What Are You Looking For?

Borrowed a physical copy of Michiko Aoyama's 'What You Are Looking For Is In The Library' (published in Japanese in 2020), 『お探し物は図書室まで』青山 美智子 (著) from the library. (Reviews here, here and here.)

Translated by Alison Watts and published in English in 2023, the five characters in this book are loosely connected through a community library in Tokyo and its enigmatic librarian, and had their lives changed after reading a book recommended by her. It's a very regular storyline, yet the stories are pretty cool, and often, the book chosen is rather unexpected. 

Besides meeting rooms and a kitchen, the Hatori Community House has a fully stocked library and a full-time librarian. When you walk into the library, Mrs Sayuri Komachi the librarian, asks you a simple question, "What are you looking for?" Mrs Komachi also does felting in her spare time, at the library desk. She is no ordinary librarian, it seems.

'If my choice happened to strike a chord with you, I'm delighted to hear it.' She looks at me straight in the eye. 'But you have to understand that even if I have some inkling about a person, I don't tell them anything. People find meaning in the bonus gifts for themselves. It's the same with books. Readers make their own personal connections to words, irrespective of the writer's intentions, and each reader gains something unique.'

We see a rotating cast of five characters of different ages, and learn of their stories and different trajectories in life. These people are at crossroads in their lives. They might be feeling a little unfocused or lost. They come to the library. A few words from forty-seven-year-old Mrs Komachi the librarian, a book recommendation and a cute felted gift set them on the 'right path' — a frying pan, cat, a globe, a plane, and a crab.

Each story holds an illustration of the protagonist as well, so we can imagine how they might be before reading the book recommended by Mrs Komachi and deciding what to do with their lives to get out of a rut. The story opens with one young lady Tomoka Fujiki and her struggles.  

Tomoka Fujiki, 21 - She left her small town to study in Tokyo. After graduation from junior college, she now works in the womenswear department of a mall called Eden as a sales assistant. She feels unfulfilled and directionless about her life, but refuses to go back to her rural hometown. 

After signing up for computer classes at Hatori Community House and borrowing a few books from the library, which included a picture book about two field mice Guri and Gura finding food and making castella cake, and a gift (a felted frying pan) from Mrs Komachi she was determined to do same. She realized that she treats herself carelessly and "I too have not been living a decent life." Somehow she started to turn her life around.

It's time for computer class, so I head for the meeting room. I think that I might be just entering the forest. I still don't know what I want to do, or what I can do. What I do know is that there's no need to panic, or do more than I can cope with right now. For the time being, I plan to simply get my life in order and learn some new skills, choosing from what's available. I'll prepare myself, like Guri and Gura gathering chestnuts in the forest. 

Because I never know when I might find my own giant egg. 

Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Each character is wrought with care, as are their blossoming realizations about how their futures can develop despite their worries." Then we delve into the other characters and hear their  different stories,

Ryo Urase, 35 - He has a stable job in the accounts department of a furniture manufacturer. He dreams of setting up his own business by opening an antiques shop but he is totally terrified of the uncertainty of such a venture. His girlfriend Hina is a decade younger, but a little more savvy than he is. He wasn't going to do the 'one day' thing anymore. Let that 'one day' be 'tomorrow', 'next week', with a time frame that's actually going to happen. 

Natsumi Sakitani, 40 - an upstart at a trendy magazine slated to be Editor-in-Chief, feels sidelined after returning early from maternity leave after having found herself unexpectedly pregnant at 37. She returned from maternity leave and was forced to transferred to Information Resources, passed over for all promotions and no longer an editor. After three years, felt in a limbo. She wasn't fully comfortable with motherhood, her husband's 'lack of help' and career stagnation. It's the classic stereotypical gender roles in Japanese society which thankfully saw an opening for Natsumi in a new job and office environment that welcomes children and is supportive of mothers and their work.

Hiroya Suda, 30 - She's unemployed and living with her mother. She's grown up with old-school manga, knows all of them, and after going to design school, she wants to be a manga illustrator but she can't find a job doing that. She's also too anxiety-prone to hold down a permanent job. By chance, she stuck it out at a temporary cleaner's job at the Hatori Community House, and also does illustrations for the various events' posters and such. Then, she got a one-year contract to stay on to draw!

Different stories will resonate with different readers and at each stage of life. Which one resonated with me? Erm. None at this point in my life, really. I make an effort to do what makes me happy and fulfilled in this life. I make it point to never bend over backwards to make anyone else happy either. If I have to choose, I'll take this story of Masao Gonno. 

Masao Gonno, 65 - He's newly retired after 42 years of work at Kuremiyado (which made Honeydome cookies). His entire identity up to retirement, was as an employee of Kuremiyado. He has no hobbies or social connections and he's so distant from his 56-year-old wife Yoriko and daughter Chie (who doesn't live at home anymore), and doesn't know how to rebuild or build relationships. I rolled eyes when it was said that he didn't know how to do housework or bring in the laundry.

Yoriko is a systems engineer who was fired from her permanent job at the age of 40 not for the lack of ability but for the fact that she wouldn't be affected by the situation since she had a husband to support her. She was upset, and after thinking it over, she decided she would go at this job as a freelance engineer, and that has worked out well for her ever since. 

One little vignette in there drove me to peals of laughter. At Eden mall, the couple had gone to the food hall to get dinner. He saw a plastic container full of live river crabs, and then he read the signboard above that suggested that these crabs could be kept as pets too. 

It is natural in the food section to expect that crabs would be sold for consumption, but when suddenly presented with the option of keeping them as a pet instead, I don't know what to think.

Be eaten or be loved. 

A lump forms in my throat at the thought of the utterly different fates awaiting these crabs huddled together in the plastic box. 

When I worked for the company, what kind of crab was I, I wonder? While still inside the box I was raised to be a manger, but ultimately wasn't my fate to be eaten up by the organization?

I do like how this story panned out for Masao. His choices affect his happiness and ultimately improves his relationships with his wife and daughter and brought them all closer together, and stronger as individuals. If this is what retirement looks out, that's a wonderful thing for many families.

It's quite brilliant in the author's choice of a book and the storyline to 'match' to the characters who read them. They seem wildly incongruent. But they seem to pan out for the protagonists. I love it that at the end of the book, the author included a little list of all the books mentioned in these stories that we could check out in the library.