Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami, Translated by Louise Heal Kawai

Ms Ice Sandwhich and Mieko Kawakami

I HAD previous wrote a review on this book but as I re-read it, I was not happy with my composition. So I deleted it and instead, I'm just putting here some of my favorite lines from the book.

Goodbye. There’s the sound of someone breathing, that’s what I’m listening to, Goodbye. The stars are setting, and in their last breath somebody tells me goodbye. Someone is saying goodbye, and now I can’t move at all, and all I can do is hold my breath, and silently listen to the final sound, nothing to do but listen silently to the very last echo of that sound.

You haven’t gone to see her, not for ages. And if it goes on like that forever, then you’ll never see her again… If you want to see somebody, you have to make plans to meet, or even make plans to make plans… If you don’t see somebody, you end up never seeing them again. And then there’s going to be nothing left of them at all…. The worst thing is, you never know when somebody’s going to just disappear.

I stopped doing that kind of thing a long time ago. You know—putting off stuff and not doing anything, and not going and seeing somebody when I really wanted to. I stopped that. It’s too risky... You just go and see someone when you can.