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scarletohhara 's review for:
Men Without Women: Stories
by Haruki Murakami
A classic Murakami, but without the weird. Well, not a lot of it. But if you consider random animals dropping into your house to visit you, or a story about eels or Samsa waking up to be a man instead of a cockroach as weird or wonder why folklore talks about a single unicorn, then I can't help you 😊
These short stories are well placed in the book like you'd conduct a symphony, starting with a simple one, taking it up a notch higher with each melody to build up the mood and to align to the theme of the book, and then mellowing down to leave you wanting for more.
The theme itself, Men without women, is a clear indication of the fact that the book is going to be about love and heartache, and Murakami handles the pain very well. None of the words are intense, the men feeling the pain go about their life normally and feel the pain in these everyday things they do and a few lucky ones realize one fine day that they are men without women.
All this made me almost-nostalgic for heartache, and that's when I realized this is classic Murakami, making you live the story he tells.
Read this book if you've loved Norwegian Wood. Read this if you enjoy stories about heart break. Read this if you are a romantic.
Don't read this if you want to know what the hype about Murakami is, coz you'll know the beauty of his prose only by living through brilliant-weird-world he weaves, not by reading his un-weird stories.
And I am fervently hoping someone would write a female version of this - Women without men. Not the feminazi version, or the chick-lit one, but the one that makes you want to listen to Tina Turner's 'Unbreak my heart' over and over again.
[If you have a subscription to NewYorker , you can find most of these stories in the archives. ]
These short stories are well placed in the book like you'd conduct a symphony, starting with a simple one, taking it up a notch higher with each melody to build up the mood and to align to the theme of the book, and then mellowing down to leave you wanting for more.
The theme itself, Men without women, is a clear indication of the fact that the book is going to be about love and heartache, and Murakami handles the pain very well. None of the words are intense, the men feeling the pain go about their life normally and feel the pain in these everyday things they do and a few lucky ones realize one fine day that they are men without women.
All this made me almost-nostalgic for heartache, and that's when I realized this is classic Murakami, making you live the story he tells.
Read this book if you've loved Norwegian Wood. Read this if you enjoy stories about heart break. Read this if you are a romantic.
Don't read this if you want to know what the hype about Murakami is, coz you'll know the beauty of his prose only by living through brilliant-weird-world he weaves, not by reading his un-weird stories.
And I am fervently hoping someone would write a female version of this - Women without men. Not the feminazi version, or the chick-lit one, but the one that makes you want to listen to Tina Turner's 'Unbreak my heart' over and over again.
[If you have a subscription to NewYorker , you can find most of these stories in the archives. ]