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55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome back to Murakami World, August 29, 2006
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.
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Murakami's Minute Masterpieces of Mystery and Imagination, October 19, 2007
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
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Superb Short Story Collection from Haruki Murakami, December 29, 2007
"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.
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