Fiction – hardcover; Europa Editions; 224 pages; 2022. Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley.
Set in contemporary Tokyo, Mieko Kawakami’s All the Lovers in the Night tells the story of a 30-something woman who isolates herself from the real world because she has difficulty making friends and forming meaningful relationships — both at work and at play.
My name is Fuyuko Irie, a freelance proofreader, thirty-four years old. I’ll be turning thirty-five in the winter. I live alone. I’ve been living in the same apartment forever. I was born in Nagano. Out in the country. One of the valleys. I like to go out on a walk once a year on my birthday, Christmas Eve, in the middle of the night. But I was sure that no one else could comprehend what made this fun, and I had never mentioned it to anyone before. I had no friends to talk to on a regular basis.
Deeply introverted and carrying trauma from her high school years, Fuyuko begins to self-medicate with alcohol, and “with the aid of just one can of beer, drunk slowly, or a single cup of sake” she develops “the ability to let go of my usual self”.
When she consumes too much sake one morning and accidentally vomits on a stranger she bumps into — an older man called Mitsutsuka — a tentative friendship develops between them.
Freelance life
Like Kawakami’s previous novel, Heaven, which looked at social ostracization and bullying in a schoolyard setting, All the Lovers in the Night switches to the adult world of work and looks at what happens to those who struggle to fit in socially.
From a young age, I couldn’t bring myself to contribute to conversations like a normal person, much less socialize or go out with people, and I was never able to acclimate to the particular atmosphere of that little office. At first, my coworkers invited me out for dinner or drinks, but I always declined, offering a string of vague excuses, and at some point they stopped asking. Before I knew it, I’d been left entirely alone.
Fuyuko’s sense of social alienation and isolation worsens when she quits her job to go freelance. Initially, it’s fine because free from the pressure of an office environment, she can focus solely on the work that gives her so much pleasure. She has regular contact with the editor, Hijiri Ishikawa, who keeps her supplied with manuscripts to work on, and the pair sometimes go out for a drink.
But even when socialising with Hijiri, she rarely gives anything away and struggles to make small talk. Hijiri is too self-absorbed to pay this much heed, but later, towards the end of the novel, she becomes increasingly frustrated with Fuyuko’s passivity, accusing her of “just going through life without asking anything of anyone, or letting anyone ask anything of you”.
Eventually, Fuyoko’s self-imposed isolation gets the better of her and she falls into something that looks like depression but is never stated as such. She lets her fledgling relationship with Mitsutsuka slide, even though she’s convinced herself she’s fallen in love with him.
Human connection
The story explores the meaning of friendship and the need for human companionship and connection. It also looks at what society expects of women, and how those who forgo children and marriage, perhaps in favour of a career, are judged more harshly and the bar for success is raised much higher for them.
I particularly liked the focus on proofreading and the way Fuyoko is so obsessed with “hunting for mistakes” that she stops watching TV because she can’t bear the errors she spots in the subtitles onscreen. (I feel similarly about restaurant menus!)
And she also acknowledges that the proofreader’s work is never done because errors always slip through:
“I mean, even if multiple people go over the same galley multiple times, for days on end, to the point where they can’t read it anymore, no matter how much work everyone puts into it, no book is ever free of errors, right?”
All the Lovers in the Night is the kind of book you can binge-read in one sitting. I loved the way it explored one woman’s attempt to expand her universe, to find her voice and to overcome loneliness. It’s a deeply melancholic but ultimately rewarding read.
I read this book for the Japanese Literature Challenge 17 run by Meredith at Dolce Bellezza. This annual event has been held every January and February for 17 YEARS, which is an amazing achievement.
Reading Matters 
Yup. This seems to have my name on it.
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It’s a great read.
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I loved this book. Particularly the comments about proofreading. So glad it struck a chord with you.
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Nice to hear from you, Ann 😊
The insights into proofreading resonated with me, but I think the protagonist is more a copy editor than a proofreader. Proofreaders check for typos, grammar, syntax and do a final read through before publication. But she talks about structure, fact checking and deleting superfluous words etc which is the role of a copy editor. Maybe in Japan they are one and the same, or the writer doesn’t understand the difference 🤷🏻♀️ Or maybe I’m just being a pedantic copy editor 😆
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Thanks, Kim. Yes. I remember thinking her proofreading was rather more intensive than mine would have been! It would be interesting to know how the editorial process works in Japan and whether the roles are separate there. Wishing you many great reads in 2024!
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It does sound enticing. I haven’t read her work yet.
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I definitely preferred this one over Heaven (which is violent in places) – she’s very good at capturing the voices of the alienated/socially excluded.
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Of all the bloggers I follow, you are the one who finds the books I would most like to read (even the Irish ones, though I mostly don’t follow them up).
Yes, I really like the sound of this one. Did you notice that Fuyuko Irie sounds – to my ears anyway – a lot like the 1Q84 character, Fuka-Eri.
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I will take that as a compliment, Bill. Not sure what it says about either of our tastes, though 🤷🏻♀️
I’ve not read 1Q84… should I?
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I love 1Q84, I’ve listened to it at least 3 times. It would be a big commitment to read and the question is how would you handle the surreal/SF element.
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That is a big commitment. I’ve never read Murakami’s fiction, so wonder if there is a better book to start with… ?
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After Dark, it’s short, beautiful, and slightly surreal.
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I was disappointed by this one, having loved Breasts and Eggs. I felt the ending feel back on tired tropes about female friendship.
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Interesting point about the ending. Admittedly, I didn’t quite buy it, but I was just relieved there was no romantic return to the old boy she’d become obsessed with 😆
I haven’t read Breast and Eggs but want to!
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It wasn’t my favourite of hers, but I do like her writing. She does seem to be able to capture some essence of Japanese daily life and psychology and the loneliness.
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Loneliness and alienation seems to be a common theme in all the Japanese literature I read, whether literary fiction or crime fiction. This makes me wonder what this says about Japanese society.
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When we visited Japan this summer, my sons immediately noticed how lonely people seemed to be, engrossed in their phones, distant though polite in their interactions. There’s a brief window of freedom and going about in groups for young women and then society’s expectations and constraints take over. And you end up going to host/ess bars to have people pour out your drinks and listen to you rant.
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That is so fascinating… And then there’s that whole concept of hikikomori/shut-ins, people who deliberately hide away in their rooms and isolate themselves from the rest of society.
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Unlike Marina Sofia, I actually enjoyed this more than all her other books in English so far, a more grown-up work than her others, I felt…
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Interesting. I certainly liked it more than Heaven. Maybe because I identified with it so much more and also because it didn’t have any graphic bullying scenes in it!
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True. I just liked this one because it was a little darker but in a more adult, literary way, if that makes sense…
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I find Kawakami’s books so heart-wrenching. She is able to portray the lost and the lonely ones so exquisitely. It makes me want to go out and comfort them right away, as if I could. But, I’m glad you were immersed in this, and you wrote such an excellent review, portraying the book perfectly for those who haven’t yet read it (while reminding those of us who have)!
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Thank you… I want to read Breast and Eggs now and have put a hold on it at my local library. She’s an intriguing writer.
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I recently read and enjoyed Heaven so definitely adding this one. Thanks!
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