Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
A collection of short-stories from widely acclaimed author Haruki Murakami. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for.
Following the best-selling triumph of Kafka on the Shore - “daringly original,” wrote Steven Moore in The Washington Post Book World, “and compulsively readable” - comes a collection that generously expresses Murakami’s mastery. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining. As Richard Eder has written in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, “He addresses the fantastic and the natural, each with the same mix of gravity and lightness.”
Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami’s characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be the closest of all.
“While anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream,” Laura Miller wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “it’s the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves”—a feat performed anew twenty-four times in this career-spanning book.
If you're an aficionado of all things Murakami this is a collection you'll want to read cover to cover, probably in chronological order so as to see how his writing has changed over time. However, if you've enjoyed some of his earlier works but been a little bemused by others (or this is the first time you've read anything by Murakami) you'd be best to read strategically, skipping over the stories that don't resonate, and leaving a reasonable amount of time between mouthfuls...continued
Full Review
(516 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
.... continued from main block.
In addition to writing his own books in Japanese (which have been translated
into more than thirty languages), Murakami is a skillful translator of English
works into Japanese, including works by Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, John
Irving and Paul Theroux.
In 2006, Murakami became the sixth winner of the Franz Kafka Prize, co-sponsored
by the Franz Kafka Society and the city of Prague (previous winners include
Philip Roth and Harold Pinter). In 2007 he was awarded the Kiriyama Prize
for Fiction for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman but, according to the Kiriyama Official
website, "declined to accept the award for reasons of personal principle".
The Kiriyama Prize, established in 1996, is a...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, try these:
by Fiona Maazel
Published 2014
Woke Up Lonely is an original and deeply funny novel that explores our very human impulse to seek and repel intimacy with the people who matter to us most.
The Little Black Book of Stories
by A.S. Byatt
Published 2005
These unforgettable stories are by turns haunting, funny, sparkling, and scary. Byatt’s Little Black Book adds a deliciously dark note to her skill in mixing folk and fairy tales with everyday life.
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!