First Person Singular: Stories
Ratings79
Average rating3.5
One of the weaker entires from Murakami. Read after the quake just before and loved it much more. Not much stores that stay with you. The one with the money and with the beatles were the only even rememberable. For others I had to check the index to see the names and remember the stories.
Still an alright read. Just 8 stories so not much time needed to read.
If you like Murakami, read this last if you want to read the better of his first or if like me and planning to read them later, do give it a try earlier, especially before going to his other short story collections.
This is a collection of eight short stories by Haruki Murakami. It was initially published in a Japanese monthly literary magazine. All the stories involve an older Murakami looking back at his life with nostalgia.
This book hits the right spot with some stories whereas, some stories just missed the point.
Stories like Cream, The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection and First Person Singular involve passages of honest introspection. Coupled with the usual spellbinding Murakami writing, elevated these stories for me.
However some stories (With the Beatles, On a Stone Pillow) where Murakami's visible inability to write multi dimensional female characters becomes apparent. As usual, the female characters serve as vessels for the other characters' emotions while their own are mystified.
Çok uzun bir süre Murakami okumaya ara vermiştim, bu açığı öykü derlemesiyle kapamak güzel oldu. Sonunda kulak memeleriyle (hatta genel olarak memelerle) alakalı uzun paragrafların olmadığı, orta yaş bunalımlı erkek-liseli lolita kız fantezilerinin olmadığı bir kitabına daha denk geldim. Ve kendisini ilk başta okumayı niye bu kadar sevdiğimi hatırladım. Hallelujah cidden. Genel olarak bütün öyküleri keyifle okudum. Beyzbol ile alakalı olan hariç çünkü zaten zerre alakam olmayan bir konu hakkında bir de üstüne fanatik beyzbol şiirlerinin olduğu bir öyküyü sevmeyi beklemiyordum. Gerçi aralardaki aile dinamikleriyle alakalı yazıları hoştu o yüzden yine de okudum. Favorim sanırım “With the Beatles” adlı öyküsü oldu ama “Taştan Yastık” ve “Charlie Parker Bossa Nova Çalıyor” ile yarışabilir.
‘'But the whole neighbourhood was still and silent, as if the dense clouds above had swallowed up all sound.''
Cream: A young man is invited to a piano recital by an old classmate. But when he arrives at his destination, he feels lost. He sees no one and there isn't the slightest hint of a venue in sight. All he finds is a strange old man and a peculiar lecture on the meaning of life...
‘'Lost in this incessant afternoon downpoura nameless axedecapitates the twilight.''
On a Stone Pillow: The narrator recounts a winter's night encounter with an enigmatic woman and the lasting impression of a mysterious poetry collection. This story is quietly beautiful and moving.
Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova: I am afraid I don't like Jazz or bossa nova, and I stopped reading this one after the fifth page. Other readers will surely find it interesting but what little I read bored me to tears.
‘'You go to the dark side of the moon and come back empty-handed.''
With the Beatles: On the other hand, I adored this story! With The Beatles' legacy as the perfect background, the narrator takes us on a brief walk down memory lane during the 60s, before he focuses on his first girlfriend and a strange discussion with her brother on an autumnal Sunday afternoon. There are so many layers in the story and so many themes for discussion.
Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey: A traveller meets a monkey that cannot only talk but has an obsession with stealing women's names and identities. A story that veers toward Surrealism. Make of it what you will.
Carnaval: Forgive me but I am not interested in an endless rumbling on how an ‘'ugly'' woman can actually (!) appear ‘'attractive'' to a man. In my opinion, this story was dull, offensive and did not do any credit to Murakami's fame as a storyteller. And no references to Mozart or Schubert can salvage this misogynistic chaos. In fact, by this point, I began to feel rather underwhelmed by the entire collection.
The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection: Oh, look! A ‘'story'' about (really) bad poetry and baseball. How interesting!
Not.
First Person Singular: A man wears a suit and goes to a bar. He meets a woman, a friend of a friend of a friend, who accuses him of a past transgression. Except, he cannot recall what he was supposed to have done and we are not told either...
The end.
Frightfully underwhelming, a collection that had its moments but never really soared to literary heights. I've read dozens of better - much better- collections this year by much less ‘'celebrated'' authors. Disappointed and irritated.
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/
I used to love Haruki Murakami, but for whatever reason, his books are not resonating with me they way they once did.
Fun! I didn't like Carnaval and Murakami's outdated and frankly gross and kinda sexist view of women, but the story about the monkey was fun lol
Murakami is such a strange writer to me because at one moment he expresses some element of the human psyche with such nuance and then he'll turn around and write some just ham-fisted like I'm-fourteen-and-this-is-deep style philosophizing, usually centered on women. There's one story here that starts “Of all the women I've known until now, she was the ugliest” that kind of hurt to read. A short story about how looks affect social status and personality and all that could have been interesting if handled correctly, but this was not that.
Anyways, not great. I still love Norwegian Wood though.
Not his best work. Not even one of his mediocre works. I thought this was a pretty lame attempt at trying to be Murakami, from Murakami himself. I thought the first short story (“Cream”) was fine and almost what I was looking for out of Murakami short stories, but it was mostly downhill and rock bottom from there (looking at you, “Caravel”. One can only read about Murakami's thoughts on ugly women for so long).
The only exception was “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey”, which I thought was fun and conjured up some amazing mental images. A talking monkey scrubbing someone's back and making smalltalk? Sure, I'm here for that.
I'd pass on this one though, even if you're a Murakami fan. Maybe for completion's sake once you've read just about everything else by him. It's a quick read, if nothing else.
