I Read Haruki Murakami’s ‘First Person Singular’.

I’ve found that Haruki Murakami is capable of beautiful things. His writing is both immense in scope as well as microscopic in focus. He does a lot of work taking big looks at things and breaking them down into their smallest forms, their instants, their moments. The way he’s able to shift and change setting and category, and even genre almost mid-paragraph is impressive as well. But that being said, I don’t know if it’s a translation issue or a matter of terse and short wording in place of broader language, but I find that his stuff can be very hit or miss to me. I feel like sometimes the “shot is out of focus” if that makes any sense. While I like his subjects, I’m not sure that I like his style.

This is a collection of short stories that varies greatly, but mostly seem quasi-autobiographical. I don’t know if many of these things really happened, but I have a feeling that on some kind of level, there’s an attachment to a real memory or incident that Murakami went through. Often, it’s not the actions that take place in the scenes of these stories, but instead the way that he thinks about them and the way that he talks about how it has affected him in the long run. The sentiment of so many of these writings feel like dream journals. Or at least like the ruminations that exist in the mist in the waking just after a dream.

These stories are difficult to dislike, but also a bit too much like a disappearing phantom to truly enjoy. I love the feeling of the stories, though. I think I could read a story like these held within once a day and feel fulfilled. They take you nowhere, but they ask nothing of you. They don’t expect you to leave your seat or get too invested in the characters within. Instead, they just let your mind wander alongside the author, no matter how unrealistic or unexpected the stories are. A monkey in a bathhouse, talking to you over beers? Sure. A woman mistaking you for someone else at a bar and trying to belittle you in public, before you walk outside into a strange other universe? Sure. The way that you fall in love again and again and still can’t help but picture a girl you saw in high school carrying a Beatles record? Perfect. It’s all here in this book.

There was one story that really stood up for me called Cream that I liked the most and would recommend trying to hunt down if you are looking for a very quick fix. Without diving too far into the details, I think its simplicity in the way that it addresses an imaginary complexity really does needle into the zen-like expectation of how these stories can tend to feel.

I don’t think I necessarily recommend this book, at least for someone who is just trying to get into Murakami. I have read a few of his novels, and especially love The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. But this, as an independent work, could just confuse and uninterest someone in an author who honestly does have a lot of cool potential in terms of the kinds of stories he tells. There are absolutely no limits to where his mind will go and he will fearlessly write about them, even if it means driving you far[, FAR] from the path he initially intended.