Hiromi Kawakami

From the best-selling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Nakano Thrift Shop, an irresistible new novel about an elusive ladies' man and the women who have loved him. Who loves Mr Nishino? Minami is the daughter of Mr Nishino's true love. Bereaved Shiori is tempted by his unscrupulous advances. His colleague Manami should know better. His conquest Reiko treasures her independence above all else. Friends Tama and Subaru find themselves playing Nishino's game, but Eriko loves her cat more. Sayuri is older, Aichan is much younger, and Misono has her own conquests to make. For each of them, an encounter with elusive womaniser Mr Nishino will bring torments, desires and delights.

The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino

Who loves Mr Nishino? Minami is the daughter of Mr Nishino's true love. Bereaved Shiori is tempted by his unscrupulous advances. His colleague Manami should know better. His conquest Reiko treasures her independence above all else. Friends Tama and Subaru find themselves playing Nishino's game, but Eriko loves her cat more. Sayuri is older, Aichan is much younger, and Misono has her own conquests to make. For each of them, an encounter with elusive womaniser Mr Nishino will bring torments, desires and delights.

The Politics of Feeling

** spoiler alert **
           After falling in love with Hiromi Kawakami's utterly spellbinding and quirky novels 'The Nakano Thrift Shop' and 'Strange Weather in Tokyo', I had very high hopes for 'The Ten Loves of Mr. Nishino' after I plucked it off the library shelf, hardly believing my luck considering its criminal shortage of slice-of-life Japanese novelists. I'm sorry to say, my expectations were completely dashed; this text is disappointing, unsatisfactory, and when I finished the book, I actually asked aloud, "Is that it?". Warning: up ahead, spoilers!! You've been warned folks, now on to tear this novel apart...

As the title suggests, the book follows the love life of a certain Yukihiko Nishino, a promiscuous gentleman with serious commitment issues and a weird relationship with his sister. The book is divided into ten accounts, from the perspective of women who dated Mr Nishino at different points of his life. I think this is the book's critical pitfall; too many women, and not enough to distinguish them from one another. At some points, I flicked back and forth wondering whether some of the accounts were by the same woman; with the exception of a few, the tone and language were virtually the same, and the 'reason' why they broke their relationships off with Nishino were verbatim, from chapter to chapter, as if they'd all been swapping notes in a Nishino-ex-girlfriend Club. It seems like an amateurish mistake to make for an author of Kawakami's stature, and I wonder whether it would have benefited the book to have featured fewer women, from more disparate points of Nishino's life. This novel made the women seem like projections of Nishino (who seemed like a pretty average, if not awful and totally creepy, guy), trying to "fix" him. I think the solution would have been to make the novel more concise, having fewer loves - after all, we get the picture that Nishino is a lady's man, so there was no need to hear from ten of them - and maybe flesh out the plot again. Although we do find out why Nishino is so wishy washy, by the time we got it to it, I was so worn out from the stupidity and malleability of some of the women that Nishino's core just seemed...bleh. The book lacked Kawakami's characteristic charm, which is a shame considering the subject matter was ripe for a really interesting and moving book.

I'm not giving this novel one star because a few chapters I actually enjoyed and the imagery was so vividly beautiful in parts that I did feel stirred. Those scarce moments aside, I felt really let down by this book, and hope that it is just a blip in Kawakami's bibliography.

The story of an enigmatic man through the voices of ten remarkable women who have loved him at one point in their lives. Each woman has succumbed, even if only for an hour, to that seductive, imprudent, and furtively feline man who drifted so naturally into their lives. Still clinging to the vivid memory of his warm breath and his indecipherable sentences, ten women tell their stories as they attempt to recreate the image of the unfathomable Nishino. Like a modern Decameron, this humorous, sensual, and touching novel by one of Japan’s best-selling and most beloved writers is a powerful and embracing portrait of the human comedy in ten voices. Driven by desires that are at once unique and common, the women in this book are modern, familiar to us, and still mysterious. A little like Nishino himself . . . Winner 2020 Pen Translation Prize Praise for The Ten Loves of Nishino “If you like Haruki Murakami and Yoko Ogawa, it’s a safe bet that you’ll love The Ten Loves of Nishino.” —DozoDomo (France) “Agile, inventive fiction.” —Booklist “An intriguing portrayal of romantic attachment.” —The New Yorker “The women in this collection are vibrant, lusty, and clearly the agents of their own love lives . . . . Kawakami's novel treats its feminist themes with a light hand but still slyly lands its points.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Ten Loves of Nishino

chateau

i can relate to be one of the nishino's "client" in this book and that way i suppose could drifting my anger and other inexplicable feeling over a guy like nishino less. japanese literature always bring this kind of atmosphere that mixed up in a good way. i love it in this book.

Following The Nakano Thrift Shop, Hiromi Kawakami's breakout success, comes a new novel full of charm, subtlety, and style by an author whose readership in Japan numbers in the millions. "If you like Haruki Murakami and Yoko Ogawa, it's a safe bet that you'll love The Ten Loves of Nishino."--DozoDomo (France) Each woman in this book has succumbed, even if only for an hour, to that seductive, imprudent, and furtively feline man who managed to glide so naturally into their lives. But who really was Mr. Nishino? Still clinging to the vivid memory of his warm breath, his indecipherable silences, and his nonchalance, ten women who have loved him tell their stories as they attempt to recreate the image of the unfathomable and seemingly unattainable Mr. Nishino. Through accounts that are full of humor, intelligence, and the bittersweet joys of love, these women evoke Nishino's image but reveal themselves. Each perspective is both captivating and sensual, droll but important, and each is a variation on themes of love and identity.

Jade Flynn

Read for my 'Exceeds Expectations' N.E.W.T in Arithmany 2019 #magicalreadathon. Prompt - Read a standalone. Career choice - Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries Worker. This is the third Kawakami novel I've read along with Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Nanako Thrift Shop and I'm really disappointed to say this was my least favourite of the three. With that being said though will I pre-order whichever one of her novels is translated next? Definitely.

The Ten Loves of Mr. Nishino

ooaiuo

Over the course of his life, Mr Nishino falls hopelessly in love again and again. One woman is a colleague, another a chance encounter; one is the girlfriend of a classmate, another the best friend of Nishino's latest conquest. Some are entranced by Nishino, others care more for their freedom, their children (or their cats). As we come to learn of the torments, desires and delights of each woman, a portrait emerges of a complicated man whose great capacity for love may well be the cause of his downfall.