Tales from the Cafe
This is book 2 of the “Before the Coffee gets Cold” series, and once again, you get 4 tales of people who wants to go back to the past. You’d think that you’d get sick of these fairly saccharine sweet stories, and perhaps you evantually will, but as a continuation from the first book, I think its quite nice. Perhaps its that time of year when I want more feel good stories, but the stories in this volume ranges from sweet, to poignant to inspiring, so its quite a good mix.
You have a person who raised a friends daughter as his own after she was orphaned, and who feels guilty that she never knew he wasn’t her real dad. An artist who refused to give up his dream but is so poor he couldn’t afford to attend his mom’s wedding, and wants to end it all after seeing her one last time. The third story is about a man who wants his future wife to not dwell on his passing after a fatal diagnosis…this one was the weakest and didn’t engender anything from me other than a “please do your best” type of attitude (ganbatte ne). And the last story is the poignant one, a policeman who goes back in time to give his wife a gift that he couldn’t give her becuase he was too busy at work (and then of course she dies before he can give it to her).
I found out later that the author is a playwright, which really explains why a lot of his prose is basically stage direction like. very simple prose, direct and straight to the point. almost dictation like in the amount of direction given. Its quite charming in its own way, and having read all the shakespeares and other plays, I guess its a bit of a throwback to my youth.
I would say, this series really requires a type of mindset before you go into it. there’s really no twists, and once you accept the premise, there is literally no other plot line other than seeing the stories of the people who want to go back. In many ways, its a bit like a detective conan thing, you know people are going to go back, and they go back for various reasons, and the staff of the cafe are there to give sage advice.
I’m not sure I can finish a third volume of this, but i will try. =). so far i still find it charming.