First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
A traveller takes a drink with a melancholy monkeyworking in a run-down inn. A writer stumbles across a fictitious jazz record he made up for an old review as a joke. A man finds himself drawn to a mysterious woman based on their shared love of Schumann. Haruki Murakami’s singular blend of the ordinary and surreal is on full display in this collection of eight mesmeric short stories, all linked by their shared use of the first-person perspective. Some of these stories have previously appeared in literary journals, while others are available here in English for the first time.
Fans of Murakami will undoubtedly enjoy this grab bagof many of the writer’s repeated motifs and themes: baseball, memory, loneliness, the capricious path of fate, youthful longing, and the sweet airs of music. One of the collection’s highlights, ‘Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova’, unfolds likea score; at times the prose cranks the tension with neurotic staccato beats, others it swells with nostalgia-infused dreaminess. In just a few, fleeting pages, it had me fully immersed – ‘Go back!’ I was mentally shouting at the narrator – and left me grinning at its punchy blast of a final line.
That immersive quality and masterful control of prose is, of course, what makes Murakami’s magical realism so transfixing and what keeps his devotees camped out for more. Murakami seems fully aware of (and wryly bemused by) his cult-like status, and stories like ‘The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection’ and ‘With the Beatles’ raise tantalising questions of how closely they hew to autobiography. Murakami has his detractors as well, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that some of these stories are taking playful shots at his critics – particularly those who have commented on his portrayal of women – but to varying degrees of success. However you feel, First Person Singular contains much to discuss and savour. Readers new to this fascinating writer’s work will find these short, odd pieces an inviting and accessible entry point.
