Men Without Women By Haruki Murakami
(Throwback Review) I still remember the day I read this book. I read two books with the same name by two great authors in one single day. The first one was Men Without Women, written by Ernest Hemingway and the second one was Men Without Women written by Haruki Murakami. I don't know which one was the best. Both are exceptional books, and I loved both of them. This book is a collection of seven short stories written by Murakami. Loneliness is one of the important topics discussed in this book.
“There were times he thought it would have been far better to never have known. Yet he continued to return to his core principle: that, in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong.”Men Without Women كانت تقدم له ما ينشده..تنسيه الواقع مثل☆
سبورة سوداء ممسوحة بقماشة مبللة..لقد ازيلت عنه المخاوف و الذكريات..من يمكنه ان يطلب اكثر☆؟ اليس هذا ما ننشده جميعا من قراءاتنا للقصص ؟
اليابانيون. .لغز حياتي
ظل أبي يسافر اليابان سنويا لعشرين عام
و بعض أقاربي سافروا ايضا
و انا تعاملت مع بعضهم منذ دهر حيث كنت المادة الرئيسيةلعدة استبيانات و أجبتهم عن مئات الأسئلة العجيبة
الكل و انا معهم اجمعنا على انهم ليسوا بشر مثلنا على الإطلاق. .بل هم المادة الخام للأدب و والضمير و الاجتهاد و الدقة
حتى جاء موراكامي ليقنعني انهم بشر:يخرفون. .يضعفون..يخونون. . مع الاحتفاظ بدقتهم التي تثير كل احقادك الدفينة
قصتنا تغوص في 3مستويات من النفس البشرية. .مبدئيا لو كنت تتساءل عن أدق مشاعر شهريار تجاه قصص شهرزاد ستجد الإجابة في هذه النسخة العصرية
هنا نتعرف على { هابارا }شاب وحيد حبيس منزله؟ تتعهد شهر زاد؛ ممرضة معتزلة بأداء متطلباته {كلها!! } و تقص عليه شذرات انطباعية من حياتها على حلقات ..حتى تعترف له بهوايتها الشاذة في اقتحام البيوت الخالية منذ الصبا. .ينجرف معها هابارا في قصصها
يتألق هاروكي في تفاصيل لا تصدق وضحت الهشاشة الإنسانية للمرأة اللغز شهرزاد ..لكني اضطررت لخصم نجمتين لانه استعمل معنا نفس اسلوب شهرزاد هنا
cliffhanger
..و لان القصة 20 صفحة ذات طبيعة إباحية
هابارا انت لست جزيرة معزولة ..انت السلمون. .وقعت في الشرك
Merged review:
عندما تتكور على نفسك في احدى زوايا العالم و تتمنى لو تركك الجميع لشانك ..تتمنى لو عبروا جسدك بابصارهم كما لو كنت شفافا ..و يظل احساسك بالضألة و عدم الاستحقاق يؤكد لك انك لم ترتكب خطأ لكنك ايضا لم تفعل الأمر الصائب
احتاج ان أتعلم الصفح وليس النسيان🌚
هو لم ينجز شيئاً في حياته، في نهاية الأمر، ولم يكن منتجاً على الإطلاق. لم يستطع أن يسعد أحداً، كما لم يسعد نفسه بالـتأكيد. السعادة؟ لم يكن يعرف معناها. لم يكن لديه معنى واضحاً أيضاً لعواطف مثل الألم، أو الغضب، الخذلان، والاستسلام. وكيف ينبغي أن تشعر بها.⬇
احتاج ان أتعلم الصفح وليس النسيان..
و لكن من يحتاج الصفح ؟ أنا ؟ ام من أخطأوا في حقي ؟
كينو رجل في منتصف العمر يتعرض لصدمة عمره: زوجته تخونه على فراشه مع صديقه و زميله في العمل لكنه يكبت مشاعره..يتعالى عليها
هناك أحيانا صدمات و اهانات تخرسك لشهور بل لاعوام
و هناك مخاوف تلتهمك حرفيا ولا تترك سوى حطام
تدمر الواقعة حياته القديمة تماما يترك عمله و بيته و يرحل باسطواناته الفينيل ..و عندما تستقر حياته الجديدة ..تنقلب من جديد
يا للمكان الجميل،” قالت..زوجته التي خانته ” هادئ، نظيف، وساكن-يشبهك.”ا
و من قال ان الكل يحبون الهدوء و النظافة؟ الكل يطمعون بها من باب الطفاسة ..و لكن يكتشفون انها مملة لا تثير احدا ..فيرفسونك في اول فرصة
نحتاج جميعا ان نتعلم الصفح وليس النسيان.
🔝في الأساطير، الأفعى الأكبر والأذكى تخفي قلبها في مكان ما خارج جسدها. وبهذا لا يمكن أن تقتل. إذا ما أردت أن تقتل تلك الأفعى، عليك أن تذهب إلى مخبئها عندما لا تكون فيه، وتجد القلب الخفاق، وتقطعه إلى اثنين. ليست مهمة سهلة، بالتأكيد⬇
و فجاة يسفر موراكامي عن وجهه الرمزى المجنون و تمتليء القصة بالافاعي ..و اتذكر انا فولدمورت و الهوركروكس الاكثر ��عوبة : الافعى ناجينيا
هل الأفاعي هي: الالم المكبوت؟
الغفران المفقود ؟
الكينونة المهترئة؟
الذكريات القاتلة؟
اذن: نحتاج جميعا ان نتعلم الصفح وليس النسيان..و لكن للاسف النسيان هو ما نتوق اليه
شكرا لاختيار و اكتشاف في اناقة صديقنا كمال ذو الذوق الموسيقى و الادبي الرفيع Men Without Women “Loneliness is brought over from France, the pain of the wound from the Middle East. For Men Without Women, the world is a vast, poignant mix, very much the far side of the moon.”
I couldn’t get enough of Haruki Murakami after my passionate fling with him and his Sputnik Sweetheart last month. I hadn’t intended for it to be just a fleeting, casual flirtation. I knew I’d be going back for more after he accepted my apology for abandoning him several years ago. And I did just that, less than two weeks later. I quickly downloaded this collection of seven short stories and surrendered myself to his prose once again.
The theme of all seven stories is self-evident from the title. In each, Murakami writes of men suffering from loneliness and isolation, primarily from women but also from much of society in general. They have suffered a breaking of relationships with women either due to death, abandonment or disintegration of marriages or love affairs. The yearning of these men to make connections and the despair they endure is palpable. With few and simple words, Murakami conveys to the reader exactly what they are going through, and the reader experiences the same heartache. At least this reader did.
“Life is strange, isn’t it? You can be totally entranced by the glow of something one minute, be willing to sacrifice everything to make it yours, but then a little time passes, or your perspective changes a bit, and all of a sudden you’re shocked at how faded it appears.”
One thing I realized, despite the title, is that this collection doesn’t just highlight the men but also points to the women that in many cases are experiencing pain as well. Some of them are in adulterous relationships, others have passed on from this world due to disease, and yet others are solitary souls themselves, set apart from love and companionship for various reasons. It is not the fact that they are simply without men, but rather their isolation has made their various cuts and bruises stand out more clearly.
“I was their only child. If I’d been prettier, Father never would have left. That’s what Mother always said. It’s because I was born ugly that he abandoned us.”
Of course, I didn’t love all seven stories equally. But for the most part, I was hooked. I took something away from each of them, but there were a couple of clear favorites with “Kino” and “Scheherazade” at the top of my list. Surprisingly, I loved “Kino” for its magical realism vibes. Murakami masterfully utilizes this stylistic device in such a way that I, a rather unimaginative reader, can wholeheartedly swallow with no hesitations. “Scheherazade” enticed me with its allure of ‘bedtime stories.’ Who can resist the idea of someone storytelling after sex?! Yes, please!
“The other thing that puzzled him was the fact that their lovemaking and her storytelling were so closely linked, making it hard, if not impossible, to tell where one ended and the other began.”
I would not hesitate to recommend this collection for anyone interested in sampling Murakami’s writing. I perhaps should have read this before Sputnik Sweetheart, because it paled just a tad in comparison to that enchanting novel. But that’s okay, it’s a tasty little morsel and I’m happy to have read it. I’m certainly seeing a clear theme to his splendid writing and can’t wait for more.
But the proposition that we can look into another person’s heart with perfect clarity strikes me as a fool’s game. I don’t care how well we think we should understand them, or how much we love them. All it can do is cause us pain… Examining your own heart, however, is another matter. I think it’s possible to see what’s in there if you work hard enough at it. So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves. Men Without Women Seven stories. All about pitifully isolated men, struggling with the loss of women in their lives, coming to terms, although at a snail's pace, with death and heartbreak - some even failing miserably at that. It seems to me, Murakami has been writing about them forever.
Merging all the characters that Murakami, over the years, breathed life into, we invariably discover a man, always the same man, the ultimate loner. Murakami has given him new names and effaced older ones. But there's no question that it is the same, alienated man, we, from time to time, find ourselves reading about. Until now, I didn't mind, nor did I ever find myself bored on account of my hitherto incorruptible loyalty to the author. I have been always, what you call, a fan.
This time, I loathed his repetitiveness, and the weakness and frailty of his characters. Disgusted by their apathy towards others and their nonchalant way of going about life, I became increasingly indifferent as to how their stories progressed. Besides, from the outset, I was uncomfortable with the misogynistic undertones.
There's a certain, unmistakable charm to loneliness, to detachment. It is entirely possible to feel compassion for characters who have severed ties with their surroundings, characters completely robbed of love. But in this case, Murakami's men lack sincerity, their stories significance. Except 'Kino', the book's probably one saving grace.
Only a reader, relatively new to Murakami's world, should consider reading this book. As for me, I will be taking a short break from his otherwise colorful world, which kept me entranced, admittedly, for a long time now. Men Without Women
صفحات قليلة للغاية و اسم مشوق للغايه و افكار غريبه لللللـ... لللللـ... للغايه ايضا مشيها كده
هو فعلا كاتب مختلف استطاع ان ينسج عدة قصص فى قصة واحدة تماما كألف ليلة و ليلة
كان من الممكن ببساطه ان تكون قصة فتاة تروى لمحة من حياتها كمراهقة ... ستكون قصة غريبة و مشوقة و لكنها لن تكون رائعة. أما هنا فهو يجعلك تحبس انفاسك و انت تتقافز بين عدة اقصوصات غير مكتملة و كلها تشحذ خيالك و تملأه بالصور التى تتناثر كقطع البازل الغير مرتبة.
الكاتب الجيد هو هذا الذى يجعلك جزء من القصة و يجعلها جزء منك فتكون رؤيتك لها شىء يخصك وحدك و ربما لان يفهمه شخص اخر
أغلق هابارا عينيه وتوقف عن التفكير بشهرزاد. وبدلاً من ذلك فكر بثعابين البحر. بالمخالب التي تلصقها ثعابين البحر على الصخرة. مختفية بين أعشاب الماء. تتأرجح جيئةً وذهاباً في التيار. تخيل أنه كان واحداً منها ينتظر ظهور السلمون. لكن لم يمر أي سلمون. لا يهم كم انتظر من الوقت. لا سلموناً سميناً ولا نحيلاً. ما من سلمون على الاطلاق. أخيراً غربت الشمس وكان عالمه يتلاشى في الظلام.لينك النوفيلا
https://goo.gl/9Pte1X
من مجموعة حدائق موراكامي - الجزء الثاني Men Without Women
When you delve into a Murakami book you’re never quite sure what you’ll find – will it be surreal and mind bending, like The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, or darkly realistic like Norwegian Wood? Well this collection of short stories certainly has more in common with the latter, though not entirely so.
The title gives away the linking theme, but that’s too simplistic. There’s longing and loneliness here but also a desire to understand, to discover. The tones are often deeply melancholic and are told – in typical Murakami style – in a matter of fact, somewhat unemotional way, but are totally beguiling nonetheless. As you would expect they are beautifully written, containing lines that stopped me in my tracks to ponder the pure truth of the statements.
An actor has lost his wife after 20 years. She died after a short illness and as he is driven to and from the theatre in which he is performing he is quizzed by his female driver. It appears that he knew his wife had had affairs and at one stage took the strange step of befriending a fellow actor purely because he suspected he had had trysts with his late wife. Was his motivation just curiosity, as he sought to understand his wife’s motivation to seek out other male company? Or was he looking to exact revenge in some manner? A young man talks to his friend about his own girlfriend. They met when they were quite a bit younger and have been together for some time, but they don’t have a sexual relationship. He attempts to persuade his friend to take his girlfriend out on a date. What is the spur for this and where does he expect this to take his own relationship with his girlfriend?
In both of these stories I was struck by the apparent strangeness of the actions taken by the lead protagonist, yet as the narrative developed these actions seemed to make more sense. Murakami regularly introduces me to people who not only live in a very different culture but who also seem slightly off-kilter. It’s unsettling… but stimulating. Sometimes I can reconcile myself to who they are and why they do what they do, but not always.
A cosmetic surgeon seems to have everything a single man could want: money, a good career and an abundance of willing female company. He’s careful not to put himself in a position where he will become too emotionally involved with these women, in fact his favoured route is to liaise with women who are already in a steady relationship. He enjoys their company relishes the conversations and, of course, the sex. But then it happens - he falls in love. This certainly wasn’t in the plan and it throws his whole life into turmoil. In the title piece a man receives a ‘phone call advising him that an ex-girlfriend has committed suicide. He’s not sure why he received the call as he’d had no contact with her for a long time. However, he reflects that this is the third ex-girlfriend of his that has committed suicide. And then there’s the account of a young man in confinement, who is visited by a housekeeper who also provides sexual favours and talks to him about reincarnation (she was an eel in a previous life) and a boy she secretly stalked.
These stories spoke to me of introspection and addiction and of a yearning for relationships lost. I don’t think I’ve worked out the true underlying message in any of these tales (if, indeed, there is one) but the story of the surgeon, in particular, has a haunting and compelling unexpectedness to it.
Kino, about a man who opens a small bar after he splits with his wife is the only story I’d read before A short enigmatic story from the master of the surreal. It’s a freebie (just follow the link accompanying this book on the Goodreads site) and if you’re a fan of Murakami’s work you should take a look; it’ll see you through a morning cappuccino.
Kino owns a small bar in a back street of Tokyo. He doesn’t get many customers but one man does visit a couple of times each week and always sits in the same place, the most uncomfortable spot in the bar. They rarely talk. There’s a cat and jazz music and whiskey, of course – all staple ingredients in any Murakami tale.
As is his way, the story exists between the lines. Murakami tends to create a mood as much as he writes a story and there’s plenty of mood here. It’s simple and sad and I had to think about it a bit to extract its message, I believe it's one of the strongest offerings in this book.
The final story is the most surreal, it’s a reversal of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in which Gregor Samsa awakens to find himself transformed from insect to human. As he stumbles about his apartment trying to get used to this new, strange body he is visited by a hunchbacked woman to whom he becomes attracted.
It’s my first foray into the world of the author’s short story collections and it’s one I found hugely rewarding. As always with compendiums of this sort, some pieces attracted me more than others but I enjoyed the fact that each felt very separate and different to the last. Murakami has a hugely fertile mind and an uncanny ability to put words on a page in a way that excites, confuses and disturbs. I’m off to find more like this. Men Without Women Men Without Women: Stories (Drive My Car, Yesterday, An Independent Organ, Scheherazade, Kino, Samsa in Love, Men Without Women), Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami (born January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country.
Drive My Car Kafuku, a veteran and widowed actor, hires twenty-four year old driver Misaki Watari to chauffeur him around Tokyo due to his license being revoked due to a D.U.I. and glaucoma. During their trips, Kafuku occasionally tells her about his life as an actor and his late wife's extramarital affairs.
One tale includes how he befriended her final lover, Takatsuki, with the intention of harming him. However, over the course of their six month friendship which was spent mostly binge drinking at local bars, he was never able to find any damning information and instead sympathizes with Takatsuki's observations.
He also never learns of his wife's motives, calling it a blind spot in his knowledge of her. After hearing his story, Misaki notes that perhaps his wife having affairs had had nothing to do with love and that was a good enough reason to do so. After contemplating this proposition, he falls asleep as she continues driving.
Yesterday Tanimura remembers a time in his early twenties when he worked in a restaurant with his friend Kitaru. Kitaru has a few idiosyncrasies that cause his girlfriend Erika to feel uneasy about their relationship; he speaks in a Kansai dialect despite living all his life in Tokyo, does not want to study hard despite having university aspirations, and seems to be asexual around her.
One day, Kitaru proposes that Tanimura go on a date with Erika to which Tanimura reluctantly agrees. On their date, both talk about their personal lives.
Tanimura's girlfriend could not commit to him while Erika admits that she is seeing another man because of Kitaru's apathy. Despite her unfaithfulness, she admits that Kitaru holds a special place in her heart, and has vivid dreams of them as a couple.
Tanimura retells his experience with her to Kitaru during their next shift, omitting certain details. A week later, Kitaru quits and Tanimura loses contact with both Kitaru and Erika.
An Independent Organ Tanimura tells of a time in his life when he regularly played squash with Dr. Tokai, a fifty-two year old cosmetic surgeon and bachelor who has never lived long-term or fallen in love with a woman. Instead, he dates married or committed women as he does not want to enter into a serious relationship with anyone.
However, for the past eighteen months, he has developed feelings for a thirty-six year old married mother and asks Tanimura for advice.
During their conversation, Tokai mentions how he is struggling with the question, Who in the world am I? and retells a story of a Jewish doctor who lost everything but his life at Auschwitz and how that could have been him. Tokai also notes that for the first time in his life, he feels rage.
Scheherazade Unable to go outside of his apartment, Habara relies on a female nurse he dubs Scheherazade for his provisions. Despite being married with children, she visits him regularly to have sex with him; after each session, she tells him a story. She also notes that she was a lamprey in her previous life and can sometimes access those memories of being in the sea.
Over the course of several encounters, Scheherazade tells of how she was madly in love with a boy from high school, so much so that she discreetly broke into his house several times with a hidden doormat key during school hours. While inside, she surveys his stuff, lies on his bed, and exchanges her stuff for his, too afraid to be a burglar.
On her first two visits, she trades a tampon for a pencil and then three strands of her own hair for a small soccer badge. On her third visit, she finally steals one of his worn shirts. Upon remembering how infatuated she was with him at the time, she asks Habara to have sex with her again; he finds this session more passionate than any other.
Upon returning for her fourth break-in, Scheherazade notices that the locks have changed and reluctantly goes back to her regular schooling.
Eventually, she begins to forget the boy, but during nursing school, she saw the boy again through the boy's mother. Noticing that evening is upon them, she tells Habara that she will tell him the circumstances during her next visit. Eager but careful, he acquiesces, but that night in bed, he worries that he will nev
Kino Kino, with the help of his retiring aunt, decides to open up a bar after he finds his wife cheating on him. At first no one shows up but a cat, which he lets stay indefinitely. A week later, a mysterious man, Kamita, begins to frequent the bar because he finds the establishment a soothing place to read.
Some time after, two customers cause a ruckus and Kino asks them to leave. They react threateningly, but Kamita insists and they redirect their enmity towards him. The three customers go outside, and shortly afterwards, Kamita returns and says that those men will not disturb Kino again.
A week later, Kino notes a particular woman who frequents the bar, but on this occasion, her male companion is absent; she interests him because of their mutual fondness of jazz. After everyone else has left, she reveals her body to him; she has many scars, the result of cigarette burns. They subsequently have sex all night in Kino's upstairs bedroom.
Samsa in Love Gregor Samsa wakes up in a bedroom of a two-story house, sure of who he is but unsure of his surroundings. He is hungry, so he slowly goes downstairs to the kitchen, getting accustomed to moving his body. Food is already prepared on the table, so he eats everything. He then notices that he is naked, so he searches the house until he finds a gown.
When the doorbell rings, he opens it to find a young, hunchbacked female locksmith who says that she is here to fix a lock in the house. Hesitant, he tells her that one of the room's lock upstairs needs fixing.
As they interact, Samsa notices that he is unable to understand some of the common words she uses. When she tells him that she needs to take the lock to her family of locksmiths for further work, he asks her why she rotates her arm so often.
She says that her brassiere is uncomfortable on her; while telling him this she notices that he has a visible erection. Offended, she scorns him before he says that he has no idea what he is doing.
Before she leaves, he asks her if she could return so that they could talk, as he is still confused about most of the world. She says perhaps they can do so when she returns the lock, before she walks back to her family through military-occupied Prague.
Men Without Women An unnamed narrator receives a phone call in the middle of the night telling him that his former lover, who he dubs M, has committed suicide, the caller being M's husband. He is unbearably anguished upon learning of this news.
The narrator tells of how he imagines himself meeting M when they were fourteen and in junior high school. He asks her for an eraser in class and she breaks hers in half and gives the piece to him; this meeting warms his heart. She then breaks his heart by running off with sailors who promise to show her the world. He chases her, but is never able to catch up.
In reality, he knew her for only about two years in his adult life and they only saw each other a few times a month. She loves elevator music, and always plays A Summer Place when they have sex. He notes that because of her death, he now considers himself the second-loneliest man in the world, after her husband. He is also in a state called Men Without Women, a period of sudden and intense misery after a man learns of the death of a beloved woman.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و نهم ماه مارس سال 2015میلادی
عنوان: شهرزاد؛ نویسنده: هاروکی موراکامی، مترجم: فرزین فرزام؛ مشخصات نشر: مجله نیویورک فا، اسفند 1393؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ژاپن - سده 21م
عنوان: شهرزاد؛ نویسنده: هاروکی موراکامی، مترجم: مریم حسین نژاد؛مشهد، بوتیمار، 1395؛ در 45ص؛ شابک9786004042321؛
عنوان: شهرزاد؛ نویسنده: هاروکی موراکامی ؛ مترجم مهناز ولی؛ کرج، آثار برتر، 1397، در 133ص؛ شابک9786006945767؛
از متن ترجمه جناب «حسام امامی»: (هرچه بود، «شهرزاد» استعدادی در قصه گویی داشت، که قلب آدم را متأثر میکرد؛ داستان هرچه بود، «شهرزاد» آن را ویژه میکرد؛ صدا، زمانبندی و ضرباهنگ اش همه بی نقص بودند؛ ذهن شنونده را درگیر میکرد، به کارش میگرفت، به تفکرش وامیداشت، و بعد دست آخر دقیقاً همان چیزی را بهش میداد که «هابارا» دنبالش بود، «هابارای» مفتون میتوانست حتی اگر شده برای یک لحظه واقعیتی را که دوره اش کرده بود فراموش کند؛ مثل تخته سیاهی که با پارچه ی نمدار پاک شده باشد، از دغدغه ها، از خاطراتِ ناخوشایند خالی میشد؛ مگر بیش از این چه میخواست؟ در این مرحله از زندگی اش، این شکل از فراموشی چیزی بود که «هابارا» بیش از هر چیزی میخواست.)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 23/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 28/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی Men Without Women Men Without Women is a collection of stories about despairing men and loneliness; it depicts men who try to cope with the sorrows of life after their loved one has departed from them. Unable to move on, the men spend the rest of their days lamenting what they will never again feel.
So this is a sad collection, one that captures the harsh realities of human experience, at least, the experience some people will ultimately feel in the face of rejection. The feelings the men have here are not needy or creepy towards the women in question. This certainly isn’t a collection about desperate men. What we have instead is successful men, often those who are married or charming with the ladies, who lose their loved one or perhaps find her for the first time. They then have to get on with their loves in the wake of such a thing.
Not an easy task for sure. Some have different coping strategies varying in different levels of extremity. One man simply dies, unable to eat anymore or muster the will to live, he slowly perishes and wastes away to nothing as he realises his love never felt the same way about him. What’s surprising, and perhaps a truism, is how easy it is for such an experience to break a man. Again, these men are not emotionally fragile or unhinged; they are relatively normal people who simply get overwhelmed by emotions that they cannot control or predict. Love is never easy and unreciprocated love is agony.
But don’t some people have the strength to carry on?
However, despite the harsh experience the men have here, I wanted to see a little bit more positivity. Some people, men or women, will find themselves in very similar situations in life, but they do not simply lay down and die. They get on with it; they keep going. Life does not fit into a neat little box. We don’t always get what we want, and simply giving up is not the answer. We have one life, and despite how painful our own experience can be, there is always a reason to carry on. If you’re not living for yourself, then live for other people.
As ever Murakami’s prose is precise with the ability to handle such complex emotions. And he has tapped into something here, something true to life, but not everybody will react in such a way. We must move forward no matter how hard it may seem. At times I found myself wanting to give the men a good hard slap; they surely needed it: they needed a motivation injection or something. As important as it is to find a partner in life, it is not the thing that defines life or success.
This book is certainly worth a read, though it falls short of its potential. Not all men without women react the same way.
Facebook| Twitter| Insta| Academia Men Without Women I saw Murakami yesterday. I don't mean that in a metaphorical way: I literally saw him in my home town of Odense, Denmark. He received the Hans Christian Andersen Literary Award and made a few small appearances while he was here, one of which was at our local library. There were only 180 of us there, and I don't think anyone left the room afterwards thinking that the event had been so-so. I, at least, felt dazed and enriched and happy afterwards. We heard him read aloud from a short story (in Japanese) which his Danish translator afterwards read in Danish; we heard him answer some questions prepared by said translator and a literature expert. And we heard him answer some questions from the audience. He was delightful. He was humble. He was kind. He was funny. And I got to ask him the last question.
(I may come back and actually review this collection. Then again, I may not. I may disappear down a well or go chase a cat or go to sleep and wake up as someone who doesn't read books). Men Without Women Audiobook...
I LOVED THESE STORIES!!!! They penetrated through my ears and my thoughts. I was hanging on to every word walking around town completely captivated.
The only thing I didn't like -- only for a couple of minutes-is when switching to a new story... I wasn't ready to transition. Yet, they were 'all' fascinating & amazing!!!
Quick question? Do you think women drive different than men? And...
MEN: do you feel less at ease in the passenger seat with a woman driving - than when a man is? Paul said yes...'usually'!
To my 'audiobook' friends.....( even if you mostly only listen to non- fiction audiobooks)...this was an EXCELLENT WALKING COMPANION...( Esil)... lol Men Without Women
A dazzling new collection of short stories—the first major new work of fiction from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami since his #1 best-selling Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all.
Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic. Men Without Women