Haruki Murakami visits a library…and finds a sheep
A young boy finds himself trapped in a bizarre library with a sheep man and a mysterious girl in Haruki Murakami’s illustrated short novel, The Strange Library.
Our protagonist’s journey begins with a trip to his local library to return two books: How to Build a Submarine and Memoirs of a Shepherd. Before leaving, he tells the librarian that he’s also looking for some new books and she directs him to Room 107, located in the library’s basement. When he reaches the room, he encounters a cantankerous old man sitting behind a desk. He impulsively tells the man that he’s looking for books on tax collection in the Ottoman Empire, and he’s presented with three books: The Ottoman Tax System, The Diary of an Ottoman Tax Collector, and Tax Revolts and their Suppression in the Ottoman-Turkish Empire.
The boy plans to check out the books and leave the library as quickly as possible; however, he’s told that the books can only be read in the library. The boy is afraid he’ll be late for dinner if he stays to read the books, but he eventually agrees to stay an extra 30 minutes to read the books. He’s travels down another corridor, where he meets a smaller man who’s wearing what appears to be sheepskin. The sheep man takes the boy to the Reading Room and the boy gets another surprise: the Reading Room is a jail cell. The old man locks him in the cell and tells him that he must spend the next month memorizing the content of the books. At the end of the month, the man will question him about the books and if he decides that the boy has mastered the content, he will set him free. The sheep man tells the boy that he’ll bring him three meals a day plus a snack before locking a ball and chain around the boy’s ankle.
Later that evening, the boy receives another mysterious visitor: a mute girl who brings him a gourmet dinner. Communicating through hand gestures, the girl tells him that her vocal chords were destroyed. After she leaves, he finishes the dinner and starts reading The Diary of an Ottoman Tax Collector, and is amazed to find that not only is he absorbing every word but he’s actually becoming the titular tax collector.
The boy develops a routine, reading his books and enjoying visits from the sheep man and the girl, while he formulates a plan for escape from the library.
The Strange Library has many elements familiar to readers of Murakami’s work: quirky characters, surreal settings, and sense of melancholy or impending loss. Murakami’s characters in this novel are nameless except for the ones mentioned in The Diary of an Ottoman Tax Collector. This approach is very effective; the boy is an ordinary boy whose seemingly routine trip to the local city library takes an unusual and ominous turn.
The lavish color illustrations highlight the surreal nature of the narrative, and the repetitive images, including birds, eyes, and insects, reinforce the strange nature of the boy’s journey and the people he encounters along the way.
Haunting and poignant, The Strange Library is a quick read compared to many of Murakami’s works, but the engaging prose and fantastic illustrations may inspire readers to make return trips to Room 107.
