Before Your Memory Fades - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 This was a lovely, touching read, cleverly asking what we would do if we could go back in the past, yet not be able to change anything in the present?  In short vignettes, Kawaguchi introduces us to four individuals attempting to reconcile a hurt in their lives and the lives of their loved ones.  Each chapter is a surprise, a gentle unveiling of getting beyond that pain and moving on into the future.  This is the third book in the series.  

The setting is a coffee shop where one can go back to the past "before the coffee gets cold" in the cup poured for the time traveler.  Throughout the story, the characters are deciding how they would respond to the dichotomies posed in the book "What if the world was ending tomorrow? One Hundred Questions".  Each question asks the reader to make a decision about a situation with the end of the world in mind, forcing an answer we would likely avoid in real life. 

My mind has a problem keeping track of characters with unfamiliar names, in this case Japanese ones, but I caught on eventually.  I don't know if I'll read the other books but I enjoyed discovering this one.

Quotes:

"Burnout syndrome is considered by some to be a type of depression.  But while depression begins with the stress of fatigue or a large shock like an accident or a loss, burnout syndrome originates with the thought that all of one's efforts are in vain.  It strikes right at a time when life is not turning out as expected, despite devotedly pouring one's soul into a certain activity, usually one's work."

"Inside every person is an inherent capability to make it through any kind of difficulty.  Everyone has that energy.  But sometimes when that energy flows via our anxiety valve, the flow can be restricted.  The greater that anxiety, the greater the strength needed to open the valve and release the energy.  That strength is empowered by hope.  You could say that hope is the power to believe in the future."

"Something I strongly believe is that we mustn't allow the death of a person to be the cause of unhappiness.  The reason for that is simple: if we let everyone who dies be a cause for unhappiness, that would mean people are being born to become unhappy.  But the opposite in fact is true.  People are always born for the sake of happiness."

Published: 2022   Read: December 2022  Genre: Fiction, Philosophy