Customer Reviews

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (BWSW) is an amazing collection of short stories. Spanning 25 years of Murakami's career (the oldest story was originally written in 1980, while several were penned in 2005), the stories in BWSW show off Murakami's amazing skill and versatility. Murakami's stories are often described as defying typical genre classifications, and while this is true, it would be a mistake to interpret this as meaning that all Murakami stories are the same. The stories in BWSW will alternately leave you scared, laughing, amazed, and confounded. Although everyone will have their favorite stories, my personal favorites were Firefly (later expanded into Norwegian Wood), Hanalei Bay, Tony Takitani, and The Mirror. I felt the first three best represented Murakami's patented ability to tap into the tightly-linked joy, loss, and loneliness of the human condition, while the fourth was enjoyable as the pure "ghost story" ... while this genre is a staple in Japanese literature, it is a departure from the rest of Murakami's works.

If you are new to Murakami, I think that his short story collections (either BWSW or The Elephant Vanishes) are the best place to start. Murakami's works are best "felt" rather than "analyzed" and short stories are the best way to get acquainted with his talent and style. If you like his short stories, try a novel. Which one is a matter of personal taste ... interestingly, while Wind-Up Bird is typically his most popular work in the West, it is his earlier works (notably Norwegian Wood, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, and Dance, Dance, Dance) that remain even more popular in his native Japan to this day.

If you are an old Murakami hand, you might be wondering what is next. Unfortunately the future is a little murky. Murakami seems to be in the process of re-inventing himself, and the first product of the "new" Murakami is After Dark (due to be released in English in 2007), which received mixed reviews in Japan. Personally, I look forward to whatever work follows After Dark, to see which Murakami we can expect in the future. As for me, I think I'll go back and re-read his earlier works to immerse myself once again in the always amazing, always indescribable, and always unforgettable universe that is Murakami World.

Murakami Haruki has been sorely misrepresented in English. Equally adroit at the novel and the short story, this prolific writer's novels seem to get all the attention in translation--okay, most of it, anyway. As a book, then, "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" goes a long way towards righting that imbalance, filled as it is with twenty-four fine short stories expertly rendered into English by two of Murakami's long-time translators, Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin. Unlike the novels with their gradually convoluted spirals into the twilight zone, the short stories herein are more like short day trips there and back again. For all that, though, they are quintessentially Murakami: understated tales of love, longing, and loss from the slightly eccentric to the downright surreal--and yet so surreal as to ring true, convincingly grasping life's little mysteries and synchronicities in a deadpan, matter-of-fact manner. Genres blend and identities blur, reality and illusion overlap and interplay, all amidst the familiar psychological furniture of our contemporary consumerist planet with its internationally hodgepodge culture. The occasional dash of postmodern irony only accentuates these unsettling explorations of the human condition, and yet for all that each tale is enjoyable and highly entertaining to read. Almost deceptively so.

The stories exhibit quite a range, too. Some are very early works of Murakami's when his style was still in its formative stages, others are quite recent and show the sure hand of an experienced craftsman. Some are clearly allegorical while some are more confusing than anything. Some are unlike anything else I've read by him, others are familiar--including stories that were clearly the seeds that later grew into full-blown novels, like "Firefly" ("Norwegian Wood") and "Man-Eating Cats" (Sputnik Sweetheart"). Some are just this side of odd while others are utterly bizarre. And everything in between. As such, this book makes for a great introduction for any newcomers to Murakami's fictional world, but for those who've been there many a time before it offers yet another excellent JAL flight south of the border, west of the sun--only this one made up of many hops, skips, and jumps.

The short stories included are:
1. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
2. Birthday Girl
3. New York Mining Disaster
4. Airplane: Or, How He Talked to Himself As If Reciting Poetry
5. The Mirror
6. A Folklore for My Generation: A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism
7. Hunting Knife
8. A Perfect Day for Kangaroos
9. Dabchick
10. Man-Eating Cats
11. A "Poor Aunt" Story
12. Nausea 1979
13. The Seventh Man
14. The Year of Spaghetti
15. Tony Takitani
16. The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes
17. The Ice Man
18. Crabs
19. Firefly
20. Chance Traveler
21. Hanalei Bay
22. Where I'm Likely to Find It
23. The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day
24. A Shinagawa Monkey

"Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" demonstrates Haruki Murakami's mastery of the short story genre. It is quite simply one of the most intriguing short story collections that I have read recently. Much to his credit, Murakami has a marvelous ability of transforming the mundane into something that's quite interesting, and often profound, as demonstrated by so many of his short stories published in this volume, which deal with relationships between men and women. Though set primarily in his native Japan, his stories - which are well-translated by his long-time translators Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin - have an almost universal quality to them, as fascinating examinations of contemporary modern culture from the perspectives of both men and women. All of these stories feature Murakami's usual literary tricks of the trade, ranging from his mordant humor to constant references to contemporary pop culture, and last, but not least, his keen ear for dialogue between the sexes. These stories truly demonstrate why Murakami isn't just one of Japan's greatest living writers, but more importantly, why he ranks amongst the world's finest.

It's hard to pick among twenty-four terrific tales for personal favorites. Two of the best, "Firefly" and "Man-Eating Cats", were revised later to become separate chapters in Murakami's novels "Norwegian Wood" and "Sputnik Sweetheart". Another compelling story is his realistic fantasy "The Ice Man", which could have been written by Harlan Ellison. "Dabchick" is an intriguing, almost Kafkaesque, battle of wits between a young woman and a receptionist in the office of a mysterious Japanese tycoon. "Hanalei Bay" is an emotionally riveting tale about a woman's ability to cope with the loss of her only child, a son killed by a shark while surfing in Hawaii. These superb stories are among the reasons why that I - ten years after being introduced to Murakami's work by fellow Stuyvesantian Muriel Cleary - regard him as among my favorite contemporary authors. If you haven't read any of Murakami's work, then do yourself a favor and pick up this fine short story collection; it will be a most delightful introduction to it.

I rate this book 5 stars not because it's perfect, but because I love it. I would give a 5-star rating to any book that contained either "The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day," "A Shinagawa Monkey," OR "Where I'm Likely to Find It" - and this one has all 3! Frankly even the less-than-perfect stories (e.g. "Sharpie Cakes") are, to me, both endearing and interesting. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a huge, huge Murakami fan and would read anything he wrote, even a grocery list. In fact sometimes his novels actually include grocery lists, and I read them with great enjoyment.

Although the stories in this collection are collected from Murakami's entire career, it feels much more coherent than his other major collection, "An Elephant Vanishes." The style of the stories is classic Murakami, those who don't like him or want something different aren't going to find any changes here. However, the format of a short story gives Murakami's writing a more immediate, accessible edge; not that his novels are hard to read. Murakami's use of classic Japanese endings is in full effect, with most of the stories having little or no conclusion. Instead, the reader is left to draw his own conclusions, and the emphasis is placed on the experience of the story rather than the story itself.

Being that Murakami Haruki's latest novel will be released to his English reading audience next week, I decided to get back into a Murakami mood by reading his most recent short story collection: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Years ago I read Murakami's first short story collection, The Elephant Vanishes, and some of the stories, such as T.V. People and The Dancing Dwarf left me quite cold, but others such as Slow Boat to China and Sleep revealed to me that Murakami is just as skilled penning short stories as he is penning novels. In fact, early in his career Murakami was more noted for his short story collections than his novels.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman consists of stories that Murakami wrote during the first twenty-five years as a writer and this book contains two of his oldest stories: New York, Mining Disaster and A "Poor Aunt" Story. His first short fiction was the previously mentioned A Slow Boat to China. The most recent stories, the last five in the book, were penned in 2005, so the reader is able to experience the shifts, the changes, and the evolutions of Murakami's stories through the years.

Being that the last four years of my life or so have been devoted to reading, researching, and writing on Murakami's literature, I might not be the most objective reader of this collection because of my familiarity with Murakami's writing style and themes. Many reviews mention how "strange" or "bewildering" the stories are, but to those of us who have read Murakami for a number of years, they come off as just pure Murakami and stories of green monsters, vampires, and man eating cats are perfectly normal next to those of romance in college.

Another thing that will be of interest to longtime Murakami readers is that included within this volume are the stories which would later evolve in longer works such as Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart. It is interesting to see how these stories would later evolve into these much longer works and how Murakami can work an idea that was originally a twenty-five page story into a six hundred page novel.

Not all of the stories in this volume are perfect gems, but there are no chunks of glass either. Each brings something different to the fore and they can easily grasp the reader's heart. I believe that "Tony Takitani," Murakami's lone short story from 1990, might be the most heartrending work by the author because of its themes of love and loss. Also, I believe that this volume would be a good introduction to new readers of Murakami, because it gives equal doses of odd and normal. However, what exactly is odd and what exactly is normal?

I just discovered Haruki Murakami with this amazing book of short stories!
Each story is entirely different from the others, keeps you endlessly curious as to what the next story will say. My favorites were: "Tony Takitani", "A Poor Aunt Story" and "Where I'm Likely to Find it", but I loved them all! I think Murakami's work is completely unique. I am now reading his novel, "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the WOrld". I started it yesterday, and didn't put it down til 3 a.m.
"Blind WIllow, Sleeping Woman", is a beautifu collection of short stories that you will want to read and reread. Murakami is now one of my three favorite short story writers, ( along with Italo Calvino, and
Dostoevsky) ---all three also, obviously, for their novels as well.
I plan to read Murakami's entire oeuvre, it is completely addicting!

I continue to count myself a Haruki Murakami fan and will continue to pick up every release and peruse literary magazines for his name. My interest in Murakami started from a brilliant collection of contemporary Japanese fiction called _Monkey Brain Sushi_. The story, "TV People," led me to pick up _The Elephant Vanishes_, and from there I was hooked.

I wouldn't call this collection a stunning one, though it does contain some works that will be rightfully named as Murakami essentials. Aside from "The Ice Man," which has already found its way into _Vintage Murakami_, stories like the title story, "Birthday Girl" (one that I didn't like at first when I read it in _Harper's_, but grew on me the next time through), "A 'Poor Aunt' Story," "Nausea 1979" and others are strong pieces of prose that, in the Murakami tradition, challenge one's perception of fiction and what it can do. As always, the prose is elegant and quietly laced with indomitable sadness, or joy, or strength. Murakami is a kind of master of misdirection--his stories tend towards one direction, but in a subtle and not overly suprising way, they turn out in another. This is not so much deception as it is the reticent mastery of Murakami's method, for when you go back over the piece, it becomes quite clear that the story has been leading in that direction all along.

This style is not uncommon to Murakami's novels. This collection also emulates that work (which he calls "challenges" in his opening remarks, while writing stories is a "joy") in that there is a wide variety of genre, from the magical realism of books like _Sputnik Sweetheart_ and _A Wild Sheep Chase_ in stories like "The Ice Man" and "A 'Poor Aunt' Story" to the strikingly realistic and deeply emotional like _Norwegian Wood_ and _South of the Border, West of the Sun_ found in "Hanalei Bay" and the title story.

Having only one other collection of short fiction to compare to, though (I am discounting _After the Quake_ due to its thematic approach), I found this one, overall, more like a pile of manuscripts that have been collecting in an attic than a collection bound by a singular vision like _The Elephant Vanishes_. Stories like "The Year of Spaghetti" and "A Perfect Day for Kangaroos" fall rather flat and feel included simply because of their existence and not because of their contribution to a sense of the Murakami world of art. This is an odd statement to make even as I write it, for it is true that the Murakami world is chameleon-like, but also true is that there is a binding force to Murakami's work, an honesty to human emotions and the subtle causalities of existence, and the paler stories detract from that vision. Even the author's introduction seems to concede to this fact, with a nod to his publisher and her outcries to "write more stories!" Though momentarily providing interesting insight into the more short-lived pleasure of putting together a short story versus putting together a novel, and the association of short stories to "shadows," Murakami in his introduction mostly provides a timeline of the work. It is interesting to see that these stories come from a long expanse of his artistic timeline, but in the end some selections give the impression that they were used to fill up the volume rather help provide another representative glimpse into Murakami's artistic vision the way _The Elephant Vanishes_ does.

No doubt a great drive for this collection is the kind of hunger that Murakami's work creates (another book to be published in early 2007, no?), and there are few other writers for whom I search regularly when looking at the lists of upcoming publications. Going through this collection has helped to remind me of why I like Murakami's writing so much, though I would have appreciated even more a slightly slimmer volume that would have knocked me for a loop with every single entry.

Reviewed by Jenny Salyers

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is Haruki Murakami's first collection of short stories since after the Quake (2002). It contains 24 short stories written between 1981 and 2005. The author mentions in his introduction, that his writing pattern alternates between novels and short stories, and never writing one type while working on the other.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is the first short story collection by Haruki Murakami that I have read. I'm a huge fan of his full length novels, and discovered during this reading, that my reasons for enjoying the author's novels carries over to his short stories as well. I found this collection to contain whimsical magic and a delightfully entertaining look at everyday life, including the emotions that power humans and their life experiences. Since the book contains a lot of stories, it is hard to give each one a good look. Instead, let me tell you of a few favorites I have from the book.

"Birthday Girl" introduces the reader to the following idea: If you could have one wish granted, anything at all, would you make it? The story is told by a woman recalling the strange events that happened on her twentieth birthday. While working on what was becoming a very disappointing birthday, she stumbled into an extraordinary situation. While delivering an evening meal to the owner of the restaurant where she worked, she was given the choice of a gift that would change her life. He offered to grant her one wish.

In "A `Poor Aunt' Story," the narrator tells a close friend how he wants to write a story featuring a "poor aunt." In the process he wakes up one morning to find he has a poor aunt stuck to his back. Murakami explores what it is like for his writer to descend into a life where no one notices him, until one day she disappears. The story delves into human nature-and what drives us humans.

Armchair Interviews says: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is an excellent collection of short stories written by a master of literature.

"Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman," is the latest collection of short stories from Haruki Murakami. Personally I am more of a fan of Murakami's novels then his short-story work - his tendency to drift in and out of realism to surrealism works great within the large canvas of a novel but when placed in the confines of a short-story, sometimes the end result seems half baked and begs for further exploration that surely would've been taken within his novel works. That being said, about half of the stories in this collection are firmly planted in reality while the other half veer toward the abstract. One story of interest is, "Tony Takitani," which was adapted into a motion picture by Jun Ichikawa in 2005.