tonyzale 's review for:

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

4.0

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The Strange Library is a typical (typically weird) Murakami short story, packaged as a short book. The typeface is large and close to half the pages are full page pieces of remixed art evoking moments from the story. The unusual formatting is interesting, but it doesn’t feel essential. Murakami’s unnamed narrator visits a library in search of information about “how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire”. He’s assisted by a monstrous librarian and a mysterious man wearing a full sheepskin, and soon finds himself imprisoned in the building’s mysterious basement. The narrator notes that “public libraries like this one were always short of money, so building even the tiniest of labyrinths had to be beyond their means”. In typical Murakami fashion, the story’s extremes and impossibilities are quickly minimized with dry humor. The narrator’s top concern in captivity is the state of his mother, but his dislike for the prison’s toothpaste is a strong #2. Despite this odd levity, there’s an undercurrent of deep personal pain for the main character to process.