Murakami’s Short Story in New Yorker
February 8th, 2006 . by JillyThe New Yorker published a Haruki Murukami short story this week. It’s entitled “Shinagawa Monkey”. I just finished reading it and it was pretty good.
Click here to read it.
I read Norwegian Wood a while back and I liked it. I want to read another one of his books. Does anyone have any other Murukami recommendations for me?
(Link via Large Hearted Boy)
I’ve read a few of his books. ‘After the Quake’ is a small collection of short stories.
Also, I read ‘the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles’. I thought it was amazing. At the time, the lenght intimidated me and it took me a while to get into it. I started then stopped, then started over again. I really really enjoyed this book. I think Murakami has a style that I just enjoy to sink into. He’s modern and layered and uses great visualism in the text. As a warning, I should say that ‘wind-up’ was a bit violent and grotesque at times, since some of the subject matter deals with war crimes in Manchuria durring World War II.
And I bought ‘Kafka on the Shore’ but haven’t started it yet.
Hello Jilli and 4azoni : I just read the story in the “New Yorker�, and I loved it.
While I was reading the story, I thought that her memory loss was due to her life, things were always to predictable & bland.
And I thought that maybe at the end of the story she’d leave her husband or move somewhere exotic and change her name or do something spontaneous and that would trigger her memory. But no, guess I was wrong.
I think, (and this is just me thinking) that at the end, the author was saying that, we all might know something about ourselves, something a bit monestrous or dark. (For example, in her case: her mother and sister not loving her and sending her away to school.) We might not want to except a part of ourselves at least for a large part in our lives, so we tend to pretend its not true and ignore it, but when we do finally come to terms with it, what ever it is.. we make peace with it and we grow as a person. But who knows maybe am so off here.
cindy:
i think you’re right on. although i didn’t see the twist coming at the end with the monkey.
murakami’s a good writer. i’m gonna read more of his stuff.