Murakami Haruki. I have been reading his books since the early eighties, from the first novels Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 73. I bought the Japanese pocketbook-size Kodansha translations by Alfred Birnbaum (for Japanese learners of English), and at the same time read both novels in Japanese as well. That was not too difficult, as Murakami especially in his early work does not use too many literary expressions or esoteric vocabulary. Next I went on to the early stories, several of which have been included in The Elephant Vanishes, and the novel A Wild Sheep Chase.
This "early Murakami" is still my favorite Murakami. There is a naturalness and spontaneity that (in my view) has been lost in the later novels. I don't mind the loose ends and open endings of these early works, on the contrary, that is what makes them so interesting. Plus of course the humor! Murakami has a very particular style, which is impossible to translate literally. All three translators (Alfred Birnbaum, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel) have their own way of rendering Murakami in English, but nothing is better than the real stuff in Japanese. When you are studying Japanese, I suggest that you have a try - these early works form an excellent start.
Murakami’s first collection of stories in Japanese was Slow Boat to China (中国行きのスロウ・ボート, 1983).
This is Haruki Murakami's first collection of short stories. It contains seven stories, including the title story. The stories were published between April 1980 and December 1982, a period of roughly two and a half years. According to Murakami's own notes, the first four stories were written after "Pinball," and the remaining three after "A Sheep's Lamb."
As one reads, there is a clear divide between the first four stories and the remaining three (especially "The Last Lawn of the Afternoon" and "Her Little Dog in the Soil"). While the first four are somewhat immature, stiff, challenging, and experimental, the next two clearly demonstrate a novelistic maturity, possessing sufficient evocative power as narratives in themselves. Perhaps, after writing "A Sheep's Lamb," Murakami began to see a clear outline of the "stories to be told."
In short stories, the constant challenge is how directly one can reach the core, the essence of the story, within a limited number of pages, and grasp it directly. In that respect, "The Lawn" and "The Dog" already possess the most important elements of a short story, and their directness was the kind that would later culminate in the full-length novels.
- A slow Boat to China (中国行きのスロウ・ボート, 1980). (A) A Tokyo man recounts his contacts with Chinese people. In 1959 or 1960 when the man was still in secondary school, he goes to a "Chinese elementary school" to take a standardize aptitude test. He remembers having to traverse up a hill to the classroom. When the proctor arrives he gives clear test-taking directions before announcing that he is Chinese and teaches at the school. He then asks the forty test-takers to respect the desks by not vandalizing them. Everyone but the narrator responds "yes" and the proctor tells them to be proud. (B) As a nineteen-year-old college student in Tokyo, he meets a similar-aged Chinese woman during a part-time job at a publisher's warehouse; being born in Japan, she has little ties to her ethnic background. After their final day on the job, they agree to have dinner together and go to the discotheque. After their night of leisure, he mistakenly directs her onto the wrong train. Noticing his mistake, he takes the next train to the last station to reunite with her. After admitting his mistake and the woman confessing her insecurities, he says that he will call her tomorrow before she takes the next train back home. The following morning, he realizes that he threw away the matchbook on which her phone number was written. Despite that gaffe, he tries multiple alternatives to obtaining her number but is unsuccessful; he never sees her again. (C) As a 28-year-old businessman, the man runs into a Chinese classmate from high school in Aoyama. Although they talk for a while in a coffee shop, the man is unable to recall who his colleague is until the line "a lot of water has gone under the bridge" is uttered, a memorable line from their English textbook from high school. The colleague then tells him about how he sells encyclopedias to Chinese families in Tokyo. Wanting for information about the infobooks, he gives his business card to the colleague before they go their separate ways. The story ends with the narrator reminiscing on his idiosyncratic relationship with Chinese people. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
- A "Poor Aunt" Story (貧乏な叔母さんの話, 1980). In a frame story, a man tells about his "poor aunt," an unremarkable and burdensome thing (usually a person, but it can also be an animal or a various object) that figuratively sticks to a certain person's back. His example is of an actual aunt at a wedding; at that wedding companions tell of their own various "poor aunts." Further, "poor aunts" will cease to exist when there is perfection, but this will not occur until the year 11,980. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- New York Mining Disaster (ニューヨーク炭鉱の悲劇, 1981). A twenty-eight-year-old man has to go to five of his friends' funerals in one year. Because he does not own a black suit, he always borrows his friend's suit; this friend has a peculiar habit of going to zoo at odd times, include when natural disasters like typhoons are coming and only has a girlfriend for about six months before finding a new companion. At the end of the year, the man returns the suit to his friend and they talk about superstitions and T.V.s over beer and champagne. At a New Year's Eve party at a bar in Roppongi, the man is introduced to a mysterious woman who claims she "killed" someone that looks like the man five years ago. They discuss this "killing" before they go their own way. In the final section, a press release-style passage tells of miners trapped underground as the outside world tries to save them. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- The Kangaroo Communiqué (カンガルー通信, 1981). A weird story about a young man in the claims department of a department store, who received a letter from a woman who wrote to complain that she had mistakenly bought Mahler instead of Brahms. The man is captivated by the woman's letter of complaint and so decides to make personal contact with her after seeing Kangaroos at a zoo; he decides to call this letter to her "The Kangaroo Communiqué." Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Last Lawn of the Afternoon (午後の最後の芝生, 1982) Proud of his work, a man decides to give up his job mowing lawns as having split up from his girlfriend he no longer needs the money. He tells of his last assignment near Yomiuri Land. When mowing his last lawn at the end of the vacation, he meets a mysterious woman who shows him the empty room of her daughter. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
Not translated:
- 土の中の彼女の小さな犬 Her Little Dog in the Ground
The story follows a writer, trapped alone in the rain at an out-of-season resort hotel, who encounters a woman with time on her hands and ends up listening to her strange confession. The theme is clear: the highlight of the work is when she is forced to dig up, years later, the bankbook she buried with her beloved dog when it died. The concept is brilliant, and the tension in the scene where she recounts this episode is incredibly high. In terms of the driving force before and after this point, it can be said that this work already fully demonstrates Murakami's potential. However, the plot and setting leading up to this point are a little too long-winded. The fateful scent that has permeated our hands—which is of course none other than the scent of death—is clearly shown, making this a significant work.
- シドニーのグリーン・ストリート Green Street, Sydney
The story follows a private detective, "I," and a pizza shop girl, "Charlie," as they solve the theft of the Sheep Man's ears. It appears to have been written as a short story for children. It is revealed that Dr. Sheep stole the Sheep Man's ears, and that Dr. Sheep actually hated the Sheep Man because he wanted to become a Sheep Man himself. The Sheep Man's ears are safely recovered... and so, it's a kind of fairy tale. Apparently, there are about 3,000 Sheep Men around the world.
*****
The second Japanese collection was A Perfect Day for Kangaroos (カンガルー日和, 1983). This is the second collection of short stories, consisting of 18 short stories ranging from 8 to 14 pages each (except for "The Library Mystery," the last story included, which is only 6 installments). These were all serialized in the magazine "Trefle" from 1981 to 1983. According to the afterword, this magazine is "not the kind that is sold in general bookstores." Chronologically, they were written around the time of "A Wild Sheep Chase," and can be considered roughly the same work as "Slow Boat to China."
Perhaps due to the circumstances of their publication, the content is mostly relaxed, sketch-like, and experimental, if not outright experimental, and not a collection aiming for literary heights. However, in that sense, it can be read as a direct reflection of Haruki Murakami's tastes and qualities as a writer, and this may be a moment that underlies Murakami's works to this day.
- A Perfect Day for Kangaroos (カンガルー日和, 1981). A man and a woman go to see a kangaroo family at the zoo a month after seeing it advertised in the newspaper. When they arrive, they notice that there is no longer a baby kangaroo and are disappointed. The man goes to buy the woman ice cream and when he returns, the woman points out that there is a baby in the mother's pouch. After they realize that the baby is asleep, they agree to grab a beer somewhere together. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning (4月のある晴れた朝に100パーセントの女の子に出会うことについて, 1981). A perfect small fantasy about what you will (not?) do when you happen to meet the perfect girl... A Tokyo man tells of passing the "100% perfect girl" for him in a Harajuku neighborhood. He imagines a scenario where an eighteen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl meet and agree that they are 100% perfect for each other. To prove their hypothesis, they agree to go their separate ways and let fate bring them back together. Years go by and one winter, they both get terrible influenza which causes them to forget much of their respective young adult years. They run into each other in Harajuku when he is thirty-two and she is thirty, but they do not stop for each other. The man says that this is what he should have said to the "100% perfect girl." Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Mirror (鏡, 1983). A man tells the story of how he worked as a night watchman at a school in a small town in Niigata Prefecture shortly after graduating from high school. His job was simple: patrol the premise at nine P.M. and three A.M. During a windy night in October, while he is patrolling the campus, he sees himself in a mirror by the entrance. At first, he is surprised but after a few minutes he becomes horrified: the person in the mirror is not him. In a panic, he drops his cigarette, smashes the mirror, and rushes back to his quarters. In the morning he learns that there are no signs of a mirror from the previous night. Because of this incident, the man states that he does not have any mirrors in his house. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- A Window (バート・バカラックはお好き?, 1982). A graduate spends a year working at "The Pen Society" where he is employed to reply to letters from members, grading and making constructive comments on their prose. When he leaves he makes personal contact with one of his correspondents, a childless, married woman. They spend an evening at her place eating dinner and discussing their interests, particularly regarding arts and letters, but they realize they cannot connect and end up only listening to Burt Bacharach. When he passes by her neighborhood ten years later, he thinks fondly of that afternoon he spent with her. Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes (とんがり焼の盛衰, 1983). A man sees a newspaper advertisement for a "Sharpie Cakes" seminar and decides to go to it; there he meets over a thousand other people. They learn that the company who makes Sharpie Cakes wants a new recipe and will award over two million yen for the winning recipe. The man makes his own Sharpie Cakes and gives two batches to the company. He is called into the office and is told that his Sharpie Cakes are popular among the younger employees of the company but must pass one final test to be considered Sharpie Cakes. The man is escorted to a secure room with giant crows who only eat Sharpie Cakes. His recipe is presented to the birds and it causes a frenzy among them, causing his recipe to be dismissed from the competition. After exiting the company building, he decides that he will only make and eat food he wants to eat and not think about whether "crows" like it. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- The Year of Spaghetti (スパゲティーの年に, 1981). A man only cooks and eats spaghetti in 1971. He sometimes imagines that people are knocking at his door, including dates, William Holden, or complete strangers. He receives a phone call in December of that year from an ex-girlfriend of his friend; she wants to know where to find him so she can get the money he owes her. The man does not tell her where he is despite knowing because he does not want to start more trouble and makes an excuse saying that he cannot talk because he is cooking spaghetti; he hangs up and never hears from her again. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Dabchick (かいつぶり, 1981). A man running down an underground corridor to get to a job interview has to decide whether to go right or left at a T-shaped intersection; he flips a coin and decide to go right. A secretary for the "boss" emerges from a bath and tells the man he has to give a password to meet the "boss." He asks for clues and concludes that it must be "dabchick" and is adamant; when the secretary tells him it is not the correct password, he insists that the secretary tell the "boss" anyway. When the secretary tells the "boss" over the intercom, it is revealed that the "boss" is a palm-sized dabchick and he comments to the secretary that the man is late. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- The Strange Library (図書館奇譚, 1982-2014). A boy visits his local library on the way home from school. When he asks to borrow a book, he is directed to Room 107 in the basement where a stern old man confronts him. Fearful, the boy says he is interested in tax collection in the Ottoman Empire and the man goes to fetch three large volumes. The old man then leads him into a subterranean maze towards the reading room where he will be permitted to read the books. There the boy meets a sheep man, who was ordered by the old man to imprison him in a cell. He is told that he has one month to memorize all three volumes, after which the old man intends to eat his brains once they have become ‘nice and creamy’ with knowledge. With the help of sheep man and a mysterious voiceless girl, the boy makes a bid for freedom through the maze, but as they enter the library once more, they are confronted by the old man and a large black dog. The boy and sheep man manage to escape to the local park and as the boy rests sheep man disappears. Back home, he finds his mother waiting for him with a hot breakfast. He decides never to visit the library again. Translated by Ted Goossen (separate publication).
Not translated:
- 眠い Sleepy
This is another work characterized by the conversation between "I" and "her." The story revolves around the protagonist becoming uncontrollably sleepy during a wedding he attends out of obligation. Murakami's talent as a writer is evident in how he captures the feeling of "sleepiness" as if it were a concrete object, describing it so vividly that the reader can almost feel it.
- タクシーに乗った吸血鬼 The Vampire in the Taxi
This story is about a taxi driver who happens to be a vampire. It's reminiscent of the driver of the "teacher" in "A Wild Sheep Chase." The conversation between "I" and the driver is quite clever, and the way the driver's character is clearly presented with so few words demonstrates Murakami's extraordinary talent.
- 彼女の町と、彼女の緬羊 Her Town and Her Sheep
This story follows "I," a writer living in Tokyo, who, after meeting an old friend in Sapporo, watches a girl from a town's public relations department promoting the town on the hotel room television. As the title suggests, it could be considered a side story or a preliminary work for "A Wild Sheep Chase."
- あしか祭り The Sea Lion Festival
This story is about someone who, after carelessly handing their business card to a sea lion sitting next to them at a bar, was later visited by the sea lion, forced to listen to a long speech, and compelled to make a donation. The sticker received in exchange for the donation had "Sea Lion as Metaphor" written on it. This suggests the sea lion could be likened to a new religious movement or a political activism, or perhaps more abstractly, to something that insensitively intrudes into our lives, yet is not malicious. Unquestionably entertaining.
- 1963／1982年のイパネマ娘 The Ipanema Girl (1963/1982)
A conceptual novel or essay that develops ideas from the phrase "The Ipanema Girl," rather than being about the Ipanema Girl herself. The Ipanema Girl says, "Because I'm a metaphysical girl."
- 5月の海岸線 The Coastline in May
A monologue by "I," who has returned to "the city" for a friend's wedding. "The city" is, of course, Kobe ("They leveled the mountains and used the soil, transported by conveyor belt, to fill in the sea"), and the description of the lost coastline connects to "Sheep" and even "Dance." It seems to imprint Murakami's personal feelings about the city of Kobe.
- 駄目になった王国 The Fallen Kingdom
A story about a chance encounter at a hotel poolside about ten years after "Mr. Q," with whom "I" had some contact during university. Mr. Q is unaware of "my" presence. The episode itself is unremarkable, but the work stands solely on its title, introduction, and conclusion. "The fading of a magnificent kingdom is far more melancholic than the collapse of a second-rate republic."
- 32歳のデイトリッパー The 32-Year-Old Daytripper
A text centered on a conversation between a 32-year-old man and his 18-year-old girlfriend. Like "The Girl from Ipanema," this is a kind of essay.
- チーズ・ケーキのような形をした僕の貧乏 My Poverty, Shaped Like a Cheesecake
This work recounts memories of living in a house on a triangular plot of land sandwiched between two railway tracks. Whether or not it's a true story, it's likely based on Murakami's own experiences of poverty. His skill in imbuing the word "poverty" with realism is remarkable
- 「サウスベイ・ストラット」のためのBGM South Bay Strut
A parody of hard-boiled mystery. Should this also be read as a preparatory work for "The End of the World"? I think it's more of a "fun" piece, with Murakami paying homage to hard-boiled writers like Chandler, whom he personally admires, and imitating their style and writing.
*****
The third collection in Japanese is Firefly, Barn Burning and Other Stories (螢・納屋を焼く・その他の短編, 1984). This is Murakami's third short story collection, containing five works published between November 1982 and March 1984. Considering that "Kangaroo Weather" was a collection of serialized short stories, this could effectively be considered his second short story collection. Remarkably, Murakami had already achieved literary maturity by this point, with each included work possessing a clear focus and profound literary reflection.
In particular, the depth of "Firefly" and "The Blind Willow and the Sleeping Woman," which would later develop into "Norwegian Wood," is breathtaking. In these especially introspective works, Murakami seems to declare his continued commitment to the deficiencies and excesses that human existence is inevitably burdened with. This is undoubtedly because Murakami has discerned that these deficiencies and excesses are the driving force of the novel, the generators that propel our daily lives. There is nothing else to write about; only the unavoidable deficiencies and excesses that determine our lives remain, a realization that stands here, almost detached.
Murakami doesn't try to save them, because such deficiencies and excesses can never be saved by anything. If they can be saved, it can only be by the person who suffers from them forgiving themselves, and the essence of a novelist's job is to confront us with the form of those deficiencies and excesses in the most realistic way possible, and it is not permissible for a novelist to arbitrarily "save" them. In that sense, "Burning Barn" and the allegorically told "The Dancing Dwarf" are works that confront us with the deficiencies and excesses within ourselves that we usually live with, and it can be said that Murakami's fictional worldview had already reached a certain height around this time.
- Firefly (螢, 1983). An eighteen-year-old boy moves to Tokyo to attend university and lives in an all-male dorm with interesting personalities; his roommate is an occasional stutterer and geography major who works out early in the morning and his dorm head requires that all tenants attend a flag ceremony each morning. He tells this to amuse the girl he "dates" (who goes to a different university than him) and afterward they explore Tokyo together on foot. Afterward, they say goodbye as she departs by train back to her apartment. He first met the girl during his sophomore year of high school; she was his best friend's girlfriend and he would sometimes join them for get-togethers. However, the best friend committed suicide and he suspects this causes the girl to feel a disconnect with him because he was the last one to see the best friend alive and not her. They saw each other a few times after his death but nothing meaningful came from such "dates." He also internalizes the following philosophy: "Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it." When he is nineteen and a few months old in June, she turns twenty and they celebrate her birthday at her place. With just the two of them sharing dinner and alcohol, she loquaciously talks for hours past midnight; when the boy interrupts her to say that he needs to catch the last train home, she does not really hear him and continues speaking before she suddenly stops; she then sobs, and the boy does his best to comfort her and they end up having intercourse. He is shocked to learn that she is a virgin and this causes them further awkwardness; they spend the rest of the night with their backs to each other. He leaves a note the following morning before exiting her apartment. He receives a letter response from her at the end of July telling him that she is taking a "leave of absence" from her university studies to spend time at a sanatorium in Kyoto. She also thanks him for his companionship and also asks him not to seek her out before ending with "goodbye." He is left utterly crestfallen. His roommate gives him a firefly in a jar and tells him to take care of it. When it is dark, he goes to the top of the dorm building to release the firefly but it takes forever to move. When it finally does leave the jar, he reaches out and tries to touch the darkness. (In Norwegian Wood the "boy" is Toru, the "girl" is Naoko, the
"best friend" is Kizuki, and the "roommate" is dubbed "Storm Trooper.") Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Barn Burning (納屋を焼く, 1983). A 31-year-old married man and a 20-year-old woman begin a casual and unclear relationship. The woman, an amateur mime, decides to leave Japan for Algiers. Three months later, she returns with a Japanese boyfriend. One day, the woman and her boyfriend ask if they can visit the man's home; because his wife is away visiting relatives, he agrees to the gathering. The three drink carelessly and smoke marijuana in the man's living room; the woman needs to be helped to bed after smoking one joint. Back in the living room, the boyfriend tells him about his idiosyncratic need to burn a barn about every two months. Interested, the man asks why and how he does this. The boyfriend replies that he feels morally obligated to do so and that he picks the barns that he will burn based on their condition. After the woman wakes up, she and the boyfriend leave the man's place, leaving the man very curious about barn burning. He plans his next few days around scouting possible barns nearby that the boyfriend might burn. He narrows it down to five barns, and passes by all of them on his morning run for a month, but there are no signs of arson. The man sees the boyfriend again during Christmas and they share coffee. He asks if the boyfriend has burned a barn recently; he says he did about ten days after he visited the man's house. Before leaving, the boyfriend asks if the man has seen the woman lately; he says no, and the boyfriend says that he has not either, and she does not answer her phone or door. The man checks her apartment and sees that her mailbox is filled with fliers. When he checks again later, he sees a new name on the door and realizes that she has disappeared. Continuing his daily routine, he sometimes thinks about barns burning. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Dancing Dwarf (踊る小人, 1984). A man working at a factory manufacturing elephants dreams of a dancing dwarf, then hears the dwarf existed and danced for the king prior to the revolution. In a subsequent dream he makes a pact with the dwarf to win the heart of a beautiful girl at the factory dance. Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (めくらやなぎと眠る女, 1984). An unnamed adult narrator and his younger teen-aged cousin wait for a bus to take them to the hospital so the cousin can have his ear problem examined, an ailment he has had since he was young due to being hit in the ear by a baseball. While waiting, the cousin inquires deeply about the narrator's watch. The bus ride takes them through much hilly terrain and gives the narrator time to think about how he developed a close bond with his cousin. After the cousin checks in, the narrator reminisces on what happened the last time he visited a nearby hospital. While the narrator was in high school, he and his friend visited his friend's girlfriend at the hospital, who needed to have one of her ribs realigned. After the operation, the girlfriend tells a narrative-poem about a woman who sleeps indefinitely because a "blind willow" sends its flies to carry pollen to her ear, burrow inside, and put her to sleep. Eventually, these flies eat the woman's flesh starting from the inside, despite a young man's effort in trying to save her. After the cousin returns from the check-up, the two cousins lunch. When they talk about the cousin's ailment and how it will probably affect him for the rest of his life, he says he thinks of the movie line "Don't worry. If you were able to spot some Indians, that means there aren't any there" from Fort Apache whenever someone sympathizes with him about his ears. As the bus taking them home approaches, the narrator begins to daydream of how he and his friend were careless with a gift of chocolates for the girlfriend many years ago. When he is able to think clearly again, he tells his cousin, "I'm all right." Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
Not translated:
- 三つのドイツ幻想 Three German Fantasies
This work consists of three short stories: "1. Pornography as a Winter Museum," "2. Hermann Göring Fortress 1983," and "3. The Hanging Gardens of Hell W." "Winter Museum..." is an essay-like piece that begins with the sentence, "What I imagine from sex is a winter museum." "Hermann Göring Fortress" is an episode where the narrator meets a young German man while sightseeing in East Berlin and is shown around World War II battle sites. "The Hanging Gardens" is a description of the Hell W Hanging Gardens, moored on the roof of a building in West Berlin. I don't know the occasion on which these were published, but aside from being related to Germany, there are no commonalities (it's even unclear whether "Museum" is related to Germany), and I think it's best read as a series of sketches. "Museum" is somewhat conceptual and difficult to understand, but "Fortress" and "Hanging Gardens" are enjoyable and straightforward.
*****
Next comes Dead Heat on a Merry-go-round (回転木馬のデッド・ヒート1985).
In a short essay titled "Introduction: A Dead Heat on the Carousel," Murakami states that the works included in this book are not novels in the strict sense, but rather stories he has told several people and written down. He began this work as a warm-up for a longer novel, and the finished pieces were meant to be kept hidden away in his desk drawer, never to be published.
However, as he continued writing, Murakami says he began to feel that each of these stories "wanted to be told." This was essentially a cage arising from the gap between "my novels" and "my real life," and "they wanted to be told." Because these stories represent a "sense of powerlessness" that arises within us when we glimpse people's lives, and their essence, he says, is the realization that "we can't go anywhere."
The title of the book comes from the idea that the operating system of our lives defines us, and therefore, like a carousel, it merely circles fixed places at fixed speeds. Of course, whether what is written here is actually true or not is unknown. Or perhaps these are stories Murakami actually heard from someone, or perhaps they are entirely fictional works that borrow a theme and style.
However, of course, such things are irrelevant to us readers. What's important is that Murakami wrote this work in that format, or with that premise, and that he probably thought there were things he could only express in that form. If that's the case, then whether each short story here is based on fact or not is irrelevant to reading this collection. Rather, this collection is all about the "powerlessness" revealed by the discrepancy between ourselves and our real lives, which gradually accumulates within us, and the perspective that tries to discern the essence of the strangeness and unnaturalness of facts.
- Lederhosen (レーダーホーゼン, 1983). When a Japanese middle-aged woman on a trip to Europe decides to buy a pair of "Lederhosen" for her husband at home, and has somebody who resembles him (fat, white skin) try them on, she suddenly realizes how much she hates her husband. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
- Nausea 1979 (おうと1979, 1984). From June 4 to July 14, 1979, a twenty-seven-year-old man vomits daily and receives regular phone calls in which a man says his name and hangs up. Since he regularly sleeps with his male friends wives or girlfriends as a whimsical hobby, he suspects the calls could be from a spiteful friend who does not want to directly confront him but the voice from the phone does not match any of his friends' voices. Further, no matter how hard he tries, he is unable to stop himself from vomiting the food he ate earlier in the day. He takes time off from work and stays at a hotel but the vomiting and calls do no stop. One the final day of his ordeal in July, he receives the final mysterious call; he is asked by the voice "Do you know who I am?" before it hangs up forever. Mr. Murakami, the listener of this man's story, suggests that the calls could be from a private detective or it could be that the man is possibly schizophrenic. Both conclude that the ordeal the man went through his some hidden meaning and agree that it could again happen to either of them out of the blue. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Hunting Knife (ハンティング・ナイフ, 1984). A couple in their late twenties are vacationing on a Pacific Island, most likely Guam or Hawaii; they share a cottage with an elderly American mother and her adult, wheelchair-using son. On the afternoon of the day before they are set to return to Tokyo, while his wife is taking a nap, the narrator goes for a swim in the ocean. He eventually finds himself on a raft with an obese but healthy American woman and they talk. They talk about their respective personal lives before the narrator returns to the hotel to spend the evening with his wife. The narrator wakes up past midnight and is unable to continue sleeping so he goes out for a walk; he runs into the son at the beach bar and converses with him. The son talks about how he and his mother are staying there indefinitely and his philosophy regarding their relative idleness when they stay at these types of resorts. He finally shows an ornate hunting knife to the narrator and asks him to cut something for him. After hacking away at a number of things, the son tells about a recurring dream he has: there is a "knife" stuck in his head but he is unable to pull it out no matter how hard he tries. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
Not translated:
- タクシーに乗った男 The Man in the Taxi
The story unfolds through the perspective of a gallery owner recounting the most "shocking" painting she had ever seen. The painting, depicting a man in a taxi, is not particularly valuable as a work of art; it's merely a mediocre painting by an unknown young man. However, it is precisely this ordinariness that compels her to acquire it. By burning the painting, she seals away something within herself, but that something is definitively lost when she coincidentally encounters the man in the painting in Athens. This work symbolically speaks of how our lives, in the end, are comprised of such ordinariness and the unimaginable strangeness that swallows it up. The depiction of the confrontation between reality and illusion across a single painting, and the scenes where they intersect, is breathtaking.
- プールサイド Poolside
A story about a man who decides that 35 is the halfway point of his life and then faces that day. A man who has reached the halfway point of his life in a nearly perfect state, except for a few minor flaws, finds himself unexpectedly moved to tears upon seeing his wife ironing while listening to Billy Joel's music. He cannot understand what within him is causing this emotion. Perhaps it is the realization of his own aging, and regret for the irreplaceable time lost in exchange for a plausible life and explainable happiness. Compared to the other stories in this collection, it undeniably lacks a certain depth.
- 今は亡き王女のための For the Now-Deceased Princess
This is the story of a strange night spent with "me" and a beautiful girl who is decisively spoiled and "genius" at hurting others' feelings, and its aftermath. I don't know if such a girl really exists, but the careful description of her character in the first half vividly brings her presence to life, making the suffocating intensity of the intense experience with her in the middle of the story all the more real. You can almost feel the urge to simply surrender to the overwhelming current of desire, and the confusion of realizing what kind of troublesome situation would arise if that happened in this state. This is the power of fiction. Compared to the vibrant urgency of this scene, the epilogue in the latter half seems somewhat superfluous.
- 雨やどり Shelter from the Rain
This story follows a
female editor who, after the magazine she worked for ceases publication,
resigns from her job and, while waiting for her next position, begins
selling herself to men in a bar. She also breaks up with a married
colleague she had been seeing. In the strange void that arises, she
spends a brief solitude, and is approached by a veterinarian she meets
at a bar. She retorts, "I'm expensive." "Sleeping with her didn't seem
so bad, but paying for it seemed a little strange," the narrator thinks.
When a female acquaintance confides in the narrator that she sleeps
with men for money, it creates confusion and distortion regarding the
meaning and value of sex. Whether or not "sex is free like a wildfire"
is debatable, but this distortion undoubtedly makes this work
compelling.
- 野球場 The Baseball Stadium
This is the story of a man who, infatuated with a woman, rented a room next to a baseball stadium from which he could peek into her room, and meticulously observed what happened inside through a telephoto lens. Once he started, it unleashed the violence within him. He became so engrossed in the act that he lost himself in it. Perhaps this stemmed from the asymmetry of the act of peeking into a woman's room through a viewfinder. The distorted desires that this one-sided relationship awakened within him were, in reality, dormant within him all along. By expanding and analyzing, we approach a certain essence, but at the same time, we move further away from the whole. Here again, Murakami's meticulous description reveals the irrational core of human existence lurking behind this plausible story.
*****
In 1986 the collection The Second Bakery Attack (パン屋再襲撃) was published.
This collection contains six stories published between August 1985 and January 1986. In terms of publication dates, it sits between "The End of the World" and "Norwegian Wood."
While the individual stories vary in direction and feel, and there isn't a clear overarching theme, each story is generally highly accomplished, possessing the power to evoke a clear image in the reader's mind as a self-contained fictional world. Works like "The Twins and the Sunken Continent," which follows "Pinball, 1973," and "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and the Women of Tuesday," which later developed into "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," each form an independent world as short stories, even without any background information.
Generally speaking, in all of Murakami's works, it is suggested that the small cracks and distortions lurking in everyday life are gateways to a vast, absurd, and violent world behind them. However, in his short stories, the existence of this alternative world is not actively revealed; only the depth of the darkness that lies there is glimpsed. I believe that a certain lingering impression and symbolism common to Murakami's short stories emerges from this worldview.
- "The Second Bakery Attack" A recently married couple in their late twenties lie in bed, famished; they have little in their refrigerator: a six-pack of beer and some cookies. After drinking and eating all of it, the man recounts to his wife a time he and his friend "robbed" a bakery ten years ago. The two intended to take all the bread they could from a bakery by force. The man who ran the bakery offers a counterproposal before the two men can act: since he is a Richard Wagner fanatic, if they listen to Tannhäuser and The Flying Dutchman with him in the bakery, he will give them all the bread they can carry. They agree, and the bread is enough to feed the two men for a few days. After hearing of that story, the woman suggests that they do the same thing, despite it being 2:30 A.M. They drive around Tokyo looking for a bakery but all of them are closed; they "compromise" to "rob" a McDonald's instead. With ski-masks and a Remington automatic shotgun, they enter the restaurant and demand thirty Big Macs. The three employees working there fulfill the peculiar request. The couple then leave the restaurant and drive until they find an empty parking lot; they then eat four to six Big Macs each until they are full. The man feels calm after this experience.
Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Elephant Vanishes (象の消滅, 1985). The story begins with an unnamed narrator beginning his day reading the newspaper. Like clockwork, the narrator keeps to a tight morning routine which includes carefully looking through the newspaper. On that particular day, the big regional news specific to his suburban town was the disappearance of the local elephant and the elephant keeper. The elephant, an old creature that the townspeople expect to die soon, was housed in the local zoo in the narrator's town until the zoo unexpectedly closed down. While all of the other animals were able to be resettle in other zoos across the country, no other zoo wanted to house an elephant so old and feeble. Thus, the land developer that controlled the zoo property and the town mayor made an agreement to continue to house the elephant in the inoperative zoo and the town would continue to take care of the elephant. While many townspeople worried about the cost of caring for the elephant, the mayor's justification was that the town would have control over the land and build high-rise condo buildings after the elephant died and that the animal was harmless and could even serve as a "town symbol."
Interestingly, there was nothing out of the ordinary that occurred the day before, according to numerous students that had visited the elephant around 5 PM before the local zoo exhibit closed. Even the newspaper reporters are unable to hide their bewilderment at the strange event. The narrator describes three major problems about this potential escape or disappearance, the first being that the elephant's steel shackle, usually chained to its right leg, was still intact. While it may have been possible for the keeper to unlock the shackle, free the elephant, and close it again, the keys for the shackle were locked in safes at the police and fire stations. Secondly, it was impossible to escape even after the keeper and elephant managed to be freed from the shackle because of the large fence surrounding the exhibit and single entrance to the zoo which was always locked. Lastly, there was no sign of elephant tracks that proved the elephant had used other escape methods. Thus, the narrator believes that there is only one possible conclusion: the elephant had not escaped, but had indeed vanished.
Because of the elephant's disappearance, the entire town is thrown into turmoil, with the mayor holding press conferences and pledging to find the culprit of this act. The police force is also actively investigating the situation attempting to alleviate the fears of the townspeople. Despite the police and the mayor encouraging citizens to reveal any information that would help with the search, the narrator decides to keep quiet because they "would not believe what [he] had to tell them." After several days go by, the narrator still remains silent, not divulging the information he appears to have, but instead creating a scrapbook with newspaper clippings related to the elephant's disappearance.
The unofficial "Part 2" of the story begins when the narrator recalls his relationship with a woman he met months after the event of the elephant's disappearance. While they initially were attendees at a party thrown by the narrator's company, they began to chat and connect as he oversaw the publicity of his company's kitchen equipment and she was an editor of a magazine interested in those products. The narrator quickly realizes that they have many things in common, which makes conversation easier.
The narrator then brings up the topic of the elephant, which he regrets but is unable to move away from because the woman is exceedingly interested. Immediately, the woman is aware that the narrator is withholding information and presses the narrator to explain why he believes the situation is so strange. The narrator mentions that he saw the elephant the day before the disappearance around 7 PM by looking down at the elephant house from a hill, a spot he frequently visited to observe the elephant. The narrator was fascinated at the close relationship seen between the elephant and its keeper, filled with a deep trust and "special warmth." The only thing that the narrator notices is strange is not in the actions of the elephant and its keeper but of their physical appearance. Instead of a large difference in size, the narrator had seen the elephant and keeper appear the same size, whether it be because the elephant had shrunk or the keeper had grown larger (or both).
The conversation between the narrator and woman quickly dwindles as the narrator is left to mull over the strange sight he saw the night before the disappearance. The narrator notes that that is the last time he ever saw the woman and that the townspeople also seem to forget about the elephant and the keeper.
Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- A Family Affair (ファミリー・アフェア, 1985). A bachelor and his younger sister live together in a Tokyo apartment. During a trip to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, the sister meets a man named Noboru Watanabe who later becomes her fiancé; the man disapproves of her choice. The sister retorts by saying that she thinks her brother tries to make a joke out of everything. When the sister invites Noboru over for dinner at the apartment, the men get a chance to interact with each other talking about plans after the wedding. The bachelor then leaves to go out for a drink. He meets a woman at a bar; they talk about baseball and proceed to have sex at her apartment after a few more drinks. When he returns home, he and his sister have a talk about their sex lives, where they learn the number of partners they each slept with; the bachelor says twenty-six while the sister says two before she met Noboru. After, they proceed to their separate rooms for the night. Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds (ローマ帝国の崩壊・一八八一年のインディアン蜂起・ヒットラーのポーランド侵入・そして強風世界, 1986). The narrator uses world events to note down bland daily events in his diary. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women (ねじまき鳥と火曜日の女たち, 1986). The narrator searches for a missing cat and after passing through a closed-off alley between backyards, encounters a sunbathing girl. After a lazy conversation he dreams off and when he awakes, she has disappeared. Became the first chapter of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, but is also perfect as a stand-alone story. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
Not translated:
- 双子と沈んだ大陸 The Twins and the Sunken Continent
A sequel to the twins from "Pinball, 1973." "I," having lost the twins, finds them in a magazine photo spread. "I" confront the void left by the twins' disappearance. "Everything is lost, and it's meant to remain lost." And even if he were to acquire the twins again to fill that void, they would eventually vanish without warning or explanation. Therefore, acquiring the twins again would be "meaningless." "I must accept a world without the twins." Although that void was created by the loss of the twins, even the twins themselves can no longer fill it. If so, isn't that void inherently present in our lives? "Perhaps it was already lost long before the twins left me. The twins merely made me aware of it." Therefore, all we should seek is reality. This work is like a quiet requiem for a part of our lives that was lost beforehand.
*****
In 1989 TV People (TVピープル) was published. This short story collection includes four stories published in the latter half of 1980, plus two newly written stories ("Kano Creta" and "Zombie"). In terms of novels, it was published between "Dance" and "South of the Border." There is clearly a literary fault line between "Dance" and "South of the Border," and from that point onward, Murakami's fictional world undoubtedly deepens to the next dimension. The six short stories included here are also drastically different from the earlier "The Second Bakery Attack." From the world protected by a certain intimate and special convention up to that point, this collection clearly reveals merciless collapse and the existence of hopeless, absolute contradictions, testing the quality of the reader's perception of reality as they confront them.
This tendency is particularly evident in his later novels, especially "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." If there is salvation, it can only be found in our own firm will, and to find it, we must inevitably get our hands dirty. This work could be described as a process of exploration, leading to such an understanding and then to an image of the salvation that might be possible within that understanding. All the short stories included here, along with "The Wind-Up Bird and the Tuesday Women" from "The Second Bakery Attack," are part of a lineage that culminates in "South of the Border" and "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle."
- TV People (TVピープル., 1989). 20–30% smaller than normal people, the TV people install a television in the narrator's flat, but the change is ignored by his wife. He later spots them carrying a television through his workplace, but when he mentions it to his colleagues they change the subject. Then his wife disappears, but he meets TV People again. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
- Aeroplane: Or, How He Talked to Himself as If Reciting Poetry (飛行機―あるいは彼はいかにして詩を読むようにひとりごとを言ったか, 1987). A twenty-year-old man meets regularly with a married woman seven years his senior at her place regularly to have sex; her husband is often out-of-town for his job and her daughter is in kindergarten. She has an idiosyncratic habit of crying for a set amount of time every so often and he has a peculiar practice of reciting "poetry" under his breath and not remembering any of it. One day she decides to write down what he says and they learn it is about airplanes. They try to make meaning of it but they conclude that he must mention airplanes for some ineffable reason. That day, she also cries twice, the only time this happens in all the time the two are acquainted. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- A Folklore for My Generation: A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism (我らの時代のフォークロア―高度資本主義前史, 1989). A narrator meets an old classmate from his high school days in Kobe during his trip to Lucca. In a frame story, the classmate tells about his relationship with his girlfriend Yoshiko; most people thought they were ideal because of excellence in so many things but it was, in fact, the opposite. While they much enjoyed each other's company, they never had intercourse as Yoshiko wanted to keep her virginity until after marriage, the most sensual thing they do being erotic touching with their clothes on. They go to different universities after graduation (she remains in Kobe attending a women's college and he goes to Tokyo University), but they remain in a relationship for four years. The last time the classmate decides to bring up sex is right before they drift apart and eventually break up; Yoshiko is adamant but tells him that she will sleep with him after she is married. When they are both in their late twenties, Yoshiko calls him after she is married, asking him to come over to her apartment while her husband is away; she is willing to keep her promise. The classmate feels that it would not be the same so the extent of their tryst remains erotic touching. When the classmate leaves her apartment that day, he knows he will never see her again; he sleeps with a prostitute that evening before continuing on with the rest of his life. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Sleep (眠り, 1989). One of MurakamI's darkest stories. A young mother cannot sleep anymore after she has dreamed that a shadowy man has poured water over her legs. Sitting up reading every night, she rediscovers herself and begins to question her marriage. But death is not far away, as she notices when she starts making nightly excursions in her car... Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
Not translated:
- 加納クレタ Kanō Creta
This is the story of Kanō Creta, the younger sister of Kanō Marta, who makes a living by listening to the sounds of water. Both Kanō Creta and Marta are characters from "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," and the theme of listening to water is carried over into the novel, but Kanō Creta's character is somewhat different. Here, within a fantastical, allegorical narrative, the essence of Kanō Creta's problem is stated: "Every man who sees me tries to rape me."
Because of this, Kanō Creta secludes herself in the mountains, tending to her water jars while designing thermal power plants. One day, she kills a police officer who comes to investigate and tries to rape her. However, while toying with his ghost, she gains confidence and returns to the outside world, becoming a leading expert in thermal power plant design. But eventually, she is violently raped and murdered by a large man with "fiery green eyes," her throat slit. Unjustified violence and sex. This is an idea sketch that connects to "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle."
- ゾンビ Zombies
A simple short story about a man who becomes possessed by a zombie while a couple is talking about zombies as they walk through a graveyard. The nested structure—waking up from one nightmare only to find yourself in another—can be seen as a relativization of reality, but there's no need to interpret it that deeply.
*****
From the 1996 collection Lexington Ghosts (レキシントンの幽霊).
This short story collection, released in 1996, contains seven stories in total: four written between "Dance" and "South of the Border," two written after "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," and a shortened, revised version of "The Blind Willow and the Sleeping Woman" from "Firefly." The title story, "The Ghost of Lexington," and "The Seventh Man" were written after "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," and there's a subtle difference in feel compared to the four earlier stories.
The works before "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" are, broadly speaking, attempts to approach the essence of "fear," but they don't offer salvation for the person trapped by that fear; the stories converge, as if absorbed into a deep silence. However, the two stories after "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," while similarly discussing how "fear" manifests itself in our hearts, offer suggestions about the strength and power we can possess in the face of fear, even though we cannot escape it. This aligns with the progression from the short story collection "TV People" to "Children of God," and in his novels, it seems to correspond to a series of works—from "South of the Border" through "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" to "Sputnik"—as an attempt to overcome despair.
Therefore, while many of these works may seem somewhat surreal and hopeless on their own, if one listens to the breath of the story hidden behind them and gazes intently at the fragments of images that resemble afterimages, one will see Murakami's desperate attempt to grasp clues to a life with enough life to be worth living, even while descending into a cold, stark reality.
- The Little Green Monster (緑色の獣, 1991). A monster burrows up into a woman's garden, breaks into her house, and
proposes love. The creature can read her mind and she uses this fact to
fight against it. Because of her adamant rejection of the monster, it
eventually dies, reduced to nothing more than a shadow. Translated by Jay Rubin in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Silence (沈黙, 1991). While waiting for a flight to Niigata, an unnamed narrator asks his friend Ozawa, an amateur boxer, if the pugilist has ever punched another person over an argument; Ozawa responds by saying that he did once, during a middle school feud with classmate Aoki. Aoki was a model student who always got the top scores on tests. However, during one English test in middle school, Ozawa bested Aoki's score; Ozawa confesses that his parents promising him to buy an exclusive item motivated him to study harder than ever before. When Aoki learns of his "failure," he spreads the rumor that Ozawa cheated on the test. When Ozawa confronted Aoki about the incident, Aoki showed much contempt and Ozawa retaliated by punching him in the jaw; the two do not talk for years even when they are in high school. During the final year of high school, Matsumoto, a classmate of both boys, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. When the police investigated the tragedy, they learned that he was bullied by classmates, but are not sure of who gave him the bruises. They suspected Ozawa because of his boxing background and because he had hit another student in the past; Ozawa concluded that Aoki spread that rumor about him, still feeling sore about their run-in during middle school. Ozawa, despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, was still ignored by his classmates; they maintained a complete silence towards him for the rest of high school. Once, he stared down Aoki while enduring the silence until the end of the school year. Ozawa tells the narrator that he has an idiosyncratic admiration for people like Aoki who cunningly seize opportunity. Ozawa then expresses disappointment in humanity that so many are willing to believe lies and follow without question people like Aoki. The two men decide to get a beer as they continue to wait for their flight. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum in The Elephant Vanishes.
- The Ice Man (氷男, 1991). A woman meets an "Ice Man" during her trip to a ski resort. The Ice Man is able to tell her everything about herself bar her future during their conversation. The two begin dating in Tokyo until they decide to get married; the woman's family is against the marriage because of her age (twenty) and the fact that very little is known about the Ice Man's history. After being married for a while, they are unable to conceive a child. The woman suggests that they go to the South Pole for a vacation. After weeks of planning, she tries to back out but the Ice Man tells her they have already committed too much and they end up flying there together. At the South Pole, there are scarce traces of an Ice Man settlement, but the Ice Man feels at home for the first time. They are able to conceive a child and spend the entire winter at the pole together, but the woman's happiness vanishes as she feels an incredible loneliness. She knows that her new family will never leave the South Pole. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
Tony Takitani (トニー滝谷, 1990). Shozaburo Takitani is a jazz trombonist who is able to avoid many of the hardships of World War II by playing in clubs in Shanghai. He is imprisoned after the end of the war by the Chinese Army but is released in 1946; he returns to Japan and a year later and gets married. Tony Takitani is born in 1948 and his mother dies three days later. Because of this unfortunate event, Tony grows up without a true parent as his father is often away on musical tours and does not know much about being a father. Despite this, Tony is able to become a great illustrator and secures a well-paying job as a technical illustrator. When Tony is thirty-seven years old, he falls in love with a twenty-two-year-old woman who visits his office on an errand. After pulling some strings to have her visit again, he asks her out to lunch. After a few dates he proposes to her; although unsure at first, she eventually agrees. For several years they are able to both live a carefree life, but when Tony points out to her that she buys an astronomical number of dresses and shoes, she begins to become self-conscious; she dies in an automobile collision shortly thereafter. To cope, he tries to hire a woman who has a body figure similar to his wife to wear his wife's clothing and work as a secretary in his office. When he finds a suitable candidate, he shows her his wife's wardrobe and the woman proceeded to cry over the beauty of the dresses. He tells her to take seven dresses and seven pairs of shoes for the week and to begin working tomorrow. After she leaves, he looks at the clothing and reconsiders; he calls the woman to tell her that he has rescinded the job offer but she is free to keep the dresses and shoes she has already taken for the week. Soon after Tony sells the remainder of his late wife's clothing for a fraction of the price. His father dies two years later and he sells all of his father's records for a decent price. After doing so, he feels that he is now truly alone. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- The Seventh Man (七番目の男, 1996). A mid-fifties man dubbed "the seventh man" tells a story to a group about his childhood. When he was ten and lived in a small, seaside town most likely in Shizuoka Prefecture, he had a close friend named K. One day, a typhoon hits the area and while their town is in the eye, they go down to the beach; the seventh man is told by his father to return to the house as soon as winds pick up. While examining items of the beach, the seventh man sees a huge wave form and warns K by screaming to him but his warning falls on deaf ears; K is swallowed by the wave while the seventh man, on higher ground, is spared. A second wave forms but dies the moment before it is to hit the seventh man and in that moment he sees an apparition of K reaching out to him before he faints. The seventh man wakes up a week later in the care of his family and learns that K disappeared without a trace. Many years go on without any evidence of K's remains coming to light; further, the seventh man is haunted by nightmares of K drowning and by the fact that no one outwardly blames him for K's disappearance. By the end of the year, he moves away to Komoro to get away from the town; he stays in the city for more than forty years but is still haunted by nightmares of K. He returns to the town and the beach where K disappeared in his fifties and goes through a storage shed which contains K's paintings. Despite the anguish he feels with merely possessing them he takes it with him back home to Komoro. He studies them and realizes that K's apparition was not looking at him with hatred and resentment all those years. He returns to the beach once more and surrenders himself to the water by falling face-first into the ocean. The seventh man finishes the story by telling his audience to not turn our backs on fear and not close our eyes when it strikes. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
Not translated:
- レキシントンの幽霊 The Ghost of Lexington
This is a story about a writer entrusted with looking after an old mansion by a friend, who encounters strange occurrences. Waking up in the middle of the night in the supposedly deserted, quiet mansion, he hears a commotion like a large party. Suspicious, he goes downstairs and suddenly realizes, "That's a ghost."
However, the central theme of this story is probably not the ghost itself. Rather, it is the interaction with Casey, the owner of the mansion and a trapped figure within it, that underlies this short story and is the source of its vitality. Casey describes the time he slept soundly after losing his beloved father: "The real world was nothing more than a hollow, ephemeral world. It was a shallow world lacking color. (….) In other words, certain things take on another form. They cannot help but take on another form." I believe this is a story about the essential loneliness inherent in our very existence.
- The Blind Willow and the Sleeping Woman
This is a revised version of "The Blind Willow and the Sleeping Woman," originally included in "Firefly, Burning the Barn, and Other Short Stories," reduced to slightly more than half its original length. It's not simply a matter of cutting text; the expression has been refined in many places, resulting in a significantly different feel compared to the original. Specifically, the more concise expression tightens the writing, transforming the atmosphere of the original, which was shrouded in the dark shadow of "death," into a story of a will toward "life."
"For just a few seconds, I stood in a strange, dimly lit place. A place where nothing was visible, and only the invisible existed. But then, a real bus, number 28, stopped in front of me, and the door to reality opened. And I boarded it, heading somewhere else." The insertion of this sentence, which wasn't in the original, clarifies the work's meaning. And this work, written in 1995—in other words, after the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the subway terrorist attacks—concludes as follows. "I put my hand on my cousin's shoulder. 'It's going to be okay,' I said."
The Japanese edition of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (めくらやなぎと眠る女 (短編小説集) was brought out in 2009, and contains the following stories not in other early collections:
- Birthday Girl (バースデイ・ガール, 2002). In a frame story, a married woman with children recounts to her friend what happened on her twentieth birthday (the age of majority in Japan at the time this was written. In 2022, it was changed to 18). The woman begins by saying she spent that day working overtime as a waitress at an Italian restaurant in Roppongi because her friend called in sick at the last minute. The reclusive owner of the restaurant who lives on the sixth floor gets his food delivered to him room service-style by the manager of the restaurant every night at 8pm. The manager falls ill the night of the woman's birthday so the woman is delegated the responsibility of bringing the owner his food. The woman knocks on the door that evening and finds an elderly man at the door. After explaining the situation, he invites her into the room and asks for five minutes of her time; she agrees. He asks how old she is and she responds that she is twenty now, indirectly telling him that today is her birthday. After saying "Happy Birthday" to her, he tells her that he can grant her one wish. She makes her wish, leaves the room, and never meets the owner again. Her friend asks her if her wish came true and if she would have wished for something else in hindsight. She says that time will determine if her wish came true and semi-deflects the second question by asking the friend what she would wish for if she was in the woman's position; the friend is unsure and the woman says that is because "you've already made your wish." Published in Harper's, 2003. Translated by Jay Rubin.
- Man-Eating Cats (人喰い猫, 1991). A married man with a son meets a woman named Izumi during a business meeting; they soon realize that they have an ineffable mutual bond. They eventually consummate their relationship, but when Izumi's husband and the man's wife find out, the cheated spouses leave their respective partners (the man's wife also takes custody of their son). Izumi suggests to the man that they quit their jobs and go live on a Greek island for a few years with their savings; he agrees. On the airplane flight to the island, he has an anxiety attack, scared of a new start in a faraway land.
One day during their stay in Greece, the man reads a story in the newspaper to Izumi about a local woman who was eaten by her cats after she died (thus leaving her famished pets trapped in her apartment). Izumi says that it reminds her of a story a nun told her when she attended Catholic school: the nun says if you are stranded on an island with a cat, do not share food with the cat as it is not "chosen by God." He then tells the story of how, during his childhood, a cat "disappeared" by running up a tree. That night, he wakes up and finds Izumi missing; he also hears music coming from the top on a nearby hill and decides to make the trek to the summit to find the source of the melody. On the way up the hill, he experiences a trance in which he remembers his old life. When he reaches the top and is unable to find a source, he returns to his apartment and thinks of cats eating him alive as he tries to fall asleep alone. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Crabs (蟹, 2003). During a vacation in Singapore, a man and a woman in their twenties decide to eat at a restaurant serving crab meat. They eat at that same restaurant three straight days, and on their final night in the city-state, the man wakes up sick; he vomits the food content in the hotel toilet. He then notices that there are countless "worms" clinging to the crab meat which causes him to throw up bile; he gulps down mouthwash and flushes multiple times before returning to the bedroom. While observing the woman sleeping and the passing clouds, he resolves that he will never eat crab again. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Chance Traveler (偶然の旅人, 2005). To begin the story, the narrator introduces himself as Haruki Murakami. He gives a personal anecdote about strange, life-changing experiences. While serving as a writer-in-residence at a college in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1993 to 1995, Murakami frequented jazz clubs. During one visit, he got to see Tommy Flanagan play and admits he was underwhelmed for most of the performance; he imagines Flanagan asking for requests to which Murakami would ask for "Barbados" and "Star-Crossed Lovers." Suddenly Flanagan launches into a rendition of "Star-Crossed Lovers" and then "Barbados" without Murakami having to ask; the writer admits that the chances of him picking to play both of those specific pieces was one in a million. A second incident occurred some time later while he was exploring a used-record store; he finds a mint condition record of 10 to 4 at the 5 Spot and decides to buy it. As he leaves the store with his treasure, a man asks him for the time to which he replies, "Yeah, it's ten to four."
He then retells the story of his friend who had a similar strange, life-changing experience. This friend is a gay man who works as a piano tuner. During his music college days, he dates a girl but soon learns of his true sexual orientation and comes out. This causes him to stop talking with his sister because this news almost ruins her engagement. He is able to find a steady partner but they do not cohabitate due to his partner's job. About a decade later, he spends time at an outlet mall in the Kanagawa Prefecture reading Bleak House. One Tuesday, he is approached by a middle-aged, married mother about what book he is reading; they learn that they are both reading Bleak House. They soon start seeing each other more often and sharing lunches but when she insinuates that she wants to have intercourse, he tells her that he is gay. She tells him that this "tryst" has been so comforting for her because she is worried after receiving word that she has to return to the hospital because she may have breast cancer. The friend leaves the woman with the following advice: "If you have to choose between something that has form and something that doesn't, go for the one without form." Despite this, she feels jilted and does not frequent their special spot in the mall anymore.
Because of this acquaintance with this woman, the friend feels a need to reach out to his sister. He calls her and they agree to meet at his apartment. They catch up before she asks him why he called today of all days. He explains that "something" happened, and she reveals that she is going to the hospital tomorrow for an operation for breast cancer. Although flabbergasted, he still does not tell her his exact motivation for calling her. After his sister has a successful operation, he resumes a healthy relationship with her and her family, even getting the chance to teach their gifted daughter the piano.
Murakami and his friend agree that these happenings are more than "chance" and even joke that maybe there may be a "god of jazz" or a "god of gays." Murakami ends the story by saying that he hopes for the best for the woman who "coincidentally" influenced his friend's life. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Hanalei Bay (ハナレイ・ベイ, 2006). Sachi's son, an avid surfer, dies from drowning after going into cardiac arrest as a result of being attacked by a shark in Hanalei Bay. She travels from Tokyo to Honolulu and then to Lihue to confirm that it is her son's body for the police. After confirming that it is him, she asks for him to be cremated so that she can take his ashes back to Japan. Sachi visits the hotel the next day to pay her late son's bill but learns that lodges there must pay before staying. She subsequently makes yearly visits to Hanalei for ten years to commemorate her son's passing. One day, she decides to pick up Japanese hitchhikers. She gives them advice on where to stay and to look out for hard drugs.
Sachi was a talented pianist in her younger years but began to hit her ceiling early. As a result, she decided to study the culinary arts in Chicago. She worked as a pianist in a bar to fund herself but was deported after an officer caught her without a license to work in the states. She got married at twenty-four and had her only son two years later. The father died prematurely when she is in her thirties from a drug overdose. After his death, she opened a bar but was not able to maintain a strong bond with her son as he ages. Nonetheless, she plays piano at her bar whenever she feels the need to do so.
Back in Hanalei, she decides to play piano at a restaurant as she is more skilled than the regular. She again meets the two hitchhikers who thank her for her help. Then a former marine enters the restaurant and demands that Sachi play a piece for him. When she tells him that she is not employed here, he becomes belligerent and has to be restrained by the owner; the disgruntled ex-marine leaves without much of a fuss due to him being friends with the owner. The hitchhikers then tell Sachi that they saw a one-legged Japanese surfer riding the waves. Convinced that is her son, she spends the next few days asking around about the surfer and keeping a lookout but she is not able to see him and returns home to Tokyo after three weeks. She runs into one of the hitchhikers eight months later in Tokyo and they briefly talk. She continues her routine of playing piano at her bar while thinking of Hanalei Bay. Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- Where I'm likely to find it (どこであれそれが見つかりそうな場所で, 2005) In Tokyo, a woman's father-in-law is killed in a streetcar accident, leaving her mother-in-law a widow. The mother-in-law then moves into the same building as the woman and her husband so that the couple can be near her; they live two floors above her in a high-rise. One day, they receive a phone call from the mother-in-law asking for her son to come down; she has cardiac problems. After he is done, he calls his wife and asks her to prepare pancakes and that he will return soon; after a while, he does not come back which causes the woman to call the police and eventually file a missing person report.
A private detective agrees to work pro bono searching for the husband in the building stairs; the husband never uses the elevator. He suspects that the man could be a stockbroker turned painter (like Paul Gauguin) who suddenly moves to Tahiti to pursue his new passion but ultimately shoots that idea down, realizing that he disappeared without taking his wallet and other essentials. Near the beginning of his search, he meets a jogger running up the stairs who says he saw the husband using the stairs but did not know him well. Later on, he meets an elderly man who lived on the same floor as the husband and knew the man but never discussed anything meaningful with him. A few weeks later, he talks with a young girl but refrains from doing anything suspicious or mentioning that he is looking for the husband; they instead talk about donuts and he says he is looking for a “door.”
The woman calls twenty days after the disappearance to tell the detective that her husband has been discovered at Sendai Station; the last thing he remembers is heading back to his place for pancakes with his wife. She thanks him for his efforts and the man resolves that he will continue his search for the “door.” Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- The Kidney-Shaped Stone that moves every day (日々移動する腎臓のかたちをした石, 2005). Although distant from his father, thirty-one-year-old Junpei takes to heart his father's words that a man will only know three women “that have real meaning for him.” Junpei is sure he has already met his first, but she ended up marrying his friend and is wary of meeting his second too soon; thus, he does not engage in a meaningful relationship for some time.
He meets Kirie, a woman five years older than him, at a French restaurant and they begin a relationship. He tells her that he is a short story writer but she is surreptitious regarding her profession. Nonetheless, she takes an interest in his writing and inspires him to write a story about a woman doctor who has an affair with a married surgeon. During a trip, the doctor finds a kidney-shaped stone and takes it back to her office to use as a paperweight. The stone begins appearing in a moment in the woman's life and she begins to think it has supernatural abilities; however, it always returns to the same position in her office when she comes in each morning. She decides to get rid of it by throwing it far into the ocean, but it still returns to her desk. When Junpei finishes writing the story, he calls Kirie to share it with her but he is unable to get through to her. He nonetheless submits it for publication and it gets accepted in a major literary journal.
Months go by before he hears her voice on a taxi radio; it is at their point he learns that she owns a business of high-rise building window washers and her passion is tightrope walking between high-rise buildings without a lifeline. He also learns that she has been in Germany the past few months performing her craft. Despite not being able to speak to her again, he is inspired to write more than ever before and decides that she was influential enough to be “number two,” but starts to doubt the meaningfulness of his father's theory. The woman doctor story ends with the stone disappearing from her desk.
This story shares several similarities with Murakami's earlier story “Honey Pie.” Translated by Jay Rubin in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
- A Shinagawa Monkey (品川猿, 2005). Mizuki forgets her name when she is asked what it is by others. Her surname is Ando, the name she took after marrying her husband, but still uses her maiden name Ozawa professionally. After reading about a counseling center established for residents of the Shinagawa ward in the newspaper, she decides to book and attend a session in hopes of getting to the root of her worry. There, she meets Mrs. Tetsuko Sakaki who is open to listening to her story. Mizuki tells about her upbringing in Nagoya and how she moved to Yokohama to go to college.
In subsequent sessions, Mrs. Sakaki asks her to tell her an event relating to names. Mizuki tells her the story about how her classmate Yuko Matsunaka came to her to talk shortly she committed suicide; she talked about jealousy and asked her to keep her “dorm name tag” for her so that it would not be stolen. During that talk, Mizuki learns that she has never felt jealousy in her life. That night at home, she searches for the name tags (hers and Yuko's) but is not able to locate them.
During her tenth session, Mrs. Sakaki says that they have found the reason for her forgetfulness: a monkey stole the name tags; Mr. Sakaki and his associate Sakurada have now caught the monkey. The women meet the two men and the monkey. When the monkey demonstrates the ability to talk, they interrogate it. The monkey stole the names because it has an irresistible urge to steal names; in doing so, he is able to learn profound things about them as well as partially deprive them of the memory of their own names. Sakurada suggests that they kill the monkey to alleviate the problem, but Mr. Sakaki says that might cause further problems with animal rights groups. Mizuki suggests that they let the monkey live as long as he tells them about the profound things associated with her name; they agree. The monkey says that when he stole her name, he learned that her mother and sister never loved her and that her marriage is static; Mizuki agrees that she suspected that was the case but is now sure thanks to the monkey. Mr. Sakaki says that he will take the monkey to Mount Takao; the monkey promises never to return to the city. As Mizuki leaves with the name tags, Mrs. Sakaki tells her that if she has any other things she wants to discuss, she is always welcomed to return. Translated by Philip Gabriel in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.
Later short story collections:
After the Quake (神の子どもたちはみな踊る, 2000).
1 UFOが釧路に降りる 『新潮』1999年8月号 UFO in Kushiro
(The New Yorker. March 19, 2001)
2 アイロンのある風景 『新潮』1999年9月号 Landscape with Flatiron
(Ploughshares. September 22, 2002)
3 神の子どもたちはみな踊る 『新潮』1999年10月号 All God's Children Can Dance
(Harper's. October, 2001)
4 タイランド 『新潮』1999年11月号 Thailand
(Granta. July 7, 2001)
5 かえるくん、東京を救う 『新潮』1999年12月号 Super-Frog Saves Tokyo
(GQ. June, 2002)
6 蜂蜜パイ 書き下ろし Honey Pie
(The New Yorker. August 20 & August 27, 2001)
東京奇譚集 (stories from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - see above)
Men without Women (女のいない男たち, 2014)
1 ドライブ・マイ・カー 『文藝春秋』2013年12月号 Drive My Car
(Freeman's: The Best New Writing on Arrival. October 13, 2015)
2 イエスタデイ 『文藝春秋』2014年1月号 Yesterday
(The New Yorker. June 9 & 16, 2014)[7]
3 独立器官 『文藝春秋』2014年3月号 An Independent Organ
4 シェエラザード 『MONKEY』2014年2月15日発行・Vol.2 Scheherazade
(The New Yorker. October 13, 2014)[8]
5 木野 『文藝春秋』2014年2月号 Kino
(The New Yorker. February 23, 2015)[9]
6 女のいない男たち 書き下ろし Men Without Women
First Person Singular (一人称単数, 2020)
石のまくらに 『文學界』2018年7月号
クリーム 同上
チャーリー・パーカー・プレイズ・ボサノヴァ 同上
ウィズ・ザ・ビートルズ With the Beatles 『文學界』2019年8月号
「ヤクルト・スワローズ詩集」 同上
謝肉祭（Carnival） 『文學界』2019年12月号
品川猿の告白 『文學界』2020年2月号
一人称単数 書下ろし
Western reviewers have (a bit stupidly) complained that Murakami is "too Western." Some would rather have sushi than hamburgers, not to speak about other exotisms. They are wrong, because the Japan that Murakami's stories describe, is the real Japan of today, where people eat more hamburgers than sushi!
I like the stillness (ordinariness?) of these stories - also when seemingly nothing happens, still something important shifts inside the narrator. Or he realizes there is something more below the surface of daily life, like the undersea volcano in The Second Bakery Attack.
Most of the stories are realistic. When fantasy elements intrude, one doesn't mind as it is only for the time of a story. That is better than in Murakami's recent "magic-realistic" novels as Kafka on the Shore, where the piled-on magic elements become unbelievable. (I would have liked a short story about those fish raining from the sky!) On the other hand it is true that there is personal preference involved here - I prefer lyrical poetry to epics, haiku to tanka and concise short stories, like the world caught reflected in a diamond, to bulky, meandering novels.
