Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The Elephant Vanishes

by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator), Alfred Birnbaum (Translator)

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 · rating details · 13,513 ratings · 753 reviews

With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that dri...more

Paperback, 336 pages

Published June 28th 1994 by Vintage (first published 1993)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Best Haruki Murakami Books

11th out of 17 books — 292 voters

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor

Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Collections of Short Stories

114th out of 1,186 books — 879 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Nov 06, 2012 oriana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not only was the book amazing (I truly believe he can do no wrong), but one of my best friends and I saw an actual play of it several years ago at Lincoln Center. We had seats in the very front row. The play (as required, I'm sure) was balls-out crazy, all in Japanese, with a ticker doing subtitles at the the top of the stage. My memory sucks, but I think I recall a bunch of people with static-spewing TVs for heads, and some crazy shit with sideways sleeping people. Probably I should reread the...more

25 likes · like · see review

Apr 24, 2013 Forrest rated it 3 of 5 stars

Some authors excel at writing novels. Others excel at the short form. A few are equally adept at writing novels and short stories. From my reading of The Elephant Vanishes, Haruki Murakami is not one of those people. Here’s why:

Murakami’s novels are lush affairs. By that I mean that his proto-typically lazy character has time. Time to develop interests, time to contemplate deeply, time to be affected, to become . . . something. The short form, by its very nature, does not allow the same luxuries...more

19 likes · like · see review

Nov 02, 2008 Fiona McCandless rated it 5 of 5 stars

apathetic

Every protagonist in Murakami's books (though, I've only read this and 'Norwegian Wood') are apathetic. They just float through their lives, never really caring about what is happening, or if there is anything they can do to fix it.
I think to some readers this could be quite tedious, but there is something real about these characters because of their apathy. Through the bizarre situations the characters face, the reader can relate on some level.

The first few stories did annoy me, as man...more

16 likes · like · see review

Jun 20, 2007 E.H. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: literary hipsters

Shelves: theboxmarkeddone, magical_realism

What can I say about Haruki Murakami? He is famous, both in Japan and abroad, although in the States those who know him tend to be Literary Hipsters who are interested in Asia. He writes novels and short stories, although his novels tend to be a bit disjointed and episodic, hinged like a Jacob's ladder. His short stories will always employ a simile at the top of the second page which may seem at times deep and yet simple.

When I started reading The Elephant Vanishes, I wasn't really sure what I...more What can I say about Haruki Murakami? He is famous, both in Japan and abroad, although in the States those who know him tend to be Literary Hipsters who are interested in Asia. He writes novels and short stories, although his novels tend to be a bit disjointed and episodic, hinged like a Jacob's ladder. His short stories will always employ a simile at the top of the second page which may seem at times deep and yet simple.

When I started reading The Elephant Vanishes, I wasn't really sure what I was getting into. The first story, "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women", is a good litmus test for the book as a whole: a man gets a strange phone call from a woman, fails to find his cat, and makes dinner. If this holds your attention, the book will be totally your thing. If the thought of listening to this narrator rattle on and on about the alleyway behind his house makes you cringe, you're better off going back for something else.

I'd divide the stories into two categories, the real and the magically real, and most of the ones that fall into the latter category ("Sleep", "Barn Burning", "A Slow Boat to China", "The Dancing Dwarf", and "The Elephant Vanishes") are among the best in the collection. Which is not to diminish the others - "The Silence", a story about a boyhood fight, is one of my favorites of the group, and definitely contains none of the surreal elements the others exhibit.

Murakami's narrators tend to be men and women in their early thirties, married or in a place where they feel they should be married but aren't, with families which seem largely inconsequential to the action. Over the course of any given story, they will generally make a similie, listen to music (classical and classic rock, generally), eat spaghetti, and have awkward conversations with people which may or may not be typically Japanese.

The thing is, despite the reviews on the back which claim that Murakami is showing "Japan as it's experienced from the inside", I don't see a lot of Asia here, at least not the Asia that I know and live in. The Japan portrayed here will be familiar to Westerners, because the strange emptiness the characters experience, the search for meaning, is the same in both worlds. This has some interest in itself, especially if you happen to be interested in the congruencies that have grown between cultures as a result of globalization (why do all his characters listen to Western music and read Western novels?).

In summary, read it for the spaghetti, read it for the magical realism. If you're looking for classical Japanese culture, go somewhere else.(less)

10 likes · like · see review

Oct 26, 2008 Amari rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've been deeply disappointed in Murakami before, and I seem to remember that they're always short stories that I have found useless. But this collection floats my boat. I agree with some reviews I've read that complain of the lack of variety in the protagonists' situations -- they're, almost to a one, loners, bored, alienated, and around 30. Most of them are experiencing some kind of freakish alteration in the world around them which, I take, we are meant to interpret as changes in themselves....more

6 likes · like · see review

Jun 27, 2007 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars

murakami short stories rock my socks. on a purely structural level, his sentence composition is brilliant. short, descriptive, simple, and undeniably beautiful in a way that perhaps only a writer with an eastern perspective could achieve. sometimes his sentences make you feel as if you are gazing from the summit of a mountain with no one else around. besides that, his blend of the absurd with the bitterly mundane is a juxtaposition that only the most skilled writer could pull off. with bizarre t...more

5 likes · like · see review

Jul 02, 2012 twrctdrv rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, read-in-translation

Haruki Murakami is both a master and an idiot, and both of these sides of him show up in the stories in The Elephant Vanishes. Some stories are full master or full idiot, and some lie somewhere in between. As a master (see The Second Bakery Attack) he manages to take the mundane issues of bored people and somehow morph them into important, masterful scenarios that seem both so real and unreal simultaneously that most people link him in with the Magical realists, stories that describe lonely peop...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 20, 2010 Endrina marked it as gave-up-reading · review of another edition

I enjoy Murakami's books - to a certain degree. They always seem a bit too long, and I tend to lose interest. On the other hand, his short-stories are...too short. Well, that's not really the issue. I was disappointed to find that several of them are actually chapters from his books - chapters I have read before. So I ended up reading some pages, skipping to the next, reading some more...yeah, you got it. Then, the one's I hadn't read seemed pointless.
Now, I'm not one for short-stories in the fi...more

2 likes · like · see review

Apr 18, 2012 Maharet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: awesome, murakami-haruki, short-stories

Bene, Murakami, con questo libro possiamo dire di essere di nuovo in buoni rapporti e me ne rallegro moltissimo perchè è stato grazie alle meravigliose storie che questo scrittore, forse un pò incostante nella qualità, ma sempre accompagnato da una sottile genialità, che mi sono innamorata così profondamente del Giappone e della sua cultura.
"L'elefante scomparso" è una raccolta di racconti disposti in ordine cronologico e che vanno dagli anni '80 al 1999.
Alcuni sono molto ben riusciti, altri men...more

like · see review

Nov 09, 2011 Kp rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

I got this one short story free from Audible.com so I figured I'd listen since I had really liked his book Norwegian Wood. Well, this one was back to Murakami's weird fantasy type writing. It was ok, but... well, pretty strange and it seemed meaningless to me. I guess really it was all about the narrator and how strange he was... but so what?

Here's a quote from a review I read that sums up his style to me:
"If Hemingway writes using the iceberg method, where the bulk of the meaning is submerged...more

like · see review

Jul 27, 2011 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wonderful characterization in every story. I have yet to read any of his novels yet but I've heard nothing but praise. If he can immerse you so quietly and yet so strongly into his narrator's head so well in these short pieces I can only imagine the depth in his novels.

I was at the very least amused by each story though i will admit there were one or two where I wasn't entirely gripped by the predicament. One or two cases where I didn't feel grounded enough in the more bizarre aspects of those p...more

1 like · like · see review

May 02, 2011 Gavin rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have only 2 complaints, which are scarcely complaints. One is that, stylistically, the stories all read similarly. The narrator might as well always be the same character, though it's true that in many cases it actually is (and this I appreciate). It's not monotonous at all, at least not in a collection of this length, but I wonder if all of Murakami's novels are also like this. Even when the narrator is a woman, I half-internalise it as the man from all the other stories.

The second "complaint...more

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 25, 2010 Tanabrus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: giapponesi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Non sono un appassionato dei racconti, e ormai la cosa è risaputa. Preferisco le storie più lunghe, e se l’autore è un buon autore le preferisco molto lunghe.
D’altro canto adoro Murakami, uno dei miei due scrittori non fantasy attuali preferiti, e anche questo è risaputo.
Quindi mi sono avvicinato con molta curiosità a questa raccolta di racconti, ma alla fin fine non ne sono stato granchè entusiasta.

Alcuni racconti mi sono piaciuti tantissimo, altri mi sono piaciuti abbastanza, altri ancora non...more Non sono un appassionato dei racconti, e ormai la cosa è risaputa. Preferisco le storie più lunghe, e se l’autore è un buon autore le preferisco molto lunghe.
D’altro canto adoro Murakami, uno dei miei due scrittori non fantasy attuali preferiti, e anche questo è risaputo.
Quindi mi sono avvicinato con molta curiosità a questa raccolta di racconti, ma alla fin fine non ne sono stato granchè entusiasta.

Alcuni racconti mi sono piaciuti tantissimo, altri mi sono piaciuti abbastanza, altri ancora non li ho affatto apprezzati.

Riguardo quelli che non ho apprezzato, la cosa è dovuta al fatto che non vi ho trovato un significato.
Parlerò invece di quelli che mi sono piaciuti.

Granai incendiati mi ha ricordato altri libri di Murakami, come il meraviglioso Dance dance dance o La ragazza dello Sputnik e la cosa non ha potuto che farmi piacere. Un racconto perfetto, direi. Un finale aperto, che lascia intuire senza però spiegare niente; una ragazza solitaria, senza affetti a parte un amico -il protagonista-; un ragazzo che sembra far breccia nella solitudine della ragazza; e i granai incendiati, granai di cui nessuno sente la mancanza. Mi ha colpito molto questa storia, davvero bella!

L’ultimo prato del pomeriggio invece ricordava parecchio Norvegian wood sia per il protagonista che per il tipo di narrazione. Niente elementi soprannaturali, niente assurdo, niente morti. Solo un ragazzo, uno studente, che improvvisamente si ritrova solo, abbandonato dalla sua ragazza. Un ragazzo che mentre lavora, mentre taglia i prati si ritrova a riflettere su come in realtà non conoscesse la sua ragazza, su come lei stessa non conoscesse lui. Sulla sua apatia, altro tema caro a Murakami.

Sonno, uno dei pochi con una donna come protagonista. Una protagonista che per una causa stranissima non riesce più a dormire, ma la cosa invece di logorarne fisico e mente pare rinvigorirla. E grazie a questa insonnia ritrova il piacere della lettura, finendone assorbita a tal punto da allontanarsi sempre più dalla sua vita quotidiana, dal marito, dal figlio… e tutto senza che nessuno si accorga di niente, visto che esteriormente continua abitudinariamente a compiere le stesse azioni. Molto bello anche il finale.

Il mostriciattolo verde, altro racconto con protagonista una donna. Ma questa volta punta sulla crudeltà femminile, che pure solitmente non rientra nei libri di Murakami. Le sue donne sono spesso libere, indipendenti, complicate, solitarie se proprio vogliamo, ma mai crudeli. Qui invece la protagonista si trova di fronte un mostriciattolo verde, uscito da sottoterra per parlarle. Un mostriciattolo che dichiara di volerle bene. E lei, superata la paura iniziale, una volta capito di non correre rischi e che il mostro legge i suoi pensieri e vi reagisce fisicamente, si beerà del potere che questa sua capacità le conferisce torturandolo mentalmente fino a ucciderlo, sadicamente e senza alcuna compassione per la creatura inoffensiva. Colpisce, questo racconto.

E infine Silenzio, un racconto che rievoca i tempi della scuola e un particolare episodio di bullismo. Abbiamo lo studente modello, al centro dell’attenzione, con voti ottimi e apprezzato da insegnanti e studenti. Una persona finta e furba, che capisce cosa vuole il suo interlocutore e si adegua di conseguenza. E abbiamo il protagonista, lo studente che non vuole attirare l’attenzione, che studia il minimo indispensabile, che sta sempre sulle sue, solitario. Che si sente superiore intellettualmente alla massa di studenti che lo circonda, e che odia profondamente lo studente finto.
I due hanno uno scontro alle medie, e lo studente finto e furbo troverà il modo di farla pagare al protagonista alla fine del liceo. Una vendetta crudele che lo isola completamente, odiato da tutti. Una vendetta che quasi lo spezza, finchè non capisce che moralmente sarà sempre superiore a quello studente privo di personalità la cui unica soddisfazione risiede nel manipolare chi gli sta intorno.
Un’esperienza che lo segna profondamente, rendendolo in grado di sopportare qualunque situazione nella vita, ma facendogli allo stesso tempo perdere la fiducia nell’umanità, facendogli temere costantemente che in caso di sorte avversa si ritroverebbe nuovamente lasciato solo da tutti.

Questi a mio avviso sono ottimi racconti inseriti in questa raccolta. Altri sono godibili, grazie allo stile narrativo di Murakami, e possono offrire qualche spunto interessante. Altri ancora non li ho capiti affatto, non vi ho trovato un senso.
Alla fin fine il libro è godibile, grazie all’autore e a questi racconti, ma non posso certo dire di averlo apprezzato chissà quanto.(less)

like · see review

May 12, 2010 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars

‘The Elephant Vanishes’ starts with the story ‘The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women’ which was updated and became the first chapter of ‘The Wind Up Bird Chronicle’ (one of my favourite books by Haruki Murakami), so it was a nice beginning to a great collections of stories, All of the stories were different in their own way and as always with Haruki Murakami very open to interpretation, the beauty of his writing is what you take from it, I am still thinking about the story ‘Sleep’, maybe because...more

like · see review

Jul 05, 2010 Alexander Veee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, japanese-literature, read-2010, magical-realism

"This might be a strange way to put it," he took off again, spreading both hands, then bringing them slowly together before his eyes. "But there's a lot of barns in this world, and I've got this feeling that they're all just waiting to be burned. Barns built way off by the seaside, barns built in the middle of rice fields... well, anyway, all kinds of barns. But nothing that fifteen minutes wouldn't burn down, nice and neat. It's like that's why they were put there from the very beginning. No gr...more

like · see review

Mar 16, 2010 Matthew Rogers rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would give this book a better rating if it wasn't for a few of the Short's that are in the collection. Don't get me wrong, I like Murakami, he is an excellent author, but I have my reasons for giving this book 3 stars.

Let me talk about the good parts at least. My favorite stories in the novel are: The Silence, The Little Green Monster and The Second Bakery Attack. Out of those three, The Silence is what stands out for me the most. It is just a simple retelling of a persons past, the person bei...more I would give this book a better rating if it wasn't for a few of the Short's that are in the collection. Don't get me wrong, I like Murakami, he is an excellent author, but I have my reasons for giving this book 3 stars.

Let me talk about the good parts at least. My favorite stories in the novel are: The Silence, The Little Green Monster and The Second Bakery Attack. Out of those three, The Silence is what stands out for me the most. It is just a simple retelling of a persons past, the person being Ozawa, but not only what Ozawa tells the narrator of the story (and the reader) as to what happened to him a long time ago, but it is also a story of a man who suddenly found himself being shunned by everyone around him and how he was able to get past that realizes he is the better man from the experience. To me this short is the most simplest out of all the ones in the collection, but because it is simple and of the story itself, you get the feeling of pain and loneliness and suffering from Ozawa even when he finishes speaking.
The Little Green Monster is simple, in short what the damn lady does to the poor thing pisses me off and gets to me, now every time I think of what happened I just call her a bitch. If a story can really make me feel, then I know it is a good story and that's how I know TLGM (The Little Green Monster), aside from it being weird, is a good story.
As for The Second Bakery Attack, it is the complete randomness of the couple having to go steal some food, and where they do steal food is funny, that gets to me somehow, not like how TLGM gets to me, but I find it interesting and cool.

Now there are two stories that just make me wonder as to why they are in the collection at all, and those stories are The Window and Family Affair. The Window is about a guy who use to be a Pen Master, who wrote letters back to those who just sent them in to his company, and how he meets one of those he was in correspondence with. What ticks me off is just that at the end of the story he states, "Thats the central question of this piece," after the reader had to read though everything in the story they come across a simple question followed by that statement. I don't like stories that use that because then what was the whole point of reading everything when the narrator then states a question that has nothing to do with the story at all and serves no purpose what so ever? Though it does relate to what he says after, but I still find it useless. If I wrote the story I would of changed that part slightly by making the narrator do what he imposes in the question, but that's just me.
Family Affair is like The Window but without the useless question and little statement that comes after it; the narrator just goes about explaining himself and his sister, how they live etc, his feelings toward the man she is gonna marry, and that's it, nothing else. What was the point? Am I missing something? I understand about the rift between the two, but that's it and I'm still confused.

So because of those two stories, and because the other stories didn't strike me like The Silence, The Little Green Monster and The Second Bakery Attack did, I give the collection 3 stars. Overall Murakami is a really good writer, and I need to read more of his work. Still, I'm glad to have gotten this book, it'll be great in my collection.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Jan 14, 2013 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

I only began reading Murakami as of last year. My work mate brought into the office 'A Wild Sheep's Chase' and I was immediately intrigued by the quirky title. After being delighted by that book, I subsequently went on to buy most of Murakami's other books and each one exceeded my expectations. In The Elephant Vanishes, Murakami once again writes with such imagination and incredible prose that I was left in awe of undoubtedly one of literature's greatest writers.

I like the fact that all the emo...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jul 31, 2012 Lisa L rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read the story "sleep" in this collection recently and have to ramble about it a little.

People seem keen to relate to “sleep”. Yes, I do think the story has to do with the suppression of her individual self, being bored of routine passive domestic life, but this reaction is unconscious or subconscious, at least in the beginning. She never expressed a strong repressed desire to “do”/achieve anything outside her daily life as a mother, cook, and house keeper. She never expressed content towards...more I read the story "sleep" in this collection recently and have to ramble about it a little.

People seem keen to relate to “sleep”. Yes, I do think the story has to do with the suppression of her individual self, being bored of routine passive domestic life, but this reaction is unconscious or subconscious, at least in the beginning. She never expressed a strong repressed desire to “do”/achieve anything outside her daily life as a mother, cook, and house keeper. She never expressed content towards her family for the life she is living. Even her descriptions later on of her years in school where she took honors for her literary thesis and her relentless reading habit showed no direct goal set or future driven action related desires. She only passively muses: I wonder when I stopped reading, I wonder when my life became like the one I am living now.

A stronger emotion is evoked gradually as she realizes how much she enjoys the extra time she has gained from not sleeping. Here, I have to disagree with some speculation that she is troubled by the divide between the two different life style/ existences she is held to (the issue is that she cannot possibly keep up both for herself). I think the fact that the night time solitary ventures are precious precisely because it is solitary. This is where her sense of “freedom” comes from. Not because her husband would disagree with her reading. She briefly thought about how her family is reacting (there is something to be said with their obliviousness) and even commented that her husband does not care if she reads or not. It is not so much domestic suppression but the loss of the individual’s intellectual merit. By this I mean, considering individual merit without consideration of responsibility. This is also stated by her in the story. It gets tricky since, some of the mentioned responsibility is inevitably social but also individual. She never had a strong distaste for her life as a wife and mother, she is passively accepting. I think she never considered marriage or family life a loss to her individual merit, this may be because of social acceptance or responsibly. She feels individually responsible for loving her son and husband, this is not forced. What seems to have been lost along the way is her individually merited reason for existence. There can be numerous speculations as to why.
(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 21, 2012 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: peace-corps-read

- Fave stories: "The Kangaroo Communique", "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning", "Sleep", "Barn Burning" (fave), "The Dancing Dwarf", "The Silence", "The Elephant Vanishes"

- Least fave: "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women", "The Little Green Monster", "TV People", "A Slow Boat to China"

- I liked that certain elements repeated throughout stories: Noburu Wantanabe, classical music, sandwiches for breakfast, elephants, working somewhere that sells appliances

- Why was ever...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 23, 2013 Kyle Muntz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Less affecting than "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman", but more whimsical and imaginative. As usual, I'd recommend Murakami's novels over his short fiction, but the standout here are just phenomenal, especially "The Second Bakery Attack"; the brief but poignant "A Window"; "A Family Affair", probably the most realistic story in the collection but one of the most affecting; and (maybe most notably) "The Dancing Dwarf", which is one of the best pieces of short fiction I've read. For the most part, th...more

like · see review

May 08, 2013 Omar Manejwala rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of great short stories, magical realism, Murakami fans

This is an extraordinary collection of shorts that is a mix of magical realism and an exploration of the impact of the absurd on the ordinary. I’ve noticed that some of the reviewers on here are looking for the depth of character development you see in his novels, but really, that’s impractical given the genre. Murakami’s characters in this collection are almost accidental…who they are, their circumstances and background are made so plain-jane so they can exaggerate the implications of the bizar...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 04, 2011 James Curcio rated it 5 of 5 stars

Murakami manages to keep me riveted in ways that I don't even fully understand. If most of these stories were pitched to me as an editor, I'd think they were somewhere between banal and stupidly fanciful in the way of a story that a seven year-old might tell. But in his hands, they're transfixing. They'd be transfiguring as well, except that sometimes he leaves you with so little to hold on to at the end of a piece that you're left just with a feeling like "what just happened?"

But maybe the cha...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 01, 2010 Sheela rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

The Elephant Vanishes was a mixed bag. This collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami was a far improvement to his disaster of a book, Kafka on the Shore. But, it's still not my favorite assortment of short stories. The stories that were good were really really great - amazing, actually. In fact, I read some of the stories twice because I enjoyed them so much (i.e the couple who wants to rob bakeries, but instead decides to rob a McDonald's). The stories that I found fascinating illustrated...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 29, 2012 John rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe Murakami was trying to make a point with the stories in this book, but, whatever that point (or points) might have been, I was certainly never able to grasp it. Every story in this book--with one notable exception--is dull and anticlimactic. The characters are usually lethargic and unlikable, and the endings feel arbitrary since nothing generally gets resolved. You might appreciate these stories as "word paintings" or some such thing, but definitely go into them expecting little in terms o...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 24, 2013 Paolo Gianoglio rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ora nessuno potrà dire che non ci ho provato! Prima Norwegian Wood, ora questo, seguendo un consiglio di lettura collettiva. Ora posso dire con una ragiovevole certezza che a me Murakami non trasmette nulla. Mi lascia del tutto indifferente, non suscita emozione alcuna, non smuove alcun pensiero. Elettroencefalogramma piatto. Credo sarebbe importante cercare di capire perchè ciò accade, ma al momento mi sento così anestetizzato che non sono in grado di analizzare il problema. Forse ha a che fare...more

like · see review

Mar 30, 2012 Fernanda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Bueno, ya es oficial. Estoy enamorada de los cuentos de Haruki Murakami.

Sinceramente me parecen estupendos. Esos cuentos llenos de fantasía y realidad, todo junto que no sientes que exagere o que parezca algo fuera de un mundo normal, donde todo puede pasar y las situaciones más caóticas son pan de cada día. Que un asalto a un McDonalds sea común, que no dormir por semanas te de energía o trabajar en una fábrica que arma elefantes. Todo es simplemente fuera de lo común, pero no dejan de tocar u...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 17, 2011 Andrew added it

Shelves: haruki-murakami, japanese-fiction

This is my first stab at Murakami's shorter-length work. I loved the four novels of his I'd read before (Kafka on the Shore, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, The Wind-Up Bird Chroncile and Norwegian Wood) even though they're fairly disparate. A lot of Murakami fans hate Norwegian Wood.

There are two kinds of stories in this book. There are the realistic (or, rather, realistic enough-- no unicorns or malevolent spirits) stories about mindless consumer culture and gritty reality. And then there are the ones...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 14, 2013 Ivan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I fell for a girl whose favorite author is Murakami. She is wonderful and she absolutely loves his writing. In a silly effort to feel closer to her, or to at least have something to talk about if we ever meet again, I started reading his works. I started with 1Q84, and then Sputnik Sweetheart, and as I read them I imagined what she must have felt as she read the same passages. They were good books and I liked Sputnik the most.

Then I read The Elephant Vanishes and suddenly it is my favorite colle...more

like · see review

Jun 23, 2011 ––––•(-•The Insomniac Book Hoarder•- rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

My love for it ,stems from Haruki's very interesting scenarios laden with ambiguos endings. As well as a comical if not cinematic approach to mundane tasks and everyday human behaviours. I laughed my heart out when I read about the Mc.Donald's incident and the dire need to consume a number of big macs due to cravings. Initially I have regarded myself as the woman from Sleep and the way she had found some sort of freedom while others are deep in their slumber. I have no trouble sleeping, but in s...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 17, 2011 Dina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Classic Murakami. In my opinion, with him you are always guaranteed at least 2 things: an attack on the normal and a somewhat elitist taste in music. I must say that I prefer Murakami as a novelist as opposed to Murakami as a short-story writer, because i think that he doesn't somehow manage to reach the finish line very successfully as latter. I always feel a dose of fledgling penmanship in his short stories that I have never encountered in his novels, which carry the reader steadily from the b...more

1 like · like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (42)

More editions...

Genres

Short Stories

367 users

Cultural > Japan

115 users

Asian Literature > Japanese Literature

114 users

Magical Realism

60 users

Literature

55 users

Fantasy

40 users

Contemporary

37 users

Cultural > Asia

21 users

Literature > Asian Literature

20 users

Literary Fiction

12 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'.

Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often disting...more

More about Haruki Murakami...

Books by Haruki Murakami

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Zniknięcie słonia

1 trivia question

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from The Elephant Vanishes

“There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.” — 73 people liked it

“I realize now that the reality of things is not something you convey to people but something you make.” — 61 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: The Elephant Vanishes
avg rating	preview: The Elephant Vanishes Goodreads rating: 3.91 (13513 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9555.The_Elephant_Vanishes?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320456886l/9555.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9555.The_Elephant_Vanishes?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami[/url]

The Elephant Vanishes

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website