Men without Women By Haruki Murakami

Men without women by Haruki Murakami

Japanese short stories

Original title – 女のいない男たち

Translators- Philip Gabriel and Ted Goosen

Source – Personal copy

I reviewed a non-fiction book By Mjurakami earlier this month and decided it was time to read this as since I was gift this book there has been another short story collection come out which I must get. I got this as a leaving gift for my last job which was nearly five years ago. I hadn’t plan to read ot but one afternoon after finishing one book and looking around my Library I decided it was time to get to this as it had been seven years before that when I had last reviewed a book by him so I felt a short gap was needed anyway he has always been a favourite and yes the last couple of novels hadn’t quite lived up to what I had wanted from Murakami there is always a feeling he has that true Opus Magnus to write still that defining book maybe that is just my view of him he is a great writer but would love that epic book he has yet to write that I’m sure he has in him, anyone else feels this about him? Anyway, let’s get to this collection of seven stories by him.

The first time I heard Kitaru sing “Yesterday” with those crazy lyrics he was in the bath at his house in Denenchofu (which, despite his description, was not a shabby house in ashabby neighbourhood but an ordinary house in an ordinary neighbourhood, an older house, but bigger than my house in Ashiya, not stand out in any way – and, incidentally , the car in the driveway was a navy-blue Golf, a recent model). Whenever Kitaru came home.he immediately dropped everything and jumped in the bat, and , once he was in the tub, he stayed there forever.

I was rtemind of the bath her of Douglas Adams love of Baths somethig that cfrept into his fiction I wonder if Murakami is the same!!

The collection opens with the tale of Kafuku in the story Drive my car he is an actor that has lost his license show hires a young woman to be his chauffeur in her mid-twenties to drive him around as she does he start to unload his life his wife that had affairs. A typical Murakami character is the lonely man older but so is the writer a world-weary soul with more life lived and ahead ! Then  Yesterday is a story about a trio of restaurant workers Tanimura and then a couple Kitaru and Erika the two split in the story just because he isn’t paying the attention she wants and she has then gone on a date with another man. He then moves on just a few days after this event.the story then jumps year later and Tanimura bumps into Erika now in the thirties she is married she asks Erika about the man she dated she hadn’t slept with him but still sees Kitaru and both are single and now lives apart the title is a hook on the Beatles song that is misunderstood and sung by Kitaru this reminds me of a friend many years ago that had misunderstood the meaning of a song by U2. I will just mention one more story leave the rest for you readers that haven’t read the book to discover the last story is Kino a middle-aged man who opens a bar called Kino’s his name the only name he could think of encouraged to open the bar this after his wife cheats a recurring motif in some of these stories. He has few customers one may be a Yakuza he sees of some wrong customers Kino also meets a woman also scared by her own life they talk Jazz. For me, this was classic Murakami a bar Jazz hark right back to his first two books dark alleys and men with no future all traits in his works over the years, The story also has a few surreal moments  when events in the bar change another of his traits.

kino couldn’t remember now what had led him to sleep with the woman that night. Kino felt, from the first, that there was something out of the ordinary about her. Something had triggered an instinctive response, warning him not to get involved. ANd now this cigarette burns on her back, He was basically a cautious person. If he really needed to sleep with a woman, he could always make do with a professional, he felt. Just take care of things by paying for it, And it wasn’t as it he were even attracted to this woman.

Kino sleep with this woman but why ? are they just two damaged souls ?

 

Do you ever get that feeling when you read a book that had been on your shelves for years why did I wait so long and wish you would have got to it sooner? I had like the other collections I had read by him other the years for me this has a lot of his traits cheating wives, single men now aging like the writer himself. This is like the Espresso shot of his work a little Amuse Bouche of the writer you hit with every story of echoes reminds of his earlier works he is a writer that uses similar characters and always has he use a sort every man of Japan how many of the male characters in this book are there wandering around Tokyo middle single men either single for a long time or widowed separate. Also things like Jazz, late-night bars western music all motifs that have cropped up before. The first story Drive my car has been made into a film I hope I can see it sometime? Have you read this collection what were your thoughts about it?

Winstons Score – A , well worth the journey for any fan or anyone maybe wanting an into to him this has so many of his traits in this collection in small chunks!