Murakami is arguably the most unassuming genius. This collection starts with a series of short stories designed to help you ease out of reality and get you comfortable with his storytelling and his reality. The first few stories might rub you the wrong way. Endings don’t tie the story together neatly. Plots don’t develop as expected. Narrators are annoying, in a way that feels like the translation got stuck in uncanny valley. Maybe there is symbolism? Maybe there is a theme? You get the sense that he’s kind of trolling you and your desire to intellectualize too much. Is that post-modernism?
If you can accept the way Murakami creates a bit of an itch under your skin, stick around to watch the stories evolve. There *are* trends. There *is* development. It just happens across each story, not within one. Each narrator in the stories, regardless of personality or characteristic feels like Murakami. I have no idea what Murakami is actually like but I kept getting the sense that he was intentionally developing shitty narrators to be able to speak over them and connect directly with the reader. I kept feeling that Murakami was also a sarcastic repressed troll who wanted intimacy but didn’t know how to get it.
But then by the end, the stories take a completely different turn. The language becomes more elegant and the stories become longer. The themes become more obvious and it becomes clearer that Murakami is baring more of his soul to you. He speaks directly to you.
It all ends with the final story, “The Elephant Vanishes,” the climax that leaves your heart racing.
