46 pages • 1 hour read
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Hatori Community House
The Hatori Community House is symbolic of community and connection. The community center is located in the Hatori ward of Tokyo. It is connected to an elementary school. The center is “a two-story white building with a sign over the canopy at the entrance,” and it features in all of the primary characters’ individual storylines (21). The community center offers “all kinds of classes and events,” including “shogi, haiku, eurhythmics, hula dancing, exercise classes, lots of flower-arranging classes and lectures on different topics” (20). The center also regularly hosts a food market and has a library, which includes a special room where kids can play. The community house is a fixture in the community, and offers its members a place to connect with other people and to pursue new areas of interest.
All five of the main characters develop relationships and find direction during their time at the Hatori Community House. Tomoka Fujiki, Ryo Urase, Natsumi Sakitani, Hiroya Suda, Masao Gonno all visit the center for different reasons the first time they hear about it. These visits in turn inspire them to explore the community center’s library, where they connect with Sayuri Komachi, share intimate conversations, and receive life-changing book recommendations. Tomoka Fujiki starts coming to the center for computer classes, while Ryo visits the center for a lecture on minerals. Natsumi originally goes to the center to get out of the house with Futaba, while Hiroya goes to pick up a daikon for his mother at the market, and Masao goes to attend his wife’s friend’s Go class. To the characters’ surprise, the community center is more extensive than they understood, and has more offerings than they knew about. The community center therefore gives each character a sense of community and connection, while also connecting their disparate lives via this common setting. The center’s recurrence from one chapter to the next indeed creates narrative bridges between the characters’ distinct accounts.
Book Recommendations
Sayuri Komachi’s book recommendations are symbolic of direction and guidance. All five of the characters come into the Hatori Community House library looking for specific books. However, when Komachi asks the characters what they are looking for, they all have something else in mind. For example, when Komachi asks Tomoka what she’s looking for, Tomaka silently answers the question thinking, “A reason to work, something I’m good at—stuff like that” (26). Ryo, Natsumi, Hiroya, and Masao have similar instinctual responses to Komachi’s question, thus revealing their longing for direction in their lives. They don’t vocalize these private longings, but Komachi’s intuition detects what each of them might need. Therefore, when she gives them her list of book recommendations, she is also offering them answers to their more profound philosophical and existential questions. Her book lists all possess one outlying title, or a book that takes the characters by surprise. These are the titles that ultimately lead the characters toward important revelations or points of view. Therefore, Komachi’s book recommendations convey the Transformative Power of Literature and afford the characters a new way of looking at themselves and their lives.
Honeydome Cookies
The Honeydome cookies are symbolic of society. References and allusions to the cookies appear in every chapter of the novel because Komachi keeps her felting supplies in an old Honeydome cookie box on her desk at the library. Therefore, all of the characters see the box and experience an emotional response to it. The cookies are renowned in the city and are made by a famous confectionery. The characters all enjoy the cookies and are delighted by the box on Komachi’s desk because it offers them an easy point of connection with her. The recurrence of the Honeydome cookies creates narrative threads between the characters’ seemingly disparate worlds and thus conveys that they are all a part of a larger society.
Felted Gifts
Sayuri Komachi’s felted gifts are symbolic of care. Each time the characters ask Komachi for book recommendations, she gives them a hand-felted gift with their book list. She gives Tomoka a felted frying pan, Ryo a felted cat, Natsumi a felted globe, Hiroya a felted plane, and Masao a felted crab. At first, the characters are unsure what to make of the objects, as they appear irrelevant to their lives and characters. However, over time, they derive meaning from the objects, each of which suddenly seems perfectly tailored to their needs or sensibilities. In these ways, the gifts capture and convey Komachi’s deep care for the library patrons and her uncanny ability to make them feel seen and valued.
Unlock all 46 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: