![]() In what feels like a classic example of the anxiety of influence, Murakami has long pushed back against the weight of Kenzaburo Oe, whose 1964 book “ A Personal Matter” exemplified the Japanese I-novel, a form of autofiction before autofiction was even a word, and took the literary world by storm. His great subject is ultimately the enigma of time as it relates to the inner self, to the musical mystery underneath everything. I’ve begun to think of Murakami’s works as teaching stories, like “ Tales of the Dervishes,” by Idries Shah, or even the Parables. His novels - the astonishing “ Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” the sprawling “ 1Q84” - spiral like galaxies from central cores, but his stories are quasars, exploding with light as they reveal his themes. Because his style has supposedly drawn too much from the West, some Japanese critics have labeled it batakusai, which translates roughly to “stinking of butter.” His reputation, by his own admission, is better internationally than it is in Japan. Murakami is wildly popular around the world, which makes him somewhat suspect in literary circles. Whatever you want to call Murakami’s work - magic realism, supernatural realism - he writes like a mystery tramp, exposing his global readership to the essential and cosmic (yes, cosmic!) questions that only art can provoke: What does it mean to carry the baggage of identity? Who is this inside my head in relation to the external, so-called real world? Is the person I was years ago the person I am now? Can a name be stolen by a monkey? The Bridge As long as we’ve been properly grounded by a careful set of instructions, we readers will have visions. In Langston Hughes’s neglected “ On the Road,” a homeless Black man who is denied help by a white pastor grabs the stone pillars of a church and pulls it down - and we accept it. The freezing man in Kafka’s “ Bucket Rider” floats above icy streets in a bucket, asks a couple for coal and then flies away when he is refused. ![]() That’s the thought that occurred to me often as I read “First Person Singular,” the brilliant new book of stories by Haruki Murakami, author of international best sellers. FIRST PERSON SINGULAR Stories By Haruki Murakami Translated by Philip Gabriel MagicĪll fiction is magic. ![]()
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