5 stars for Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold book 1) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
I first come across this book in Kinokuniya Singapore flagship store two years ago. Two things about this book caught my attention - the title and the two cups of coffee that grace the book cover. Yea, happiness to me, is a cup of coffee and a really good book. I remember thinking how wonderful it will be to have a copy I can call my own. Fast forward two years and my wish comes true.
Ever since that bookstore trip, I scour the library for this book each time I am there. But the book is always loaned out to some other lucky member. Days turned into weeks, which turned into months. And still, the book is not available, to me. The funny thing is, the harder it is to get my hands on a copy of this book, the more determined I am to read it on the dead tree version. So, you can imagine how delighted I am to receive this book as a Christmas gift. And that is when I decide Before the Coffee Gets Cold shall be my first read of the Year 2022.
Though labelled as literary fiction, this book is not your typical literary fiction. There is the element of fantasy that twirls around the story and gives it a mystical feel. The story centers around a cafe called Funiculi Funicula. What makes this cafe special is that it is a time-travelling cafe; it can transport one back in time. But in order to go back to the past, one has to obey some very frustrating rules, with the most important rule being to return to the present before the coffee gets cold. Hence the title. Also, this travelling across space and time does not come without certain risks.
The entire book comprises four stories and together, they form the novel. The stories are related in one way or other, so one should follow the proper sequence when reading. The different characters, both the cafe owners and the customers, varied in their personalities to reveal something uniquely Japanese. The tales of the characters are so beautifully weaved that it gives pause to your reading to stare off into space to contemplate relationships and communication.
The author has a way with managing and building up anticipation such that it lures the reader to keep the pages turning. The ending of each story is also brilliantly crafted. In fact, each of the ending is so well written with the message it is trying to send across that it not only warms my heart, but at the same time, sends chills down my back.
Basically, everything about this book is good right down to the end. The only shortcoming for reading a novel that is translated from the Japanese is - I can't help but wonder - how much of the story, in terms of Japanese culture, mannerism and way of expression, is retained, and how much is lost through the translation. Also, I wonder how the cafe's name, Funiculi Funicula, comes about from the translation as I am quite sure it is not the original Japanese cafe name.
After reading this book about a time-travelling cafe that pretty much leaves its customers alone, all I want to do is to visit one such cafe and be a regular there. There will surely be no lack of interesting happenings and touching moments. If only such a cafe is in existence.
What will you do if you are given the chance to return to the past?
Who will you want to meet?
Publisher: Picador; Main Market edition
Publication date: 19 Sep 2019
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If you could go back, who would you want to meet?
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time?
*Blurb from FantasticFiction*
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