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| First Person Singular Hardcover |
The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides.
Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.
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First Person Singular : Stories
Author : Haruki Murakami
Published Date : 06 April 2021
Genre : Short Collection Stories
What I find strange about growing old isn't that I've gotten older. Not that youthful me from the past has, without my realizing it, aged. What catches me off guard is, rather, how people from the same generation as me have become elderly, how all pretty, vivacious girls I used to know are now old enough to have a couple of grandkids.
To be honest, I am not really a big fan of Murakami's short stories collection. For me, Murakami is like a manatee that belongs to a vast sea, not in the beautiful pool in the Seaworld. Murakami writing a short story is like a manatee in the Seaworld. Still majestic and beautiful, but just not right. In my opinion.
I remember I enjoyed Men Without Woman the best, among other collections. Maybe it is because surrealism didn't have big portions in it, still there but not too much. Because, though I love Murakami so much, I sometimes need to get a grasp on his surrealism and met it with reality.
What about this book?
First Person Singular is a collection of 8 short stories that have been published before, except the last one: First Person Singular to tied the bond between the book. The short stories are told from the first-person narrator, Haruki Murakami. I read it somewhere that the stories were him, but however, he fictionalizes them.
The stories are Cream (1), On a Stone Pillow (29), Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova (50), With The Beatles (75), Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey (126), Carnaval (163), The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection (198), First Person Singular (226).
Just like other Murakami's books, the reader will find a topic about the Beatles, LP, Classical music, and Jazz and of course the aloof character of the narrator.
My Experience with the books.
I read it for two weeks long, that it supposedly much shorter if it is not in the fasting month. I read every other day because I was afraid there will be adult content that can break my fasting (rolling eyes), and yet, nothing excessive.
At first, I am not really cozy with three first stories, then I am elated when I opened Confessions of Shinagawa Money part.
When the narrator have a trip, he met with a monkey who act like a human and work at the inn where the man stayed.
They have a conversations over sapporo beers, and found out that the monkey even love a female human rather than female monkey. Due to the circumstances not allowed, the monkey found a way to confess his love, by stealing the human ID. Later on, the human will experience a 'glitch', not remembering her own name.
I found it hilarious and enjoyed this part very much.
The next story, Carnaval may received many complaints because the opening sentence that too ballsy? but from my opinion, he is just being honest. A honest writing is a not sin.
So far, I cannot say that I enjoyed this book very much but I had a fun read it.
Well, I cannot wait to read the next book of Murakami, and hopefully, it is a novel! Likewise, a manatee in a vast sea.
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