THE SUMMER HOUSE

Elegantly understated novel of a tenuous love affair in modern Japan.

Tōru Sakanishi is in his early 20s, an apprentice architect who is fortunate enough to earn an entry-level position with the Murai Office of Architectural Design, headed by a renowned architect who had studied with Frank Lloyd Wright. Known as Sensei, or teacher, Murai is a stern leader, but a man brimming with ideas. Competing to build a new Library of Modern Literature, his chief rival a contemporary named Kei’ichi Funayama, Sensei takes his crew to the mountains to escape the summer heat of Tokyo, occupying the simple house of the title. Sensei has strong attachments to the place, not least of them a woman with whom he has a discreet relationship. While Sensei ponders a design for the new library—“We need a brand-new concept that users will find convincing. Just explaining it verbally won’t be enough, though. The building has to be designed to actually show them what you’re getting at”—Sakanishi muddles his way through, failing in his delegated task to design stacking chairs “because [he] couldn’t get the angle between the seat and legs right.” Moreover, he’s thoroughly distracted by Sensei’s niece, Maruko Murai, who disarms him by saying, “You’re good at sharpening pencils.” A knowing colleague warns him off, saying that an interoffice romance is strictly forbidden, but adding, “Of course, if you decided to quit, you could move in on her right away in the time you had left.” Sakanishi doesn’t take the warning, but in any event, things don’t unfold in quite the way he wishes. Matsuie, renowned as an editor (of Haruki Murakami, among other writers) before becoming an author, delivers a simple but graceful tale that’s full of intriguing asides on architecture, which Sensei insists is “function, pure and simple.”

A novel packed with ideas about art, life, and love.