I admit I had a hard time finishing this book as after a while I found myself exhausted and almost bored by the inability of the younger characters to come to terms with their own feelings and their inability to express them. It was a tad tedious but I suppose it is one of the key points of this novel: learning to navigate one's feelings, taking stock and growing up in the process.
On the other hand, the stories attached to the various objects passing through the shop and how they were acquired were quite interesting.
Through a series of vignettes, the reader gets a glimpse into the lives of these people, bound together for a time by a common place.
I admit I had a hard time finishing this book as after a while I found myself exhausted and almost bored by the inability of the younger characters to come to terms with their own feelings and their inability to express them. It was a tad tedious but I suppose it is one of the key points of this novel: learning to navigate one's feelings, taking stock and growing up in the process.
On the other hand, the stories attached to the various objects passing through the shop and how they were acquired were quite interesting.
irritated_iris's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
genteelblackhole's review against another edition
2.0
For the first chapter or two, I found this book charming. It's a slice-of-life story narrated by Hitomi, describing her time working at Mr Nakano's thrift shop. Some of the scenes are amusing enough, but after a while it becomes clear that there is no narrative drive. It's just a series of episodic events that don't seem to follow naturally from one another. If the characters do have any motivations or desires, it's never made clear to the reader. They just fiddle around at the shop, get into a few strange or embarrassing situations, and life goes on. Perhaps it's true to life but that doesn't necessarily make for an engaging read. I got more out of the author's May-December romance story, [b:Strange Weather in Tokyo|20868283|Strange Weather in Tokyo|Hiromi Kawakami|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1499387610l/20868283._SY75_.jpg|2974590] - but slogging through this book makes me question my judgement about that one too! In conclusion, it's a big shrug from me.
hank_vega's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0