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‘Would you consider a relationship with me, based on a premise of love?�

‘That’s how love is,� she used to say. ‘If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would a plant � feed it, protect it from the elements � you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn’t true, then it’s best to just let it wither on the vine.�

An absolutely lovely book. It's charming in the way I like charming to be, I absolutely love the professor.

It's a series of vignettes about a woman in her forties who meets her old Japanese lit teacher and they reconnect. The vignettes show them in various situations, on trips ,on dates, during arguments. Everyday life. Two lonely souls, who feel stranded outside normal flow of time, caught up in their own introspective lives and fears, find a connection, understanding and ultimately intimacy. It's full of poetry and lyricism, though I felt the translation was a little iffy in places. Still, the overall feel was exactly the sort of thing that speaks to me.

Old-fashioned character and a younger career woman, seemingly so different, but sharing implicit understanding where it matters. They do things their own way, there are moments I chuckled at how awkward they could be and I loved that.

The story has that "mono no aware" feel to me that I enjoy. It's sweet and sad, heartwarming and wistful. It gives me a sense of peace and ultimately brings a smile to my face, even if partings are inevitable. The people we meet in our lives always give us something previous, I think. And this book is in this vein for me.

There's a lovely companion story, Parade, that imagines a day in their life because "The world that exists behind a story is never fully known, not even to the author".

Definitely not my last by the author.