Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami

18 reviews

amvera's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

First time reading Murakami and I think it didn't disappoint. The stories are thought-provoking,  introspective and kind of comforting. They are all different but I always found myself being intrigued and surprised as the narrators described their extremely absurd / unbelievable life situations. Very enjoyable, fast-paced read!
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michtrnr's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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themysteriouserk's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Another delightful collection of stories from one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. The stories here range from the strange and silly to the stranger and deeply moving, all written in Murakami’s trademark simple, deadpan style and with his usual flourishes of magic and surreality within depictions of ordinary life. As with pretty much any collection of stories, some are better than others, but everything here is at least pretty good, and “With the Beatles,” “On a Stone Pillow,” and “Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova” are all achingly beautiful depictions of the tentative balance between joy and pain.
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utalit's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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sarahna's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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jayisreading's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective medium-paced

1.5

This was an underwhelming collection of short stories from Murakami. Even the usual whimsy that we so often encounter his works was hardly apparent in First Person Singular, maybe with the exception of one short story, which happened to be the only story that really stuck out to me as interesting (”Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey”).

What connects all of these short stories is that they’re all told from the perspective of an adult man, often contemplating time—especially the past. There is a nostalgic quality to this collection as the man in each story muses about elements of his life that would trigger a particular memory, which, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty classic of Murakami.

The lack of depth in these stories made this a quick read. I didn’t feel that I wanted to dwell on any of these stories very much, either because it was just uninteresting to me or it irked me to no end. ”Carnaval” is probably the best example of this irksome state; it was really unnecessary to fixate on “ugly” women... though, I guess I shouldn’t expect very much from Murakami, considering his history of how he writes women.

Overall, I’d say this collection is a pretty poor example of Murakami’s craft in short story writing. I admittedly wasn’t expecting much, since I wasn’t a huge fan of his previous collection, but this was just downright disappointing.
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zarathustraslostchild's review against another edition

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slow-paced

2.0

Der Schreibstil ist großartig, das muss man* Murakami lassen, und einige Geschichten fand ich auch wirklich schön, insgesamt wirkte die Sammlung eher wie eine zweitklassige Geldmacherei. 
Eine Geschichte, in welcher sich der Ich- Erzähler erst einmal seitenlang über die Hässlichkeit der betreffenden Frau auslässt gefolgt von einer Gedichtsammlung über Baseball? 
Das hätte nicht sein müssen. 

Generell wusste ich oft nicht, worauf Murakami hinaus wollte und es wurde viel "um den heißen Brei" herumgeredet, was ich stellenweise schön, zumeist aber nervig fand. Alles in allem war es nett für einen verkaterten Sonntagmorgen aber nicht wirklich Zeit, in der ich viel dazu gelernt hätte. Eines dieser Bücher, die man* liest, weglegt und sofort vergisst, da gibt es Werke, die zu lesen eine deutlich bessere Zeitnutzung darstellt.
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bookdragon217's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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