From the Bookshelf of On Paths Unknown…

First Person Singular: Stories

Haruki Murakami,

Philip Gabriel (Translator)

Start date: October 20, 2021

Finish date: November 15, 2021

Discussion: LET'S KEEP IT SHORT

Why we're reading this: We want to read "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" as one of our Halloween short stories, and may read oth…more
[close] We want to read "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" as one of our Halloween short stories, and may read other stories from the collection if there's interest for it.

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 9 topics — 302 comments total

LET'S KEEP IT SHORT

Stefan Zweig's Chess Story
By Traveller · 43 posts · 60 views

last updated Feb 02, 2023 08:22AM

H.Murakami, "Cream", "With the Beatles" , " The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection "
By Traveller · 44 posts · 35 views

last updated Dec 29, 2021 06:57PM

showing 3 of 3 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Apr 17, 2021 Andrew Smith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Eight new short stories from a writer who I always find thought provoking, often surprising and occasionally unfathomable. I’m a big fan of Murakami’s novels, several of which would be amongst my all-time favourite books, but I’ve often found it hard to engage with his shorter pieces. I think it’s because at his best I find him to be such an immersive writer and I believe he needs a larger canvas to be able to provide such an experience. But any time I pick up something he’s written I know that Eight new short stories from a writer who I always find thought provoking, often surprising and occasionally unfathomable. I’m a big fan of Murakami’s novels, several of which would be amongst my all-time favourite books, but I’ve often found it hard to engage with his shorter pieces. I think it’s because at his best I find him to be such an immersive writer and I believe he needs a larger canvas to be able to provide such an experience. But any time I pick up something he’s written I know that it will cause me to pause, it will make me think.

Each of these tales is told in the first person. The narrator is sometimes identified as a writer and is perhaps the author himself, though he’s only identified as such in one story. A young man is invited to a piano recital by a girl he once knew only to find there is no recital. Instead he meets an old man who dangles a strange riddle which, though he tries, he’s unable to comprehend. Another young man meets a girl on a train and she sleeps with him at his small, messy apartment. She’s a writer of tanka poetry (poems comprising 31 syllables) and cries out another man’s name during sex. In these stories the interest is in the musings of the young man and the strange, off-beat interactions he has with the people he comes into contact with.

Sometimes he ruminates on women he’s met or become fixated on. In one he describes an ‘ugly’ girl who he found interesting, though he was not sexually attracted to her. They shared an interest in piano recitals and had deep conversations on the merits of various pieces and players. In another he recalls how he was attracted to a girl who carried an old Beatles album, though he only saw her once and never spoke with her.

Music crops up a lot in the stories - pop, classical and jazz - and my favourite concerns an article the narrator wrote whilst at university about a mythical jazz album that musician Charlie Parker recorded, along with a group of other legendary musicians. He went into great detail about each track and it seems that some were taken in by this wholly invented record. But years later he actually found a copy of the record whilst browsing in a second hand record store in New York. I was totally absorbed by this one – a perfect short story in my view.

In other stories he reflects on his love of baseball, a time he met a talking monkey (yes, this is Murakami so everything is up for grabs) and an occasion when came across a confrontational woman whilst having a quiet drink at a bar. Taken as a whole I really enjoyed the feeling of reflection on a life lived complete with its mysteries and missed opportunities. It’s a nuanced take, as is the way with this author, and I found it unsettling at times - but that’s part of the attraction here too. If you’re a Murakami fan then you’re sure to find something to like here and if you’re new to his writing then I think this isn't a bad place to start. ...more

58 likes · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2021 Seemita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: anthology-collection, alpha-meta-dig-a, fiction, asia, music

Banal – Mysterious – Inconsequential – Cryptic – Breezy – Therapeutic – Comforting : Among all these boats cradled this new book, making petite homes at one point and leaving the ocean to stretch the roof at another.

I wondered if the stories it carried bore the stamp of reality or the whiff of mendacity? An entire story hinged at an LP of With The Beatles in the hands of a young girl was too intimate to be fiction and yet, the expressive monkey, a staple of the Murakami world, of Shinagawa was ...more

54 likes · Like · see review

Oct 26, 2021 BJ Lillis rated it really liked it

Shelves: japanese

When I was a high school boy, I loved Haruki Murakami. I don’t think you could overstate the impression that Wind-Up Bird made on my sixteen-year-old brain. In a way, reading Murakami as an adult is little bit like rereading any childhood favorite—like rereading the Chronicles of Narnia and realizing ‘oh my god it was about Jesus all along’. When I was 16, I thought Murakami wrote with great insight about the world. Reading First Person Singular, I feel like what Murakami actually understands is When I was a high school boy, I loved Haruki Murakami. I don’t think you could overstate the impression that Wind-Up Bird made on my sixteen-year-old brain. In a way, reading Murakami as an adult is little bit like rereading any childhood favorite—like rereading the Chronicles of Narnia and realizing ‘oh my god it was about Jesus all along’. When I was 16, I thought Murakami wrote with great insight about the world. Reading First Person Singular, I feel like what Murakami actually understands is the minds of men under 23. I thought Murakami was universal, just like I thought that my experience of the world in general was universal. Call it the art of male cluelessness. By college, out and radicalized, Murakami felt almost like an affront: could this writer of awkward young men and oddly-cold magical realism really have been my favorite? Not someone cool like then-new-favorite Octavia Butler? (Who wrote circles around the Haruki Murakamis of the world, just to be clear on where I stand).

Now, I guess, I can hold it at arm’s length. A number of the stories in this book are about oblivious, vaguely misogynistic men hurting the women in their lives without realizing it. One stand-out (and chilling) story is about a monkey doing the same thing, and knowing it perfectly well. Does Haruki Murakami know that this is what he’s captured? The last story in the collection seems to be literally about that exact question—and yet I still finished the book not entirely sure.

But I did like the book. And I related to it, despite myself. Because I was a fourteen-year-old boy once, and I do remember how seeing a cute girl in the hallway, who I didn’t even know, could generate countless hours of fantasy that had nothing to do with her as a person (as in With the Beatles in this collection). And I also hurt people without realizing it. That, at least, really is a universal experience—as are the tricks memory plays with reality, another important theme at play here.

Also there’s a funny story about baseball, and a clever one about jazz, so that’s nice.

Overall verdict: I’m personally glad to have read it, but I certainly wouldn’t blame someone for throwing it at a wall halfway through. Murakami absolutely does have some real insight into how memory and reality intersect (or don't), but David Lynch does it better. ...more

16 likes · Like · see review

Apr 06, 2021 Cecily marked it as to-read

Shelves: magical-realism, china-japan-asia, short-stories-and-novellas

Interview with Murakami about this book, mainly: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/06/984447... ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

May 01, 2021 Amy (Other Amy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2021, entropy-the-magnificent, x-tree-book, geography-of-the-heart, she-gathers-rain, study-of-evil, mosaic-novel, little-bit-rock-n-roll, we-live-in-cities, death

As it true of most people, I imagine, I had experienced a number of turning points in my life, where I could go either left or right. And each time I chose one, right or left. (There were times when there was a clearcut reason, but most of the time there wasn't. And it wasn't always like I was making a choice, but more like the choice itself chose me.) And now here I was, first person singular. If I'd chosen a different direction, mostly likely I wouldn't be here. But still - who is that in the ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Apr 20, 2022 Michael Finocchiaro marked it as to-read

Shelves: japanese-lit, short-stories, fiction, japanese-21st-c

Fino's Murakami Reviews - Novels
Hear the Wind Sing (1979/1987-2015)
Pinball, 1973 (1980/1985-2015)
A Wild Sheep Chase (1982/1989)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985/1991)
Norwegian Wood (1987/1989-2000)
Dance Dance Dance (1988/1994)
South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992/2000)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995/1997)
Sputnik Sweetheart (1999/2001)
Kafka on the Shore (2002/2005)
After Dark (2004/2007)
1Q84 (2010/2011)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013/2014)
Killin ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 18, 2022 Catherine Mustread rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

Took notes on each short story but managed to accidentally delete them. In summary, then, I most liked the final story which also is the title story — complex,weird and humorous -- which might apply to most of the stories in this collection.

Like · see review