Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi [Reading as a Writer]

 

I recently completed a course on the Writers Village University on Urban Legends. I’d only ever looked at urban legends as falling within the genres of magical realism, fantasy or science fiction. To look at them as literary fiction, was a learning.

 

And, when I realized Before the Coffee Gets Cold is an urban legend that deals with the theme of love between lovers, a married couple, two sisters, and a mother and child I was eager to read the book. 

 

The premise of the book hooks the reader instantly, there is magic and there is realism. There is no new fantasy world this takes place in or new futuristic jargon to learn in this book. There are only the following five rules of time travel, as in the book:

 

“The first rule — the only people one may meet while back in the past are those who have visited the café.

The second rule — no matter how hard one tries while back in the past, one cannot change the present.

The third rule — in order to return to the past, you have to sit in that seat alone.

The fourth rule — while back in the past, you must stay in the seat and never move from it.

The fifth rule — there is a time limit.”

The rules are realistic and kickoff the magic in the story. 

 

Themes

The book falls away from genre fiction in the theme it highlights, Love.

• The Lovers: In this story, we see a sensitive portrayal of ambitions vs love.  
• Husband and Wife: This story is a gentle reminder of illness and the meaning of love when you no longer remember it.
• The Sisters: This story highlights the difficult relationship that siblings share. Two sisters who have their individual goals yet the desire to remain as a family.
• Mother and Child: The story of a mother during a difficult pregnancy; she desires to meet her unborn child.

 

Structure

This is a novel in stories. Each short story adds to the whole story, yet is complete in itself. 

 

Each story helps us understand the backstories and the desires of the characters important to the café. The protagonist of one story then does not leave stage. He or she plays a minor character or a catalyst in another story. 

 

By the end of the book, we know all the characters we met in the first scene at the café.

 

Plot

Although there is no overarching plot, this book has various smaller plots in each of its stories. Each short story deals with one or more conflicts that further the theme of that specific story. In the first story, we see conflicting desires. 

 

The time travel aspect which is the overarching framework of the book has its own conflicts too. For instance, in the first story the rules of the travel open up to competition — there is another traveler wanting to travel. As each such time travel conflict unravels, we understand the rules of the travel better.

 

The other stories tackle other conflicts of travel, such as: travelling to and from the future, meeting the dead through time travel and changing the past. This book helped me understand the complexities of writing urban legends — making sure you consider a 360-degree view of the legend so it can’t be punctured on realistic grounds. The reader is invariably thinking how can that happen, or what if this happens? Therefore, each rule needs to be thought out for gaps. 

 

This book not only imposes the rules to add conflict, but also for conflict resolution. This builds the story forward without sounding gimmicky.

I leave you with a line from the book summarizing the purpose of the travel.

 

“‘At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present does not change. So it raises the question: just what is the point of that chair?’”

 

“And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.”

 

Book Title: Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Translated to English by: Geoffrey Trousselot

First Publisher: Picador, 2019

NOTICE: 

© 2021 by Donna Abraham Tijo