Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

“In the instant I answered, my middle-aged companion transformed into a demon. His eyes lit up as he glared at me.”

Sabu is a secondary character in Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, and his fervent love of reading defines him and his interactions with the employees of the bookshop. When Takako tells him that she does not read, he grows angry and is described as turning into a demon. This description demonstrates not only his anger, but his passion for reading, which introduces the idea of literature’s importance into the novel.

“It felt so peaceful there. The interior was lit by soft lanterns. Gentle piano music was playing. The blackened brick wall was covered with doodles and graffiti from past customers. All of it fit together beautifully and matched the warm, soothing ambience of the coffee shop. It’s so nice here, I thought. For the first time in a long time, I felt joy well up inside me. And I felt a little bit better, a little less tired.”

For a long while after her breakup with Hideaki, Takako struggles to emerge from her depression. When she enters Saveur, she is introduced to a new atmosphere that is at odds with her personal feelings. While she feels isolated and cold, the coffee shop is inviting and warm. This contrast in settings results in her feeling joy.

“As my mind drifted back to that time, vivid memories returned to me…the two of us in his messy little room, him playing Beatles songs terribly on the guitar, and both of us singing…or spending hours reading Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori, totally engrossed in manga.”

At first, Takako is unsure of her uncle, and remembers Satoru as an unserious man. As they grow closer, Takako begins to remember her uncle more clearly, and she reminisces about the special relationship they had. As she uncovers this, she realizes that her values in life up to this point made her push Satoru away, not willing to accept his nonchalance and happiness, expecting work and adulthood to be more serious.

“I don’t think so. It’s important to stand still sometimes. Think of it as a little rest in the long journey of your life. This is your harbor. And your boat is just dropping anchor here for a little while. And after you’re well rested, you can set sail again.”

In this passage, Satoru compares the Morisaki Bookshop to a harbor and Takako as a boat. This figurative language positions Takako as a vessel on the journey of life and the bookshop as a safe space where she can recoup after a difficult voyage. This helps Takako see the bookshop as a place she can heal and come back to in the future during times of need.

“Little by little, I felt something wash over me, a feeling of peace that words can’t express. If I had to explain it, I’d say it could only have come from the writer’s fervent love for life.”

When Takako begins reading, she falls in love, and cannot stop reading, which reflects The Role of Literature in Self-Discovery. She feels as though the comfort reading brings her is like something washing over her, gently lulling her into a sense of peace. This stands in stark contrast to the feelings of grief that crashed over her when she learned of Hideaki’s betrayal. The use of water to describe her relationship to her emotions evokes different images and therefore marks a change in Takako’s character.

“Day by day, the leaves of the trees along the streets turned to gold. It delighted me to see how well the changing colors matched the slow transformation happening inside me.”

Takako at times draws comparisons between her own journey through heartbreak with the nature around her. In this case, she sees the changing leaves on trees as a reflection of her healing and becoming a new person. These leaves will eventually fall, and the tree will blossom with new life in the spring, much like how Takako hopes to bloom.

“From that night, I started to think more seriously about my own life. I’d found a warm, calm place to stay here, but I couldn’t remain a dependent on others forever. If I did, I would never grow up. My heart would always be weak. I was convinced that if I didn’t leave, I would never be able to start over.”

Though Takako enjoys staying at the Morisaki Bookshop and finds herself healing, she understands that she must move on. The bookshop is a stop on her journey, and she must be cognizant not to overstay and miss the opportunity for further growth. Takako understands that life is not always meant to be calm and safe, and that she must challenge herself yet again.

“I hadn’t planned on telling anyone about it, but hearing what my uncle said, I realized I was wrong. I’d wanted someone to ask me about it. I’d wanted someone to console me. I’d wanted someone to take care of me. It amazed me how utterly pathetic I was, but my uncle’s words had wiped out my defenses.”

Takako puts up a fence around herself when it comes to her feelings about Hideaki, and only when Satoru asks her about him does she break, embracing the necessity of Building Community to Combat Loneliness. Takako finally feels the true weight of her grief and sadness and realizes that she does need someone to look out for her and support her. When Satoru wipes out Takako’s defenses, it opens her up to the support she secretly craves.

“[A]t that moment I could feel all of the emotions that had been building in my chest welling up within me. There was no time to think—suddenly, the words came pouring out of my mouth in a torrent.”

Once again, Takako’s emotions are described in a way that evokes images of water. In this scene, the pressure of her emotions builds up inside her until she cannot contain them any longer. They “pour out” of her like a “torrent,” evoking an image of intense rainfall. It is a short burst, but with the pressure released, Takako can finally move on.

“I stood up straight, faced the shop, and bowed deeply. I vowed to never forget what my life at the bookshop had given me.”

The Morisaki Bookshop plays an important role in the novel, and in this brief passage, Takako treats it like a character. She bows to the bookshop out of respect and gratitude for the support it offered her and the time it allowed her to recuperate. She understands that the bookshop is not merely a physical place, but an important space that has an important impact on her life.

“Seeing me sobbing as I marched down the street, the people I passed must have surely thought there was something wrong with this weird woman. But I didn’t care in the slightest. After all, I was crying because I wanted to cry, and these were the happiest tears I’d ever known.”

In Part 1 of the novel, tears are reserved for sadness and grief over the loss of Hideaki. However, when Takako leaves the Morisaki Bookshop, she cries from happiness, knowing she is leaving in a better place than she arrived. The ease with which she accepts these public tears demonstrates just how much she has changed and how much confidence she has gained, not caring what others may think.

“When Momoko was young, she was quite pretty. Maybe not drop-dead gorgeous, but there was a quiet beauty to her that caught your eye in an odd way. Like a stone you see glittering on the beach that’s not worth much on the market, but there’s still something about the way it shines.”

In this passage, Momoko is compared to a glittering stone, establishing her character as one that is secretive and not completely known. The simile describes her as not being the prettiest but having something interesting about her that draws attention. Momoko lives up to this description, as she dodges Takako’s questions throughout the novel and refuses to explain why she returns to Satoru, yet nevertheless remains an appealing character in Takako’s eyes.

“He still loved her, no matter what. And he was still in pain. I never wanted to see him like that again if there was anything I could do about it.”

In Part 1, Satoru is very protective of Takako and essentially forces her to confront Hideaki, the man who hurt her. In Part 2, the roles are reversed, as Takako sees her uncle in a vulnerable place, hurt by Momoko and The Detrimental Impact of Heartbreak on Confidence. Like her uncle, Takako feels fiercely protective of her family member and vows to ensure that he is not hurt further.

“And yet if you looked at it objectively, they actually seemed like a genuinely happy couple. As funny as it sounds, I even felt a little jealous of their relationship. The intimacy between them made them seem less like a married couple and more like old friends or comrades. It definitely put me at ease.”

Takako does not see Momoko for over five years and barely remembers her from her childhood. When she sees her aunt and uncle together again, she quickly realizes why they are a good couple. She witnesses a deep connection between the two that demonstrates a strong understanding between them. For Takako, who does not have the best luck with love, seeing such a strong bond is encouraging.

“You just fit in so well in the store that I wanted to let you be. It was almost like that moment when you’re watching a butterfly coming out of its chrysalis, and you’re holding your breath, and you want to keep on watching…I guess you left a big impression on me.”

Takako connects with Wada in Saveur in large part because of their mutual love of reading and literature. When Wada explains why he never spoke with Takako at the Morisaki Bookshop, he reveals that he did not want to disturb her. He describes her as being a butterfly emerging from her chrysalis, a description that captures Takako’s transformation while at the bookshop and invokes The Role of Literature in Self-Discovery.

“When I looked up, I saw the nearly full moon, missing just a sliver on the left, floating in the night sky.”

Takako looks up and sees this moon after sitting and talking with Wada at Saveur. During this conversation, Takako feels comfortable with Wada and feels as if they’ve known each other for years. Her interactions with him contrast greatly from those with Hideaki, and when she looks up, she sees a nearly full moon. The moon reflects her journey of healing, signifying that she is almost completely healed from her heartbreak. The only sliver missing is a new attempt at romance.

“When I tried to imagine just the two of us going on a trip together, I started to feel a little uneasy. But she was holding my hands in hers, squeezing them tight, and I could see in her eyes that she was waiting for me to say yes. I had the overwhelming feeling that I was being pressured into it.”

In this passage, Takako’s feelings are replicated by the physical situation she is in. Takako feels trapped and pressured to join Momoko’s trip, while having her hands held tight and Momoko’s eyes on her. In this moment, Takako’s physical and internal situations are the same, and Momoko’s pressure makes it hard for her to say no.

“As I walked, I felt more and more depressed. I must’ve sighed about thirty times. By the time I realized that I’d forgotten my book on the table, I was already on the train home.”

When Takako begins reading, she begins healing from her heartbreak. From this moment on, she is rarely without a book. Therefore, when she experiences another small heartbreak when Wada reveals his feelings for his ex-girlfriend, it is significant that she is once again without a book. By forgetting her book, Takako opens herself up to the feelings of loneliness and regret that her reading protects her from.

“A shrine isn’t where you pray for something. It’s a place for you to express gratitude. It’s for you to tell the gods, ‘Thank you for always watching over me.’”

This quote from Momoko to Takako at the shrine reveals an age and cultural gap between the two women and helps position Momoko in the role of a guide for Takako. Momoko teaches Takako how to interact with a shrine, and Takako realizes that she was praying in a way that reflected need and not gratitude. This is an important lesson to Takako, and further solidifies Momoko’s role as someone who influences her.

“Ten years passed and then we were given a child at last. Satoru was happy too. I was so happy I cried. But before the baby was born it died inside me. I felt like I was being punished. And I was being punished because back then I had let my baby die. I felt like I didn’t deserve to give birth now.”

Momoko leaves Satoru five years prior to the events of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop because they lose their child. When Momoko reveals this to Takako, she also explains that her grief stemmed from longstanding regrets that made her feel as though she were being punished. Momoko believes that there is a connection between her early abortion of a first child and her child with Satoru being stillborn. This cyclical style of thinking helps characterize Momoko as someone who thinks very carefully about her life, setting up her decision to return a year after the events of the novel.

“It’s embarrassing, but when I woke up from that dream in my room at the hospital, I started crying, and I cried so much I couldn’t believe it. I mean I knew it was just a dream. But the tears kept coming, one after another. In the end, I was sobbing.”

Once again, tears are used in Days at the Morisaki Bookshop to demonstrate intense emotions. This time, Momoko cries after dreaming about Satoru in the hospital after her procedure. Her dream causes her to feel intense emotion for Satoru, and influences her to return. Like in other instances, tears mark a turning point in a character’s life as they move from one phase to the next, with Momoko’s dream leading her to embrace Building Community to Combat Loneliness.

“After my uncle disappeared from view, I stood for a while in a daze looking up at the narrow band of sky visible through the gap between the buildings on the block. It was that same aqua-blue autumn sky—with little, dappled clouds drifting slowly across it like a school of fish.”

When Takako looks at the sky after convincing Satoru to chase after Momoko, she sees a familiar view. She looks at the sky and recognizes the autumn sky she saw during her stay at the bookshop. Takako can feel how different she is under that same sky, and how the roles have reversed, with her now pushing Satoru to be more open and resolve lingering romantic feelings.

“That night I noticed the book after you’d left. I asked the owner if he would give it to you the next time you came in, but he said he didn’t know who you were. He claimed he’d never seen you before.”

When Takako returns to Saveur after her trip with Momoko, she and Wada reunite and Takako realizes that they may have a romantic future together, particularly because of the coffee shop owner. The man likes Takako and, to help her out, forces Wada to return the book himself, setting up another chance for them to connect. This demonstrates how Building Community to Combat Loneliness impacts Takako over the course of the novel. After an extended period of time with no friends or community, Takako now has people looking out for her and helping her, even when she doesn’t ask.