Seven spectacular short stories by a master storyteller that dazzle and baffle and make us sit up and wonder, showcasing a wide range of characters from bartenders, lovers, wives, actors etc. No story leaves you without questions- mostly existential, some more material, but Murakami, with his exquisite penmanship does it again. His signature wry humour lines every tale, as his defining style. I love how it seeps through the most earnest of his stories.

Talking of Murakami would be like trying to dip a toe in the ocean and seeking out that one elusive shell with a particular shape, with no success. I tried and failed.
So suffice it to say that each story from Men Without Women has something to offer to that which lies concealed, and it’s up to us, the reader, to seize an opportunity and unravel before it passes us by. 

In – Sheherazade, the eel-like Lamprey, symbolic of a being in the world who exists, yet invisible – absorbs all that needs absorption. Sheherazade is a parasitical being that hides in broad daylight. Lovesickness is presented as an actual medical condition. 

One’s imagination ignites.

The story of the Man whose wife cheats on him- Kino:  the character who sat upon the bar stool- was he not just an extension of him, watching day after day his own self? Not a mirror image, but a separate being that has found a cosy seat outside of him? Uncanny. Believable?

Who asks him to leave and find salvation- was it not he himself, who shows him that being a silent observer and then going for the kill, is possible without being muscular and menacing outwardly? The snakes…egging him on to reach within, and confront his pain, only to be expunged;  were these coiling creatures there for real after all?
When his grief ultimately catches up with him, Murakami leaves us with this oppressive thought, knocks that drown you. I heard them.

Murakami’s construct leaves all of his stories open to a myriad interpretations, and that’s the beauty of his narrative. 
He manages to etch distinct characters in each of his tales with remarkable dexterity and the Murakami mind observes quietly, much like the Lamprey, who live off life itself. I was agog by the sheer brilliance of an imagination that defies coherence yet draws you in, makes you believe.

Samsa in Love, borrowed from Kafka’s character- Gregor Samsa, in a reversal of the original story ‘The Metamorphosis’, presents a locked-up boy- what an image cast! I struggled to grasp the mystique that shrouds yet grips you from the start. Who was he- a man-child locked up because he is ‘differently-abled’, a prisoner of war, a family skeleton, what? Eery yet undefinably magnetic. When the hunchback attracts him, suddenly he’s lovestruck…you baulk! This particular story is woven in knots, and puzzles, impossible to unravel. 

Even as you are glued, you detach, but with caution, and that is what ensues with many of his tales.

Favourites remain- Drive my Car and An Independent Organ. I resonated most with them, deftly conjuring up the characters in real time, moving with them, listening in, a fly on the wall. They communicated, albeit with a halting start, not just with each other, but with me.

Many of Murakami’s characters are trying to reinvent themselves. Is it possible to, is the question that plagued me.

In AIO – Tokai– the guy has multiple affairs, ostensibly without emotional leverage, much like an animal in season. Yet it is he who ends up giving up his heart to the very woman to whom he is but a means to an end; Nature’s way of payback.

Before you begin to read a Murakami, novel or short form, hold your breath, because the ride is surely going to blaze a trail and force you to take stock of your own life and of those around you. For a while, a meditative spirit gets hold of you- and you are left wondering about the realness of things, and whether life, as we understand it, is a mere illusion. Yes, Haruki Murakami seems to do that to me. Shaking off this unnamable sentiment becomes a task in itself once you turn the last page and shut the book reluctantly. 

@kamalininatesan 2018