The Third Love by Hiromi Kawakami
Now, each night, she sinks into another life: first as a high-ranking courtesan in the 17th century, and then as a serving lady to a princess in the late Middle Ages. As she experiences desire and heartbreak in the past, so Riko comes to reconsider her life as a 21st-century woman – as a wife, as a mother, and as a lover – and to ask herself: after loving her husband and loving Mr Takaoka, is she is ready for her third great love?
Lately, I rarely check the blurbs on the covers when it comes to Japanese books because I never care about the plot. But of course, I check the blurbs carefully before purchasing any viral books, simply because I’ve started to know which kinds of books I should avoid.
The Third Love was no different. I didn't come for the plot, not until I was halfway through the book and became curious about how the author wrote the blurb. Then, I smiled.
The first time I encountered Hiromi Kawakami's book was Strange Weather in Tokyo, because back then, levitating was so unique that the cover of that book stood out the most. Ever since, I have always auto-purchased any book written by Kawakami-san.
The Third Love is a story about a 30-something-year-old woman named Riko. Riko has always been an outcast at school; she never felt like she belonged to any peer group ever since she was a child. She refused to eat in the school cafeteria and preferred to be alone near the janitor's room. That was when she first met Mr. Takaoka, the failed monk who turned into a janitor.
However, Riko always knew that she loved Naa-chan, a boy several years older than her who frequently visited her home and was also an acquaintance of her mother and father. Their age gap is never mentioned in the book, but when Riko is in high school, Naa-chan is already in college.
Until the time her love is finally returned by Naa-chan, Riko's life feels complete. She marries her childhood crush, the one and only boy she has ever loved.
But there is no such thing as perfect love or a perfect relationship. Naa-chan is a handsome and smart man, and both men and women love having him around. Naa-chan himself loves the concept of love; he has a series of other women during their marriage.
Riko herself is aware whenever Naa-chan has an affair. His moody temperament, late working hours, or heartbreak are several signs that can easily be read from Naa-chan's changes in behavior. At first, Riko simply acknowledges her husband's adventures in love. There is a pang of hurt in her heart, yet she believes that her husband still loves her dearly.
Until Riko catches her husband having an affair with her koto teacher (koto is a musical instrument), who is much older than both Riko and Naa-chan. Riko starts to feel resentment toward her husband, yet she is not angry with her teacher. It is as common for anyone to fancy Naa-chan as an apple falling from a tree.
Then she meets her long-lost janitor, Mr. Takaoka, again. He is as carefree as ever, touring around Japan on his bicycle. That day when they meet again is near the riverbank, and they start meeting occasionally without making an appointment there. But Mr. Takaoka continues his touring, so they meet only a handful of times during a year.
Yet, it doesn't reduce the depth and intensity of their conversations. Heartbroken, Riko offers to be taught the magic that Mr. Takaoka knows well. The magic is escaping into a dream realm.
Suddenly, Riko experiences a series of sequenced dreams in which she is a child in the Edo period. Born into a low-status family, she is sold to a teahouse in Yoshiwara. There, she learns the art of becoming an oiran, a courtesan in the Edo period.
That dream continues, and Riko feels heartbreak and love, including intimate relationships with her clients. It feels like Riko has lived a parallel life; the dream becomes so real that it even disrupts her real life. During that time, Riko feels more inclined to live in the Edo period than in her life with Naa-chan. She starts to abandon her garden, doing the bare minimum to take care of herself and her house.
When I thought that Riko was escaping her real life, there came her second arc of dreams. This time, she is a lady-in-waiting for a princess in the Heian era. There, her princess marries a very famous nobleman, Narihira, and Riko becomes an eyewitness to the greatest scandal during the Heian period.
Narihira is not entirely a character created by Hiromi Kawakami. Narihira is inspired by a character from the classical Tales of Ise. Later, she meets Shinno, Narihira's uncle, who is also the protagonist of Takaoka's Travels, another classic tale from Japan. Yet, in real life, Takaoka was Narihira's real uncle.
It is fascinating that the main soul of this book is how Kawakami uses classical tales as the main setting to interpret love and women in those eras. She created Riko as an interpretation of a woman in the modern era, who has a lot of freedom, and also as a vessel to closely observe women in the Edo period, when she was an oiran, and women in the Heian era, when she was a lady-in-waiting.
While Tales of Ise and Takaoka's Travels use men as their main points of view, The Third Love uses the perspective of a modern woman as a lens through which to explore love and women's empowerment in the Edo and Heian eras.
Such an ambitious project, isn't it?
Truth be told, I enjoyed reading this book very much. At first, I thought it would be about taboo love (just like Ten Loves of Mr. Nishino or Strange Weather in Tokyo). Then, when I read about Riko as an oiran and her heartbreak, I thought it would be deep, quiet, and reflective like Manazuru. At last, in the final arc, it started to feel like an essay.
Maybe it is because Riko is not the main character in the Heian era; she is merely a spectator, a close confidant of the heartbroken princess. Maybe it is because Kawakami forces several opinions and repeats them many times, which makes it feel unnatural. There are also moments when Riko suddenly dreams of becoming the woman whom Naa-chan has an affair with, and the Genji Princess, just to prove a point or show the POV of a woman who is deeply involved in an affair.
Or is it because I got my hopes high when reading about Riko entering motherhood? That it crashes when it only takes up a small portion of the last arc.
Yet I get the gist of the several different arcs in the book. Yes, Kawakami didn't tie each arc together with a conclusion or provide a single point to be understood. She leaves it to each reader to draw their own conclusion.
Love is always changing its shape. The love Riko has when she is an innocent girl, a married woman dealing with many extramarital issues, and a mother shifts differently. Love is not limited to her husband. She can also love other people with different kinds of love.
I secretly wondered whether Kawakami was also trying to make a case for the idea that loving more than one person might be excusable after all.
But this book is not only about love, of course. The freedom women have across several different eras comes with different limitations and benefits, and we don't know which one is better.
I also understand why this book risks receiving a low rating: at the surface, we cannot see much character development in the end. Riko finally understands, at least from the reader's point of view. Yet, I still couldn't help wondering: maybe this liberation is the point the author has been talking about across three different eras.
However, my first reaction when I noticed Kawakami using a dream as a “time-travel” vessel was simply, “The audacity!” So yes, it was definitely a mixed feeling after reading this book.
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