Then I watched Drive My Car, the feels-like-never-ending film about a theatre director whose wife has died, who is driven around by a slightly awkward girl. It was a bit too long, but I really loved it. As it was based on a short story by that very same Haruki Murakami, I decided to give him another change. I borrowed Men without Women from the library (I joined the library as part of my new year's resolutions, which was the best idea ever) and dove right in.
The collection consists of seven stories, all featuring a man who for some reason or other lives without women. Some are written in the first person, but most in the third. Although women feature in all of the stories, some of the men are even married, I could see the central theme running through them. It is one of the few things that connects them, apart from them all being set in Japan. Otherwise, they range far and wide.
'Drive my Car' is the first story in the collection. I really enjoyed it, I would almost say despite my preconceptions. It is a perfect example of a good short story; we fall right in the middle of the story, stuff happens, and then we come to some sort of a conclusion. The writing style (or perhaps; translation) is very nice and fluid and the characters are both recognisable but also likeable. The main character is there, who has lost both his daughter and his wife, who he knows started having affairs after their child died. The girl who drives his car is there, although her story doesn't really feature. They have deep conversations, he practises his Chekov lines, and she resists the will to smoke while they drive in his old Saab. In the end, the both come to some sort of resolution with their past or themselves. The film expanded way beyond the story to flesh it out to three hours, but it stands on its own well enough.
So after this first experience, my expectations were a bit higher. Perhaps I had judged Murakami too harshly.
The second story 'Yesterday' is a classical Murakami technique; man in the present tells about an experience he had when he was younger, generally concerning a girl. In this story, which derives its name from a somewhat weird Japanese adaptation of the Beatles song, we meet a guy who wants the main character to date his girlfriend. This doesn't really come to anything. When the protagonist meets the girl again years later, they remember their past, the guy and what became of him. End of story. It doesn't have a point, a message, something to remember it by. If it weren't for the Beatles reference in the title, I would probably have forgotten it entirely.
Sadly, that is true of almost all the other stories, the ones without the clear titles. The only one I can still remember and liked somewhat was 'Kino', about a man who opens a bar after he divorces his wife. This started nicely, describing how he creates the bar and then waits for customers while a grey cat naps on his windowsill. At some point people discover his bar and he starts sleeping with one of his female customers. There is also a somewhat maffia type who he dislikes at first but who saves him from a couple of thugs. This was all leading up to something; he was crawling out of his shell and starting to make something of his life.
Then the story takes a spiritual turn, with lots of crawling snakes and whispered warnings of his need to travel far away from the bar and not return for a long time. He goes on this journey, writing postcards home as instructed, but then suddenly makes a wrong decision and the story ends with him then and there. Again; no point, no resolution, just a string of weird events ending abruptly.
Then there was an adaptation from The Metamorphisis that felt very far fetched. There was also an adaptation of 1,001 Nights, called 'Scheherazade', which was fun because part of it was incorporated in the Drive my Car film adaptation but which otherwise didn't really strike a chord. And there must be two other stories, but I genuinely can't remember what they were about.
So all in all, not a great experience. It may well be that in the original Japanese there are several deeper layers, there were some references that I didn't fully get and the whole Yesterday translation story is almost impossible to translate. But apart from the language I just cannot see why these stories aren't going anywhere. I mean, I enjoy reading these flowing, stream-of-consciousness like stories, as in Ali Smith's work. But this is nothing like that. They are just random bits of events and characters, thrown together to make something happen, but they have neither heads nor tails.
The funny thing is that I really enjoyed 'Drive my Car' and the first part of 'Kino'. So his stories do work for me, on some level. But apparently, I only enjoy about a quarter, the rest I cannot understand. Sadly, I don't think I will borrow any more Murakami books from the library, not with so many other, potentionally much more enjoyable, books waiting to be read.
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