The Love We Share Without Knowing

From the back cover:

On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man’s life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town, an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives - and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village, a disaffected American teenager discovers compassion after a strange encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo, a girl named Love learned the deepest lesson about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong.

From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to show more the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection - uncovering the love we share without knowing.

Wow. This is exactly the book I was looking for when I picked it up. This really is an unbelievably beautiful tale of the connections between people and how all of our stories intertwine in the most meaningful of ways, while invoking Japanese culture with which I was unfamiliar but which suits these quiet stories perfectly. It’s almost like an interconnected book of short stories in which each builds upon the next, returning to some characters and not others. Each strand of the novel shows us a particular aspect of love and when woven together, form a stunning tapestry and a beautiful book.

At first, I was perplexed when between chapters, the book switched narrators and from 1st to 3rd person. In the next chapter, it switched again. So it took me a little while to realize how this book was structured, and some chapters do have an adjustment period of their own. Often the connections between characters aren’t explicit and are slowly revealed through clues, which I liked a lot; a chapter halfway through the book will mention characters from the first, for example.

This book also contains a little bit of magical realism. Deceased appear as ghosts to those whom they loved. There are Japanese curses and even what seems to be a shape-shifting fox. All of it fits, though, and I found made the novel even richer with culture than it would have been otherwise.

Is this a sad novel, given that a few of the stories focus on suicide and many on death? In some ways, yes. It’s even deeper than that, though, as it shows us how many people from all different walks of life can feel the exact same thing without realizing it. That’s where the title comes in; all these people share love without knowing. I can’t say it made me sad, though. It made me thoughtful and it astonished me with its power.

I loved this book. I’m so grateful to author Christopher Barzak for sending me this copy and I sincerely hope that he gains a wider audience. This may be my favorite book so far this year. It’s one of those quietly stunning books that I fall in love with every single time. As a result, I would recommend it to everyone.

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This is a difficult book to describe. Each chapter is a seemingly separate story. When taken as a whole, they are interconnecting stories of love, loss and renewal linking the lives of strangers in Japan and how fate affects each of their lives. Eventually the stories make their way full circle.

The book is written in a haunting and beautiful way. Each of the stories are told in the first person giving you their perspective. When I picked this book up I was intrigued by the description on the back cover. I never thought of it as science fiction and frankly was surprised, yet pleased, to see it nominated for a Nebula. I would describe it as psychological stories in a world of illusion.

Some of these stories were quite dark and depressing show more but overall I liked the book and would recommend it even for those who are not fans of science fiction. show less

This is a beautiful book. Told in a series of interconnected short stories, mundane and fantastical events in the lives of locals and expats in Japan serve to awaken them in some way to problems/potential in their lives. It's not always explained what lesson the characters will take from what's happened, but the book seems to be about turning points rather than showing all the consequences (although it does show some). There is a strange and gentle sensibility to Barzak's writing that makes this book ease into you: a touch unsettling, a touch lovely. Definitely recommended.

This novel was nominated for both Nebula and Locus awards for best novel. However, it is clearly not a SF and only marginally a fantasy. The book itself states it is a “psychological fiction”. I’d add magical realism.
The novel consists of a score of short stories. They are all set in modern Japan and a group of Americans and Japanese. Each story has own main character(s) but the following ones uses earlier ones as a background and/or minor characters. This is a very nice primer to some aspects of Japanese culture and how it is viewed by English-language teachers from the US. The list of topics ranges from suicide to homosexuality to inability to let go to, as the title suggests ‘The Love We Share Without Knowing’. It is a very show more nice literary fiction, albeit not the type I usually read. show less

This book is hard to describe. Most of the subject matter is what you might call depressing, but it's a beautiful depression. It is supposed to be a novel, but each chapter could be a short story in itself. There main character in each chapter is connected to other characters in other chapters, but the connections feel distant. People seem to be missing each other. In a magical, distant way. Oh, I give up. Just read the book!

Each chapter is sort of like it's own short story, though all fairly tightly related to the original story. It's a pretty dark story so if you're looking for a loving, pleasant story, this isn't it. That being said, it's well written and thought provoking. Good for book club discussions.

Barzak's second novel (after the great One for Sorrow) is a profound disappointment. It is a novel in interconnected stories, with protagonists either Japanese and American. All though are equally adrift and apathetic in their existences. All are unlucky in love (one man is put in an enchanted sleep by his jealous Japanese lover) and their lives are parades of missed connections. Barzak, who started the novel while living in Japan, teaching English, seems to suggest that it is Japanese urban culture at the heart of this malaise. This suggestion is enormously problematic (especially for a white dude living there for only a short time to put forwards), and the cumulative effect of this novel is one of exhaustion and frustration.
This show more frustration is compounded by a weakness existing in some of Barzak's other work - mainly his stories. His symbolism is heavy-handed and laughably obvious. For example: A girl named Ai ('Love') who is looking for love in all the wrong places? Come on. show less