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lauramarshall 's review for:
Men Without Women
by Haruki Murakami
2.5
Murakami has written a collection of short stories concerning men who have lost the women they love. Unfortunately, I feel a little disappointed, perhaps because my expectations of Murakami books have been heightened (this probably wasn't the best book to first read of his). Overall, I did enjoy a few of the stories. It was incredibly easy to read and, for those that I did enjoy, I was intrigued by the characters. The difficulty here was that where the stories were good, they were over rather quickly and I felt disappointed that I wasn't able to delve any further.
Alternatively, when I wasn't particularly enjoying a story I felt as though the characters and plot weren't sufficiently explored due to the limitation of its length. Therefore, his writings were very hit and miss and predominantly felt like a draft outline of a novel that Murakami hadn't decided to advance. Fundamentally, I didn't feel a sense of conclusion with a lot of them.
The portrayal of anorexia was particularly concerning. His light-handed, brief and ill-informed explanation is potentially damaging to wider perceptions of the disorder and to those who may have suffered. I also tried to take his portrayal of women with a pinch of salt. Save for a few, the stories tended to fall victim to the mantra that women are disloyal and untrustworthy (the majority of the relationships in this book had ended due to the woman's infidelity). Of course, just like any gender, some women are these things. Yet, his almost constant depiction of only these two character traits, with little rebuttal, led me to become somewhat weary and disinterested. The title is indeed aptly named 'Men Without Women' as we are given little to no depth of female character in a lot of these stories; the book is written completely without them.
Murakami has written a collection of short stories concerning men who have lost the women they love. Unfortunately, I feel a little disappointed, perhaps because my expectations of Murakami books have been heightened (this probably wasn't the best book to first read of his). Overall, I did enjoy a few of the stories. It was incredibly easy to read and, for those that I did enjoy, I was intrigued by the characters. The difficulty here was that where the stories were good, they were over rather quickly and I felt disappointed that I wasn't able to delve any further.
Alternatively, when I wasn't particularly enjoying a story I felt as though the characters and plot weren't sufficiently explored due to the limitation of its length. Therefore, his writings were very hit and miss and predominantly felt like a draft outline of a novel that Murakami hadn't decided to advance. Fundamentally, I didn't feel a sense of conclusion with a lot of them.
The portrayal of anorexia was particularly concerning. His light-handed, brief and ill-informed explanation is potentially damaging to wider perceptions of the disorder and to those who may have suffered. I also tried to take his portrayal of women with a pinch of salt. Save for a few, the stories tended to fall victim to the mantra that women are disloyal and untrustworthy (the majority of the relationships in this book had ended due to the woman's infidelity). Of course, just like any gender, some women are these things. Yet, his almost constant depiction of only these two character traits, with little rebuttal, led me to become somewhat weary and disinterested. The title is indeed aptly named 'Men Without Women' as we are given little to no depth of female character in a lot of these stories; the book is written completely without them.