In a cosy back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
Prepare to meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the cafe’s time-travelling offer in order to:
– confront the man who left them
– receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by Alzheimer’s
– see their sister one last time
– meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat. They cannot leave the cafe. And finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
I had heard of Before the Coffee gets cold but would likely never have picked it up without it being chosen as the February book of our book club. As the book is relatively short, I was willing to give it a chance and found myself pretty much flying through the pages. Split up in fpur long chapters, the books is set in the same cafè which promises the possibility to travel back in time, but engages with four different people who experience this and their stories. The many rules they have to comply with and that limit the outcome of this experience do not keep them from daring his move, hopefully aiming for some change in their current situation. From seperated lovers over a long-married couple and a lost sister to the heart-wrenching story of mother and child–this book certainly moved me.
Would you do it?
Would you go back in time to meet someone again, knwoing it would nonetheless not change anything about your present? Traveling in time comes with a lot of rules that honestly through me a bit off and dragged the first chapter long. As I think that this effect was very much intended by the author, it vividly reflects the fruitlessness of their aim and approach and how easily people might give up on this approach to solving their problems. Nonetheless, the presented characters go through with it and find themselves meeting someone they aimnto reconcile with in one way or another. Their encoutners are heartwrenching and all build up to the same conclusion. Although I enjoyed following the characters on their journey, the big reveal fell a bit short for me as I understood what the book aimed to say after the first of the four chapters.
Slow Character Build-Up
I especially enjoyed in this book how every chapter could potentially be its own story and be read independently. Instead, the author nicely connects them, introducing characters throughout and allowing us to get to know them better through their own stories. That also builds up a lot of emotionality by the end of the book, when we have witnessed all their confusion, loss, and hurt. Nevertheless, the book over all expresses hope and continuation of it despite setbacks. It tells stories ofnlpve and regret, but also of change of attitude which preceeds moving on and continuing in a healthy way.
In conclusion,
For a book I would likely never have picked up by myself, I did enjoy it a lot. Nonetheless, I did not fully enjoy the writing all the time. Moreover, the reflective climax at the end of the book fell short for me, as the moral of the book became clear to me all the way back in chapter one.
The author:
Toshikazu Kawaguchi was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1971. He formerly produced, directed and wrote for the theatrical group Sonic Snail. As a playwright, his works include COUPLE, Sunset Song and Family Time. The novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold is adapted from a 1110 Productions play by Kawaguchi, which won the 10th Suginami Drama Festival grand prize. It was followed by Tales From the Cafe, Before Your Memory Fades, Before We Say Goodbye and Before We Forget Kindness. Source