First Person Singular (2020)

[Andy]

Hey! My copy arrives on the 6th, so I’ll not have my hands on it until then. I can’t wait to read it. I’m glad you enjoyed it 😁

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog]

It is an intention of mine to read all Murakami. I have had bad luck with the short story collections. One was a bunch of opening chapters from previous novels.

[Dal]

My favourite was "Shinagawa Monkey"!

[Peter]

I always enjoy Murakami, but I’m reading “First Person” now, and find his descriptions and characterizations of women increasingly intolerable: one dimensional, largely defined by their looks and values in relation to men.

At one point he writes, “she had me under her spell,” about a high school girl in a skirt. But she didn’t have him under anything of her own volition. She was simply an object. He put himself under his own spell as he watched her. He was not the victim.

I don’t mean to be overly critical. I love the monkey in the hotel… even though his lonely act of love is “taking” something from women he cannot have.

Murakami’s attitude toward females has always been expressed this way, but I guess in 2021, after having read ALL of his fiction, my patience with his inability to evolve is running a little thin.

AND I will keep going back and rereading my favorites of his.

[Elizabeth]

Here’s a question and a very important one at that, directed to either Philip Gabriel or the Master himself: is a “fungoe” a grounder or a pop fly or something else we just don’t have in English? Ok-anybody?

[Yihua]

My favorite from First Person Singular is The Shinagawa Monkey.
I've noticed many readers questioning Murakami's depictions of female characters, and I was a bit curious too, so I did some researches and found this interview: https://lithub.com/a-feminist-critiqu... It would be an interesting read if you are a Murakami fan.