"Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" by Haruki Murakami

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (trans by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin, 2006, 362 pages)

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories that were originally published from 1981 to 2005.     A number of the stories were first published in translation in the New Yorker magazine.   I am not normally drawn to collections of short stories.    I was asking myself why.   I think the basic answer for me and a lot of others is that I like to be drawn into another world when I read and the vehicle of the short story is not, for me, conducive to this most of the time.   When I do read a good short story I enjoy it and I tell myself I should read more.    With this in mind I recently acquired Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, a collection of short stories in a book trade.   None of the stories in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman are over 25 pages long and some are much shorter.    In my readings of Japanese literature I have not begun really to read much of Murakami's work.    He is  widely considered a writer of great quality as well as an entertainer of the highest order and were it not for the fact that two Japanese authors have won since WWII many think he would be in line for a Nobel Prize.    Basically you cannot say that you have begun to know the post war Japanese novel until you have read most of his work.  

I read half the stories in this collection and will read the rest one a time as the year goes on.   Each of the stories is unique and are set in modern Japan or at least begin there.   Murakami does a good job in bringing to life the characters in the stories in the short space he has to do it.

 A very typical story and one I liked a lot was "Man Eating Cats" (19 pages).    It centers on a man and woman, college educated young corporate employee sorts, both married who begin an adulterous affair with each other.    Their passion for each other does not seem deep and the affair seems motivated almost  out of boredom.    In time through unlucky accidents each of the spouses finds out about the affair and their marriages and lives are ruined.    The couple decide if they pool their money they can live for about three years without income.   After some research they decide the best place for them to move to (they want to escape their shame) is to a small Greek island, off the tourist track.    While there the male partner reads an article in an Athens newspaper about a 70 year old woman who lived with a number of cats.    The woman dies alone in her apartment and her body is not found for weeks.   In the mean time her starving cats had begun to eat her body.    The man comes to see this as metaphor for his life.   He feels his life has been thrown away for nothing, any future to live a good life beyond mere subsistence was destroyed by his adultery, done just because he could do it.   Here is the ending of the story:

I returned to the apartment and downed a glass of brandy.  I tried to go to sleep but I could not.  Until the eastern sky grew light, I was held in the grip of the moon.   Then suddenly I pictured those cats, starving to death in a locked apartment.   I, the real me, was dead, and they were alive, eating my flesh, biting into my heart, sucking my blood.   Far away,  I could hear them lapping at my brains.   Like Macbeth's witches, the three little cats surrounded by broken head, slurping up the thick soup inside.    The rough tips of their tongues licked the soft folds of my mind.   And with each lick, my consciousness flickered like a flame and faded away.

In most of the stories we are introduced to ordinary people.    We get to know them a bit then we  begin to see their lives are not so ordinary.    Seemingly small decisions change  the courses of the characters lives in ways they cannot quite fathom.    The introduction of the element of "magic realism" found in Murakami's longer works is found here in several of the stories.    It might be seen as the attempt of people to make sense of their lives by creating their own myths and  using personal magic to explain to themselves elements of their lives that make sense no  any  other way.

The stories I read in the collection were all well done, all entertaining and all made me think.    I hope to read Wild Sheep Chase, Kafka on the Shore, and  The Wild Bird Chronicles soon.

I am reading this book for the POC challenge (now completed with 15 books-I will continue to read for it)
I am also reading this in conjunction with Murakami Month on In the Spring it is The Dawn


I would appreciate any and all suggestions as to my next Murakami read.   I have already read Dance, Dance, Dance and After Dark