Each visit bittersweet as it brings love and comfort to the visitor but also a renewed sense of loss. Despite the perverse futility associated with the impossibility of change, the four guests choose to go back in time with the hope of reconnecting with something that was lost. The story is set in a cafe called Funiculi Funicula (after a famous Neopolitan song) with the ability to allow guests to travel to the past if they wish to relive a moment or visit a loved one with the knowledge that one can not change the present. Although the foundation of the book is based on a script written by Kawaguchi, it doesn’t detract from the gentle and reflective story-telling of the book - asking the reader to consider the fundamental question: what would you change if you could go back in time? However, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s poignant debut novel “Before the coffee gets cold” (first published in 2015 and translated to English in 2019) uses the familiar techniques of magic realism to introduce interesting characters and heart into the literary trope of time travel. From my experience, Japanese fiction tends to be quite serious and didactic with quirky or abstract undertones (think Murakami).
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