Book Summary — Before the Coffee gets Cold
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1 paragraph summary:
Definitely a new kind of fantasy novel. A Japanese fantasy book which was written for a play. A short book that reads slightly awkwardly because of the japanese/english translation/cultural differences with a brilliant ending that it is all a matter of attitude and perception.
The whole book is based in a small coffee shop called Funiculi Funicula.
The premise is that the coffee shop allows time travel with very specific rules.
There tends to be, in any movie or novel about time travel, some rule saying, Don’t go meddling in anything that is going to change the present.
Instead, this coffee shop allows you to do anything in the past (or future) but no matter what you do, it won’t make a difference on the present.
The rules:
- Your time travel time expires when the coffee gets cold.
- You have to drink your coffee by the time it gets cold, otherwise, you become a ghost.
- You have to sit and stay seated in the one seat for the whole travel.
- You can only meet people who have been to the coffee shop at that day and time.
- You can only time travel once.
With all the rules, most people decided that time travel was pointless.
But the ending was heartwarming.
The present doesn’t change. Nothing about Fusagi changed, but Kohtake came to enjoy her conversations with him. Hirai had still lost her sister, but the photo she sent to the cafe showed her looking happy with her parents. The present hadn’t changed — but those two people had.
Both Kohtake and Hirai returned to the present with a changed heart.
Everyone was so absorbed in the things that I couldn’t change, I forgot the most important thing.
‘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?’
No matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.
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