What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

 Translated from the Japanese by Alison Watts

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There are five overlapping stories in this book. In each case, the character goes to the Hatori Community House and visits the library that is within. In each case, they confer with Ms. Komachi, the librarian. Her hobby is felting and she practices her art at her desk. She keeps her felting supplies in a box that once held Honeydome cookies.

Ms. Komachi gives each of these characters a list of books to help with whatever topic they asked her about. But in every case, she also gives them an odd book that seems nonsensical. Beyond this, each person receives a felted something-or-other from her.

On the first page of the first story this question is asked: What do people think about me based on my job? What does it say about my personality or qualities? With its placement on page one, I thought this was the question I would be answering in reading this book. But that’s not really the case…

With all this in mind, here are the five library visitors, their age and their profession, plus the felted toy they receive.

1. Tomoka is 21 and she is an assistant in the women’s wear department of a large store in Tokyo. She came to the big city for college and wants to stay there! Her felted gift is a frying pan.
2. Ryo is 35, and he works in the accounts department of a furniture manufacturer. He’s hankering to own an antique store. His felted object is a cat.
3. Natsumi is 40. She is a former magazine editor whose career got side-lined by motherhood. Her felted object is a blue globe, the earth.
4. Hiroya is 30. The author calls him “NEET” – not in employment, education, or training. He went to design school after high school but couldn’t find a job. So he is living at home and not working. His felted object is a plane with a tiny gray body, white wings, and a green tail.
5. Masao is 65 and newly retired. Since things all overlap in this book, he is retired from the Honeydome Cookie Company. His felted object is a crab.

Even though defining a person through their occupation seemed like the game plan for this book, it’s a larger, more existential “who am I?” that the author is looking at here as shown in this exchange when Masao and Ms. Komachi first meet:

Ms. Komachi: “What are you looking for?” she says, in a calm, dignified voice.

Masao thinks to himself: “I feel [her voice] resonating deep down inside me. What am I looking for? What am I looking for? A new way to live from now on, perhaps.”

Ms. Komachi’s voice seems to resonate deeply in all of the characters. The characters – and the reader – have to wonder if she is some sort of oracle? Does she know the perfect book each individual must read? Does she know the perfect talisman to give them for their life’s journey?

Or are they making their own luck when they take that first step toward change by entering the library?

Ms. Komachi’s comment on felting provides part of the answer, “The good thing about felting is that you can start again halfway through. Even after your project begins to take shape, you can easily change direction along the way if you feel that you want to make something different after all.”

Hmmm…if not an oracle, maybe it’s a sage friend everyone is looking for when they go looking in this library.

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If you like my writing, I hope you will check out my new book, Chai on Life. It contains 36 slice-of-life stories ranging in topics from belly fat to Billy Joel. It is available wherever books are sold and on Amazon. There is even a companion journal for you to write the stories of your life.

Chai on Life is available in 3 formats: Hard Back, Kindle, and AudioBook.