Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Readers who fear the short story...need to set hesitations aside here. Murakami is an open-armed, hospitable short story writer [with] a greatly appealing and embracing personal narrative voice....The beauty of the author's prose style seals every story's sharp delivery." Booklist
Review
"Murakami's matchless gift for making the unconventional and even the surreal inviting and gratifying creates hard little narrative gems....A superlative display of a great writer's wares. Absolutely essential." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Many of these stories have a good chance of surviving, fusing as they do the great modern magical realist tradition with a compelling insouciance and an emotional spareness many readers will find they share." Chicago Tribune
Review
"A warning to new readers of Haruki Murakami: You will become addicted....Murakami is a true believer in the unexpected phone call with a ghost on the other end. Read him and you may begin seeing things." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"In Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, the 25 stories juxtapose the deeply bizarre with the mundane to evoke fleeting moods of sadness, hope, nostalgia, and dread. (Grade: B+)" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"[A] satisfying, entertaining collection from the writer of the brilliant Kafka on the Shore. It is a solid introduction to the eclectic talents of this master storyteller of the absurd." Seattle Times
Review
"In this extraordinary new story collection...reality is ever in danger of breaking loose of its moorings....Life becomes more problematic after you read a Murakami story, one reason, among many, why he is truly a great writer." Baltimore Sun
Review
"Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Murakami's first collection of short stories in more than a decade, again demonstrates his fabulous talent for transporting readers and making 'the world fade away' with a few short strokes of his pen....What shines in all of [these stories] is Murakami's love for the open-ended mystery at the core of existence and his willingness to give himself up 'to the flow' in order to capture some of the magic in the mundane." Heller McAlpin, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of
Kafka on the Shore and
The Wind-up Bird Chronicles comes this superb collection of twenty-four stories that generously expresses Murakamis mastery of the form. 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.
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, Murakamis characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be closest of all.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into thirty-four languages, and the most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Table of Contents
Introduction to the English Edition
1) Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
2) Birthday Girl
3) New York Mining Disaster
4) Airplane: Or, How He Talked to Himself as If Reciting Poetry
5) The Mirror
6) A Folklore for My Generation: A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism
7) Hunting Knife
8) A Perfect Day for Kangaroos
9) Dabchick
10) Man-Eating Cats
11) A "Poor Aunt" Story
12) Nausea 1979
13) The Seventh Man
14) The Year of Spaghetti
15) Tony Takitani
16) The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes
17) The Ice Man
18) Crabs
19) Firefly
20) Chance Traveler
21) Hanalei Bay
22) Where I'm Likely to Find It
23) The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day
24) A Shinagawa Monkey