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Record of a Night Too Brief
The Akutagawa Prize-winning stories from the author of Strange Weather in Tokyo.
In these three haunting and lyrical stories, three young women experience unsettling loss and romance.
In a dreamlike adventure, one woman travels through an apparently unending night with a porcelain girlfriend, mist-monsters and villainous monkeys; a sister mourns her invisible brother whom only she can still see, while the rest of her family welcome his would-be wife into their home; and an accident with a snake leads a shop girl to discover the snake-families everyone else seems to be concealing.
Sensual, yearning, and filled with the tricks of memory and grief, Record of a Night Too Brief is an atmospheric trio of unforgettable tales.
In these three haunting and lyrical stories, three young women experience unsettling loss and romance.
In a dreamlike adventure, one woman travels through an apparently unending night with a porcelain girlfriend, mist-monsters and villainous monkeys; a sister mourns her invisible brother whom only she can still see, while the rest of her family welcome his would-be wife into their home; and an accident with a snake leads a shop girl to discover the snake-families everyone else seems to be concealing.
Sensual, yearning, and filled with the tricks of memory and grief, Record of a Night Too Brief is an atmospheric trio of unforgettable tales.
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
272 people are currently reading
8148 people want to read
About the author
Hiromi Kawakami
111 books3,562 followersKawakami Hiromi (川上弘美 Kawakami Hiromi) born April 1, 1958, is a Japanese writer known for her off-beat fiction.
Born in Tokyo, Kawakami graduated from Ochanomizu Women's College in 1980. She made her debut as "Yamada Hiromi" in NW-SF No. 16, edited by Yamano Koichi and Yamada Kazuko, in 1980 with the story So-shimoku ("Diptera"), and also helped edit some early issues of NW-SF in the 1970s. She reinvented herself as a writer and wrote her first book, a collection of short stories entitled God (Kamisama) published in 1994. Her novel The Teacher's Briefcase (Sensei no kaban) is a love story between a woman in her thirties and a man in his sixties. She is also known as a literary critic and a provocative essayist.
(from Wikipedia)
Born in Tokyo, Kawakami graduated from Ochanomizu Women's College in 1980. She made her debut as "Yamada Hiromi" in NW-SF No. 16, edited by Yamano Koichi and Yamada Kazuko, in 1980 with the story So-shimoku ("Diptera"), and also helped edit some early issues of NW-SF in the 1970s. She reinvented herself as a writer and wrote her first book, a collection of short stories entitled God (Kamisama) published in 1994. Her novel The Teacher's Briefcase (Sensei no kaban) is a love story between a woman in her thirties and a man in his sixties. She is also known as a literary critic and a provocative essayist.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 586 reviews
February 1, 2025
Need someone to match my freak like this. (We only communicate through a slightly horrifying, surreal dreamscape.)
October 2, 2023
First impression: Alice in Wonderland on crack
A few dreams later: Not sure if this terminology would be right, but this collection of three short stories or novelettes - Record of a Night Too Brief - is one of the most surreal pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. Magical realism of the hinges.
Missing narrates a story about a family where things and people keep on disappearing. The narrator, a young woman, is grieving her older brother’s disappearance. This older brother is engaged to a neighbour through an old-fashioned matchmaker, but because he is no longer there, he is conveniently replaced by his younger brother. Incredulous at how easily her family forgets about the older brother’s disappearance and even his existence, the narrator is the only one who keeps on seeing him. Despite the childishness of this first person narrative, I found some dispiriting undertones of overprotection, manipulation and possible grooming. Maybe even if I wasn’t exactly blown away by this story, I thought Kawakami’s mocking of traditions, rules and conventions was quite sharp.
My favourite piece - A Snake Stepped On - is about a young woman called Sanada san who steps on a snake on her way to work. The snake transforms into a woman of about 50 years old and moves in with the protagonist, cooking her favourite food, drinking beer and claiming to be her mother, while Sanada san’s parents are alive and well. Despite some initial discomfort, Sanada san feels there are no walls in communication with her snake-mother as opposed to other people. The snake-woman starts to nibble at Sanada san’s consciousness and tries to convince her to come to live into the world of snakes, where it is warm and there is no, no harm at all. Soon Sanada san discovers that there are other snakes living among us. And even birds. Will Sanada san join the world of snakes? Why do all those snakes and birds happen to be women?
The last story in the Japanese edition and the first in the English one, Record of a Night Too Brief reads as a diary of loosely connected dreams. There is an intriguing motif which runs through it - a woman in the night. Unfortunately, I rushed through this story as I found it too random and opaque. Better call on Freud or Jung to analyze it.
There are many folklore elements related to Japanese mythology, for instance yokai, who, by the way, are not demons, but rather spirits, such as yuki onna and kuda kitsune, intriguingly intertwined with the mundane. Animism is quite common in Japanese mythology and religions such as Shinto. Many people who aren’t even religious hold onto a faith in spiritual beings and follow traditions because their ancestors did so. The phenomenon of kamikakushi or spirited away (the same as in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away) disappearing for a certain time or forever (even though this is different from dying) echoes through Missing and A Snake Stepped On. While it can be interesting to pin down those elements, I don’t think it’s paramount to know or notice them in order to enjoy these stories.
What is hilariously bizarre is not what is happening to the characters, but the extraordinary way they react to the events without even realizing it: “Gah, I just stepped on a snake, but nevermind, I’ll just take it home”.
I think this collection may appeal to a very specific niche audience, but also to someone who would like to get out of their comfort zone. These stories can be read in multiple ways and I believe this collection can be a good choice for a book club.
While there may be some differences in tone, this collection is masterfully translated into English and beautifully written in Japanese.
3.5/5
Edit: I must confess I’ve been struggling with rating some books and this collection in particular. So I gave it another half star after a change of heart. Maybe one day I’ll follow the example of some wise people here on Goodreads and bale on the rating system altogether.
Photography by Masao Yamamoto
A few dreams later: Not sure if this terminology would be right, but this collection of three short stories or novelettes - Record of a Night Too Brief - is one of the most surreal pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. Magical realism of the hinges.
Missing narrates a story about a family where things and people keep on disappearing. The narrator, a young woman, is grieving her older brother’s disappearance. This older brother is engaged to a neighbour through an old-fashioned matchmaker, but because he is no longer there, he is conveniently replaced by his younger brother. Incredulous at how easily her family forgets about the older brother’s disappearance and even his existence, the narrator is the only one who keeps on seeing him. Despite the childishness of this first person narrative, I found some dispiriting undertones of overprotection, manipulation and possible grooming. Maybe even if I wasn’t exactly blown away by this story, I thought Kawakami’s mocking of traditions, rules and conventions was quite sharp.
My favourite piece - A Snake Stepped On - is about a young woman called Sanada san who steps on a snake on her way to work. The snake transforms into a woman of about 50 years old and moves in with the protagonist, cooking her favourite food, drinking beer and claiming to be her mother, while Sanada san’s parents are alive and well. Despite some initial discomfort, Sanada san feels there are no walls in communication with her snake-mother as opposed to other people. The snake-woman starts to nibble at Sanada san’s consciousness and tries to convince her to come to live into the world of snakes, where it is warm and there is no, no harm at all. Soon Sanada san discovers that there are other snakes living among us. And even birds. Will Sanada san join the world of snakes? Why do all those snakes and birds happen to be women?
The last story in the Japanese edition and the first in the English one, Record of a Night Too Brief reads as a diary of loosely connected dreams. There is an intriguing motif which runs through it - a woman in the night. Unfortunately, I rushed through this story as I found it too random and opaque. Better call on Freud or Jung to analyze it.
There are many folklore elements related to Japanese mythology, for instance yokai, who, by the way, are not demons, but rather spirits, such as yuki onna and kuda kitsune, intriguingly intertwined with the mundane. Animism is quite common in Japanese mythology and religions such as Shinto. Many people who aren’t even religious hold onto a faith in spiritual beings and follow traditions because their ancestors did so. The phenomenon of kamikakushi or spirited away (the same as in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away) disappearing for a certain time or forever (even though this is different from dying) echoes through Missing and A Snake Stepped On. While it can be interesting to pin down those elements, I don’t think it’s paramount to know or notice them in order to enjoy these stories.
What is hilariously bizarre is not what is happening to the characters, but the extraordinary way they react to the events without even realizing it: “Gah, I just stepped on a snake, but nevermind, I’ll just take it home”.
I think this collection may appeal to a very specific niche audience, but also to someone who would like to get out of their comfort zone. These stories can be read in multiple ways and I believe this collection can be a good choice for a book club.
While there may be some differences in tone, this collection is masterfully translated into English and beautifully written in Japanese.
3.5/5
Edit: I must confess I’ve been struggling with rating some books and this collection in particular. So I gave it another half star after a change of heart. Maybe one day I’ll follow the example of some wise people here on Goodreads and bale on the rating system altogether.
Photography by Masao Yamamoto
July 1, 2017
'Record of a Night Too Brief', the first story in a collection of three, can only be described as a series of dreamlike events. It opens with the narrator realising that 'the night was nibbling into me'; she starts running and immediately transforms into a horse, with onlookers clapping and exclaiming 'the Night Horse has arrived'. She's later forced to eat huge quantities of strange food by 'an array of gentlemen', chased by a talking monkey, quizzed by a crowd of demanding kiwis, and almost turned into a fish by a petulant child. Some bits had me rolling around in hysterics, particularly the Weird Twitter-esque episode in which the narrator meets a man with moles stuffed down his jacket (he is, in fact, a mole himself, but trying to conceal the fact); asked what she 'feels is the most important quality in a man', the narrator replies 'that he's loaded. Loaded with moles...', causing the moles to explode out of his jacket 'in a continuous stream'.
As these bizarre vignettes play out, a fractured narrative is unfolding, concurrently, in alternate chapters. These involve the narrator's relationship with a girl, first introduced as someone she encounters in a fast-moving crowd. Different versions of the same scene then repeat, in which the narrator and the girl are fashioned out of one another but also consume each other. The narrator is always searching for the girl, but finds many versions of her are not quite up to scratch. They could be lovers, or the same person. Similarly, in the more nonsensical interludes, the narrator often seems to become some animal or other, then segues back into being human without appearing to find anything unusual about the situation.
In the second story, 'Missing', the narrator's brother disappears – literally. Referring to him as 'brother no. 1', she explains that 'disappearances happen all the time in my family', and that it's likely he is still in the family home; it's just that he's incorporeal. Again, people are interchangeable: since brother no. 1 was on the verge of being married when he disappeared, brother no. 2 simply takes his place. A number of strange traditions define the behaviour of the families in this story, for example reverence of a large ceramic jar which is said to contain the spirit of an ancestor, the idea that a family household must (at whatever cost) be made up of five people, and the keeping of magical pipe foxes as pets. It can be read as a satire of tradition – even more effective in translation, when the reader is less likely to be intimately familiar with the culture and religion the author is depicting. (Not to mention the fact that, compared to some of the things that happen in these stories, the traditions seem pretty reasonable.)
Finally, there's 'A Snake Stepped On'. A young woman, known only as Miss Sanada, treads on a snake on her way to work. With that, the snake transforms into a woman in her mid-fifties, and tells her: 'you stepped on me, so now I don't have a choice'. The snake-woman then moves into Miss Sanada's apartment, a development the protagonist decides to treat as though it's perfectly normal. The snake claims, nonsensically, to be Miss Sanada's mother. It turns out having a snake-person living in your house is fairly common, and they'll keep trying to tempt you over to the 'snake world'. They're not the only ones: Miss Sanada's great-grandfather was seduced away from his family by a bird-woman. 'I'd heard this story from my mother when I was a student in middle school,' the narrator ruminates, 'and I remember thinking it was a very odd fable. It didn't seem to have any point to it.'
Is that perhaps something that could be said of these absurd, fantastical stories, too? They confound and disorientate because they have no anchor in reality at all. 'Record of a Night Too Brief' is a slippery hallucination from start to finish, and while the other two begin more innocuously, they soon descend (ascend?) into surrealism. They have other things in common: the narrator is always – as far as we can tell – a young woman, and each tale features uncomfortable scenes that blur the lines between familial and sexual intimacy. There's a persistent preoccupation with people shrinking or growing larger, in a literal, Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole sort of way; and, of course, the animal-human transformations.
If you think you can keep a hold on a narrative through its more ordinary features, you'll soon be proved wrong, as they will invariably be usurped. The stories assume you, like the characters, will take bizarre developments in your stride. Along with Camilla Grudova's The Doll's Alphabet, Record of a Night Too Brief is one of the most peculiar – yet entertaining – books I've read in recent times.
I received a review copy of Record of a Night Too Brief from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
As these bizarre vignettes play out, a fractured narrative is unfolding, concurrently, in alternate chapters. These involve the narrator's relationship with a girl, first introduced as someone she encounters in a fast-moving crowd. Different versions of the same scene then repeat, in which the narrator and the girl are fashioned out of one another but also consume each other. The narrator is always searching for the girl, but finds many versions of her are not quite up to scratch. They could be lovers, or the same person. Similarly, in the more nonsensical interludes, the narrator often seems to become some animal or other, then segues back into being human without appearing to find anything unusual about the situation.
In the second story, 'Missing', the narrator's brother disappears – literally. Referring to him as 'brother no. 1', she explains that 'disappearances happen all the time in my family', and that it's likely he is still in the family home; it's just that he's incorporeal. Again, people are interchangeable: since brother no. 1 was on the verge of being married when he disappeared, brother no. 2 simply takes his place. A number of strange traditions define the behaviour of the families in this story, for example reverence of a large ceramic jar which is said to contain the spirit of an ancestor, the idea that a family household must (at whatever cost) be made up of five people, and the keeping of magical pipe foxes as pets. It can be read as a satire of tradition – even more effective in translation, when the reader is less likely to be intimately familiar with the culture and religion the author is depicting. (Not to mention the fact that, compared to some of the things that happen in these stories, the traditions seem pretty reasonable.)
Finally, there's 'A Snake Stepped On'. A young woman, known only as Miss Sanada, treads on a snake on her way to work. With that, the snake transforms into a woman in her mid-fifties, and tells her: 'you stepped on me, so now I don't have a choice'. The snake-woman then moves into Miss Sanada's apartment, a development the protagonist decides to treat as though it's perfectly normal. The snake claims, nonsensically, to be Miss Sanada's mother. It turns out having a snake-person living in your house is fairly common, and they'll keep trying to tempt you over to the 'snake world'. They're not the only ones: Miss Sanada's great-grandfather was seduced away from his family by a bird-woman. 'I'd heard this story from my mother when I was a student in middle school,' the narrator ruminates, 'and I remember thinking it was a very odd fable. It didn't seem to have any point to it.'
Is that perhaps something that could be said of these absurd, fantastical stories, too? They confound and disorientate because they have no anchor in reality at all. 'Record of a Night Too Brief' is a slippery hallucination from start to finish, and while the other two begin more innocuously, they soon descend (ascend?) into surrealism. They have other things in common: the narrator is always – as far as we can tell – a young woman, and each tale features uncomfortable scenes that blur the lines between familial and sexual intimacy. There's a persistent preoccupation with people shrinking or growing larger, in a literal, Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole sort of way; and, of course, the animal-human transformations.
If you think you can keep a hold on a narrative through its more ordinary features, you'll soon be proved wrong, as they will invariably be usurped. The stories assume you, like the characters, will take bizarre developments in your stride. Along with Camilla Grudova's The Doll's Alphabet, Record of a Night Too Brief is one of the most peculiar – yet entertaining – books I've read in recent times.
I received a review copy of Record of a Night Too Brief from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
August 12, 2023
To było tak dziwnie piękne..
June 5, 2021
Record of a life too Brief -
(Japanese Novellas Book 3),
by Hiromi Kawakami
The Akutagawa Prize-winning stories - novella series - of contemporary Japanese writing.
Three young women experience an unsettling loss and romance.
….In a dream-like adventure, one woman travels with a porcelain girlfriend, mist monsters, and villainous monkeys.
….A sister mourns her invisible brother home that only she can see.
….An accident with a snake leaves a shop girl to discover the snake families everyone else seems to be concealing.
Three tales > whimsical, dream sequences, surreal, sensual, chaotic atmospheric….
talking animals….
all sounds weird…..
yet….the writing kept me engaged.
“The girl from grew incredibly small, about 1 cm wide. I no longer knew whether I was kissing her or simply enjoying the afterglow of the kiss, but now the girls breath was filled with the overpowering scent of Louis, and the sound of her breathing, like the beating of butterfly wings, grew loud, almost annoyingly loud”.
Symbolism runs through these stories ( always reflective thought is involved)
connection to the physical world — to each other: man, nature, animal ….
loneliness, loss, grief, solitude, a little romance, warmth, humor and love.
(Japanese Novellas Book 3),
by Hiromi Kawakami
The Akutagawa Prize-winning stories - novella series - of contemporary Japanese writing.
Three young women experience an unsettling loss and romance.
….In a dream-like adventure, one woman travels with a porcelain girlfriend, mist monsters, and villainous monkeys.
….A sister mourns her invisible brother home that only she can see.
….An accident with a snake leaves a shop girl to discover the snake families everyone else seems to be concealing.
Three tales > whimsical, dream sequences, surreal, sensual, chaotic atmospheric….
talking animals….
all sounds weird…..
yet….the writing kept me engaged.
“The girl from grew incredibly small, about 1 cm wide. I no longer knew whether I was kissing her or simply enjoying the afterglow of the kiss, but now the girls breath was filled with the overpowering scent of Louis, and the sound of her breathing, like the beating of butterfly wings, grew loud, almost annoyingly loud”.
Symbolism runs through these stories ( always reflective thought is involved)
connection to the physical world — to each other: man, nature, animal ….
loneliness, loss, grief, solitude, a little romance, warmth, humor and love.
July 27, 2025
Published in English as Record of a Night Too Brief.
This was a collection of three very bizarre short stories, with a heavy dose of paranormal and horror elements.
Once I find a good slice of life story I have a tendency of going on this quest to gather everything their author has ever published... only to end up taking ages to read them. What if they're a one hit wonder? What if they're so good I'll be ruined for other authors? So I might as well preemptively prepare myself mentally, but also maybe stock up on a more varied "reading diet".
Although this volume has supposedly won a prestigious award, I can't help but feel as if it's a highly experimental one. And as with any experiment, some of it is great, some of it intriguing enough to let faults pass, but quite a bit is just plain bizarre and incomprehensible. Or so the theory goes at least.
In practice, A Snake Stepped On brought to mind some of the more intriguing moralistic Chinese fairy tales I'd read as a child, where people would (unwittingly?) wed all manner of magical creatures without fully understanding the consequences.
Missing gave off a similar vibe, but seemed to have overshot its mark, by keeping the moralistic feel, but muddling the actual moral somewhere along the line.
And finally there's Record of a Night Too Brief, which is in essence a collection of 19 very short, unrelated(?) fantastical/paranormal stories, which just meandered on and on. I can't say I've liked them much, though I did enjoy the one with the guy that kept trying to revive his dead girlfriend. *insert crazed cackling*
Score: 3/5 stars
As an exercise in creative writing... it's a choice, I guess.
I very much liked the writing style, not so much the content, though. I'm not avant-garde enough to see their award-worthy qualities, but then I've always been kind of a philistine when the art got too... artistic.
This was a collection of three very bizarre short stories, with a heavy dose of paranormal and horror elements.
Once I find a good slice of life story I have a tendency of going on this quest to gather everything their author has ever published... only to end up taking ages to read them. What if they're a one hit wonder? What if they're so good I'll be ruined for other authors? So I might as well preemptively prepare myself mentally, but also maybe stock up on a more varied "reading diet".
Although this volume has supposedly won a prestigious award, I can't help but feel as if it's a highly experimental one. And as with any experiment, some of it is great, some of it intriguing enough to let faults pass, but quite a bit is just plain bizarre and incomprehensible. Or so the theory goes at least.
In practice, A Snake Stepped On brought to mind some of the more intriguing moralistic Chinese fairy tales I'd read as a child, where people would (unwittingly?) wed all manner of magical creatures without fully understanding the consequences.
Missing gave off a similar vibe, but seemed to have overshot its mark, by keeping the moralistic feel, but muddling the actual moral somewhere along the line.
And finally there's Record of a Night Too Brief, which is in essence a collection of 19 very short, unrelated(?) fantastical/paranormal stories, which just meandered on and on. I can't say I've liked them much, though I did enjoy the one with the guy that kept trying to revive his dead girlfriend. *insert crazed cackling*
Score: 3/5 stars
As an exercise in creative writing... it's a choice, I guess.
I very much liked the writing style, not so much the content, though. I'm not avant-garde enough to see their award-worthy qualities, but then I've always been kind of a philistine when the art got too... artistic.
December 17, 2024
I'm a huge fan of Hiromi Kawakami but I'm afraid these short stories did nothing for me. I bought the book because it's classed as a classic of Japanese literature. It's the first one on the list I read that I've really not got along with.
I'm assuming that all the stories are fever dreams but they seem to be endless metaphors for something. However I never worked out what that something was.
I'm assuming that all the stories are fever dreams but they seem to be endless metaphors for something. However I never worked out what that something was.
April 17, 2017
The writing was lovely, but this was just too weird for me.
July 31, 2019
Surreal seems like an understated way of describing this little trio of dream-like short stories. They reminded me of the first time I went to Fantasia Film Festival, where they are no stranger to the bizarre and hallucinatory. I had never read Kawakami before, but the friend who recommended it does enjoy this sort of fever dreams.
A woman's metamorphosing through a night out, the disappearance of a brother leading to an awkward family situation, and a snake moving in with a simple shop girl: those stories cannot be summarized because they do not rely on any traditional narrative structure. They flirt with too much absurdity for that, but they do have a common theme of transformation.
I might re-read it one day: the images conjured by Kawakami were beautiful and fascinating, but I like my stories to be on slightly firmer ground than these.
3 intrigued stars. If you enjoyed "The Vegetarian" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), this might be your cup of weird tea.
A woman's metamorphosing through a night out, the disappearance of a brother leading to an awkward family situation, and a snake moving in with a simple shop girl: those stories cannot be summarized because they do not rely on any traditional narrative structure. They flirt with too much absurdity for that, but they do have a common theme of transformation.
I might re-read it one day: the images conjured by Kawakami were beautiful and fascinating, but I like my stories to be on slightly firmer ground than these.
3 intrigued stars. If you enjoyed "The Vegetarian" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), this might be your cup of weird tea.
April 23, 2021
The first story was an utter chore to get though. The second one started out better but then turned into a chore for the same reasons as the first one. The third one I was bored and indifferent to.
I really wanted to like these short stories as I loved Kawakami's other works.
I nearly gave up halfway through the second story but persevered simply due to the author.
I've given it as 2 instead of a 1 as Kawakami's writing style is still really good just the short stories lack in so much
I really wanted to like these short stories as I loved Kawakami's other works.
I nearly gave up halfway through the second story but persevered simply due to the author.
I've given it as 2 instead of a 1 as Kawakami's writing style is still really good just the short stories lack in so much
February 19, 2023
Realizm magiczny dla koneserów gatunku - surrealistyczny do granic, wymuszający stłumienie percepcji rzeczywistości do maksimum. Bardzo mi się podobały te opowiadania, szczególnie trafiło do mnie 'Znikają'. Uwielbiam Kawakami ❤️
December 27, 2020
Psychedelic and strange but pointless.
I love weird shit but I hate weird shit with no point.
Things and people shrink and grow, there are demonic talking animals, men in suits trying to force-feed, a somewhat lesbian romance featuring a manic-pixie-dream-girl whom the main character is obsessing over/chasing/destroying/trying to save/running from. Mushrooms and spores grow out of people’s necks and faces, nature turning violent, growing and growing over, kids killing things, screeching kiwis, birds picking out the eyes of strangers, random other madness. No point.
There were three stories, that first one was a punishment. I took it tho. I did. I thought it would change, it didn’t. The second was better, not great, but better. The last one was a milder version of the first.
It’s a trip because I liked Kawakami’s other book Strange Weather In Tokyo, but this one! Lord. This. was. not. it.
I love weird shit but I hate weird shit with no point.
Things and people shrink and grow, there are demonic talking animals, men in suits trying to force-feed, a somewhat lesbian romance featuring a manic-pixie-dream-girl whom the main character is obsessing over/chasing/destroying/trying to save/running from. Mushrooms and spores grow out of people’s necks and faces, nature turning violent, growing and growing over, kids killing things, screeching kiwis, birds picking out the eyes of strangers, random other madness. No point.
There were three stories, that first one was a punishment. I took it tho. I did. I thought it would change, it didn’t. The second was better, not great, but better. The last one was a milder version of the first.
It’s a trip because I liked Kawakami’s other book Strange Weather In Tokyo, but this one! Lord. This. was. not. it.
January 1, 2023
▫️ RECORD Of A Night Too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami, tr. Lucy North
This was my first by the prolific writer and widely translated Hiromi Kawakami. While the star ratings for this one on various sites are often pretty low/middling, I liked this one, seemingly more than the average reader.
Three stories - different in nature but with common fantastical threads. The titular "Record" story was an episodic dreamscape reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. ♠️♥️♣️♦️
My favorite of the group was "A Snake Stepped On" about a young shop girl who accidentally steps on a snake in the park, only to then find this snake is a shapeshifter who moves in with her and becomes her surrogate mother.
This was my first by the prolific writer and widely translated Hiromi Kawakami. While the star ratings for this one on various sites are often pretty low/middling, I liked this one, seemingly more than the average reader.
Three stories - different in nature but with common fantastical threads. The titular "Record" story was an episodic dreamscape reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. ♠️♥️♣️♦️
My favorite of the group was "A Snake Stepped On" about a young shop girl who accidentally steps on a snake in the park, only to then find this snake is a shapeshifter who moves in with her and becomes her surrogate mother.
September 27, 2023
„Nadepnęłam na węża“ i „Znikają“ były rewelacyjne, ale „Zapiski z pewnej niezwykłej nocy“ odleciały za daleko.
December 9, 2024
3* Așa se întâmplă când citesc proză scurtă, unele povestiri îmi plac mai mult decât altele, iar, per total nu pot sa acord mai mult de 3*.
August 1, 2017
Enjoyable and pleasantly confusing, exactly how I like my translated Japanese fiction.
September 3, 2023
Są we mnie dwa wilki. Jeden twierdzi, że czuł się w tych opowiadaniach jak w domu. Drugi mówi, że nic nie zrozumiał. Oba są zachwycone tą książką.
July 26, 2019
I loved the middle story but the other two were just okay.
January 5, 2025
Very trippy, the first story reminded me of Lenora Carrington and I liked it the most out of the collection. I’d like to read some of Kawakami’s novels to see what more of her more general fiction is like.
October 25, 2019
This book of one novella and two short stories is one of the most unique things I've ever read. Kawakami's writing is bizarre, surreal, incredibly imaginative, and full of startling imagery and prose. A lot if this, especially the first story, seems to be working if not solely then mostly on the level of metaphor. My problem was I didn't know what the metaphor was--the tenor is there, but what's the vehicle? That leaves the meaning just out of reach. Or, that means there is none. Which is even weirder than this book already is. Still, I'm not sorry I read this. I think I will remember it for quite some time. But I wish I didn't feel like I needed a degree in Jungian dream interpretation to understand it.
Read
March 23, 2025First short story: ⭐️⭐️
second: ⭐️
third: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
second: ⭐️
third: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
October 26, 2023
A friend in a bookstore here who reads in English is a big fan of modern Japanese literature and a fan of the author. Since she knows I also read in English, she asked me if I'd be interested in reading it. When I asked her about this book, she had a question mark on her face. I should have known...
From what I gather, this book is not much of a hit with fans because although it has many of the qualities of magical-realism, this reads like an outtake of a bad Murakami wannabe. There are three novellas here and I'll be kind and say they are fairly consistent. The first, which gives the title to the book is an acid dream of unconnected images tied by a VERY thin thread. It was torture to read. The second is a silly story about a disappearing brother. The third is about a girl who steps on a snake, which then claims to be her mother and moves in with her and is slightly less silly but is in no way an underachiever where silliness is concerned.
If you're bent on reading everything by the author you can get your hands on and if you think this type of writing is exactly what you like, be my guest. Dress up like your favorite manga character, preferably like a little girl since that might be the most appropriate here, and knock yourself out. If none of that applies to you, you'd probably be better off giving this a miss and reading one of your other thousand books from your TBR list. You'll be a happier person for it
From what I gather, this book is not much of a hit with fans because although it has many of the qualities of magical-realism, this reads like an outtake of a bad Murakami wannabe. There are three novellas here and I'll be kind and say they are fairly consistent. The first, which gives the title to the book is an acid dream of unconnected images tied by a VERY thin thread. It was torture to read. The second is a silly story about a disappearing brother. The third is about a girl who steps on a snake, which then claims to be her mother and moves in with her and is slightly less silly but is in no way an underachiever where silliness is concerned.
If you're bent on reading everything by the author you can get your hands on and if you think this type of writing is exactly what you like, be my guest. Dress up like your favorite manga character, preferably like a little girl since that might be the most appropriate here, and knock yourself out. If none of that applies to you, you'd probably be better off giving this a miss and reading one of your other thousand books from your TBR list. You'll be a happier person for it
February 13, 2017
"I could see the moon, high up in the sky, and I could feel the breeze gently caressing my skin, but nothing of what I was expecting might happen was happening." That's exactly how I feel about the three short stories in "Record of a night to brief" by Hiromi Kawakami, and not in a good way.
This was one of the most frustrating set of short stories I've read in a while. Why? Because the story line was as nonsensical as the writing was beautiful.
Kawakami uses magic realism, and folktales to slowly open a nightmarish-dream world but stops there. And she doesn't 'take' you there, she dumps you there, hence the frustration.
In the first story "Record of a night too brief", there was no narrative. It was a series of sentences stating events totally unrelated and left unexplained. A narrator moves from one vision to another in an 'Alice in Wonderland' style. The series of visions never ends, it contradicts itself endlessly too. There was no end, no beginning, no middle even. .
The second short, "Missing" was lovely however. A family is about to marry their son but in their family people can become invisible and even disappear from everyone's memory if gone too long. His sister tries her hardest to not forget him and observes the event that follow his 'disappearance'.
The third and last short, "A snake stepped on", was a great read to begin with but then became as nonsensical as the first. A woman steps on a snake by accident and this means that a snake will come and inhabit her home until she agrees to become a snake too. A seduction and struggle follow between these two, and the woman realises she's not the only one struggling, everyone around her has had a run-into snakes taking human forms too. As the story progresses, it looses its narrative grip and again goes into what I can only describe as a series of hermetic and cryptic sentences.
Despite this strange read, I'll still try to read Kawakami's novels though, but she's just not my thing in short story form.
This was one of the most frustrating set of short stories I've read in a while. Why? Because the story line was as nonsensical as the writing was beautiful.
Kawakami uses magic realism, and folktales to slowly open a nightmarish-dream world but stops there. And she doesn't 'take' you there, she dumps you there, hence the frustration.
In the first story "Record of a night too brief", there was no narrative. It was a series of sentences stating events totally unrelated and left unexplained. A narrator moves from one vision to another in an 'Alice in Wonderland' style. The series of visions never ends, it contradicts itself endlessly too. There was no end, no beginning, no middle even. .
The second short, "Missing" was lovely however. A family is about to marry their son but in their family people can become invisible and even disappear from everyone's memory if gone too long. His sister tries her hardest to not forget him and observes the event that follow his 'disappearance'.
The third and last short, "A snake stepped on", was a great read to begin with but then became as nonsensical as the first. A woman steps on a snake by accident and this means that a snake will come and inhabit her home until she agrees to become a snake too. A seduction and struggle follow between these two, and the woman realises she's not the only one struggling, everyone around her has had a run-into snakes taking human forms too. As the story progresses, it looses its narrative grip and again goes into what I can only describe as a series of hermetic and cryptic sentences.
Despite this strange read, I'll still try to read Kawakami's novels though, but she's just not my thing in short story form.
December 30, 2018
What was that itch on my back, I wondered. And then I realized: the night was nibbling into me.
Record of a Night Too Brief consisted of three evocative stories that centred around ordinary people dealing with strange stuffs in their lives. A fast and nonsensical piece, the writing has got a huge, twisty, almost magical feeling to it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
I highly recommend this if you wanna venture into Japanese literature + magical realism.
Actual rating: 4.2/5 stars.
Record of a Night Too Brief consisted of three evocative stories that centred around ordinary people dealing with strange stuffs in their lives. A fast and nonsensical piece, the writing has got a huge, twisty, almost magical feeling to it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
I highly recommend this if you wanna venture into Japanese literature + magical realism.
Actual rating: 4.2/5 stars.
August 5, 2020
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."
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."
May 25, 2021
An excellent novella collection exploring the precipice between life and death. First, a series of dream-like vignettes, each a melancholy consideration on the stages of life and their ultimate lack of meaning. Next, an exploration of tradition and what happens when it begins to unravel. Finally, in the third novella, the intersection between routine, happiness, and the false siren's call of suicide.
Full review to come!
Full review to come!
September 26, 2023
przypominający sen na jawie świat, który nie chce wypuścić ze swych objęć— hiromi kawakami pisze świetnie, dawno nie czułam takiej fascynacji jak przy czytaniu tego zbioru
May 14, 2022
O imaginatie debordanta are Hiromi, care m-a facut sa ador lumile inventate de ea in cele trei povestiri de aici. De-abia astept sa o mai regasesc.
March 22, 2025
Ik blijf ook na het uitlezen hierbij: ik snap der helemaal niets van.
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