Haruki Murakami

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A dazzling new collection of short stories from the beloved, internationally acclaimed Haruki Murakami Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic. ‘Supremely enjoyable, philosophical and pitch-perfect new collection of short stories...Murakami has a marvelous understanding of youth and age’ Observer ‘Murakami at his whimsical, romantic best’ Financial Times

Stories

Men Without Women

hannah 

Aren't you a little young to be, like, the voice of reason or something?

He always spoke of his women friends with great respect and affection, and took care to keep any personal information secret.

And he wasn't all that afraid of revealing his weaknesses to others –– an unusual quality. [...] It's what's on her core that attracts me so strongly. Like a powerful magnet. It's beyond logic.

(sadly), there is no such thing as love antibodies

"But maybe it would have been better if i'd experienced this while I was still young," Tokai said. "Then I would have developed love antibodies."

Falling in love is like that. You can't control your feelings, and it's like some outrageous power is manipulating you.

aditi 

“You’re right,” Kafuku said. “I guess I was happy then. But that much happiness can lead to an equal amount of pain.”

But the proposition that we can look into another person’s heart with perfect clarity strikes me as a fool’s game. I don’t care how well we think we should understand them, or how much we love them. All it can do is cause us pain. Examining your own heart, however, is another matter. I think it’s possible to see what’s in there if you work hard enough at it. So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.

Men Without Women quotes

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