First Person Singular
Stories
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4.0 • 11 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A mindbending new collection of short stories from the unique, internationally acclaimed author of Norwegian Wood and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
The eight masterly stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From nostalgic memories of youth, meditations on music and an ardent love of baseball to dreamlike scenarios, an encounter with a talking monkey and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator who may or may not be Murakami himself is present. 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.
A GUARDIAN AND SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Murakami's engrossing collection (after the novel Killing Commendatore) offers a crash course in his singular style and vision, blending passion for music and baseball and nostalgia for youth with portrayals of young love and moments of magical realism. The one thing shared by the collection's eight stories is their use of the first-person-singular voice. Murakami's gift for evocative, opaque magical realism shines in "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova," in which a review of a fictional album breathes new life into the ghost of the jazz great, and "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey," wherein a talking monkey ruminates with a traveler on love and belonging. Murakami finds ample material in young love and sex, showcased in "On a Stone Pillow," in which a young man's brief tryst with a coworker, unremarkable in itself, takes on a degree of immortality after she mails him her poetry. In "The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection," the collection's one nonfiction piece, Murakami recounts how baseball and writing, the twin passions of his youth, grew together in the stadium of his beloved Yakult Swallows. These shimmering stories are testament to Murakami's talent and enduring creativity.
Customer Reviews
Like his old work
It reads like old Murakami, which I prefer, before his stories were saturated with overly sexual images. These are more delicate and leave you with the classic Murakami sense of intrigue when you finish each story, but long to know more.
A Return to Form
As an avid Murakami reader, I have found that most his works in the last 2 decades since Kafka on the Shore to be underwhelming compared to his output up until then. From the marvellous first story, “Cream”, onwards this collection is a long awaited return to form. Once again we are seamlessly transported from mundane moments of daily life into the surreal and extraordinary. At its best, his fiction is capable of posing fundamental questions about modern life that elude almost any other contemporary writer. Highly recommended.