Hiromi Kawakami

Record of a brief night was first published as Hebi o Fumu in 1996.

Record of a Night Too Brief

Naomi

i love hamtaro

jess

This book makes me ponder for quite a long time. What is this short stories about? Why do I feel like it is expressing lessons but unable for myself to fully grasp and reconstruct them into sentences? This book is covered in three short stories, Record of a Night Too Brief, Missing, and A Snake Stepped On. But by far the best story in this collection is “A Snake Stepped On”. This book is full of coded and enigma messages needed for us to think and ponder, but the larger picture seemingly clear, Have we not lost sight of the strange manner in which we conduct all our intimate relationships? Is it really any more strange to meet a complete stranger, coil our bodies around them and soon after invite them to live with us? Do we not all live with fundamentally mysterious human beings, whose secrets and capacity to transform themselves — and ourselves — we have become blind to? The snakes represent in the third story might be anything. Comformists for people seek to escape their longing for one stable love, or a living object that wakes the real human comformists out of their bubble. Anyhow, Kawakami is able to give entertaining takes — filled with dream-like insight — on the peculiarities of modern life, utilizing the folklore concepts of being spirited away and snake-human transformations.

Jeremy Wang

i’m baffled. murakami^2 NICE 

ok in all seriousness quite enjoyed, kawakami is excellent at evoking very VERY specific emotions and sensations using entirely absurd stories. kinda preferred the longer shorts at the end over the two to three pagers at the beginning, but so be it. really pretty book that deserves the shroom-y cover

charisa

Stef

The journey to finish this book maybe same as the story itself, full of bizzare and weird thing. I feel like watching some ghibli movies, whenever read one by one of this collection of short story. 

My personal favorite, A snake stepped on. It's kinda remind me of Siluman Ular in Indonesian myth with weird feeling but making me curious about the ending. 


  "What was that itch on my back? I wondered. And then I realized that it was the night—the night was nibbling into me."

i loved the first story but the weird brother/sister kissing n shit in the second ruined it for me after that .. also idk the snake story was weird n uncomfy

Toni Turner

Overall, I am too dumb to get this. 
The first half was cool but very hard to follow for my little brain, then the second bit was very cool until it got incest-y, and the last story was interesting but the end kind of just...happened?

Yeah idk. 
It was really gross at parts and fun to read though!

** spoiler alert **
           i like weird but maybe this wasn't exactly my type of weird

record of a night too brief 4/5
missing 1/5
a snake stepped on 4/5

Stefie 

4.5 stars. 

I loved this book. 
Full review is up on my blog :)
https://stefiereads.com/2018/04/02/re... 

See you there!

Record of a Night Too Brief

Reviews