Haruki Murakami

When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset. A couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's. A woman finds she is irresistible to a small green monster that burrows through her front garden. An insomniac wife wakes up in a twilight world of semi-consciousness in which anything seems possible - even death. In every one of these stories Murakami makes a determined assault on the normal. ** Murakami’s new novel is coming ** COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE 'The reason why death had such a hold on Tsukuru Tazaki was clear. One day his four closest friends, the friends he’d known for a long time, announced that they did not want to see him, or talk with him, ever again'

The Elephant Vanishes

Srijita Sarkar 

Hold tight, I would tell myself, but there was nothing for me to hold on to.

Being a solitary entity is dreadfully depressing.

I want to be able to be in two places at once. That is my one and only wish. Other than that, there’s not a thing I desire.

Here I had me thinking, and here I had me observing myself think. Time ticked on in impossibly minute polyrhythms.

If birds in flight go unburdened by names, let my memories be free of dates.

My recall is a damn sight short of total. It’s so unreliable that I sometimes think I’m trying to prove something by it. But what would I be proving? Especially since inexactness is not exactly the sort of thing you can prove with any accuracy.

the curious thing about individuals is that their singularity always goes beyond any category or generalization in the book.

some things I’d like to forget. But the more I try to wipe them away, the more they pop into my mind. You know what it’s like when you’re trying to fall asleep and it only makes you more wide awake?

Makes me wonder if things are only memories.

Oh, friends, my friends, China is so far away.

Each movement was simple enough in itself, but in combination the four produced an almost incredible beauty of motion, erupting from the dwarf’s body all at once, as when a globe of light bursts open.

Why is it you can’t forget what you really want to forget?

That’s probably because people are looking for a kind of unity in this kit-chin we know as the world. Unity of design. Unity of color. Unity of function.

Maybe, in the end, our hopes were the wrong way around. But what am I, what are you, if not a misdiagnosis? And if so, is there a way out?

When the two of us were together, I could truly relax. I’d forget all about work I didn’t want to do and trivial things that’d never be settled anyway and the crazy mixed-up ideas that crazy mixed-up people had taken into their heads. It was some kind of power she had. Not that there was any great meaning to her words. And if I did catch myself interjecting polite nothings without really tuning in what she was saying, there still was something soothing to my ears about her voice, like watching clouds drift across the far horizon.

I close my eyes and darkness descends, a darkness painted blind with colours.

If you are new to Murakami, this book is the right choice to understand the many layers of his works. 

div. ☆

5 for the lawn, 4 for on seeing 100% perfect girl and an average of 3.5 for the rest

I typically really enjoy the little stories that Murakami weaves into his novels. They're quaint. Or mundane. But always interesting. However, on their own, they're not very remarkable. At least this collection of stories isn't. There is one heartbreaking tale about ‘arrogant young lovers’ that really affected me. Other than that, none of the stories caused me to feel much at all.

Frederik De Bosschere

Wynter

It was a neat collection of very Murakami-like stories. Most of them have some kind of indirect connections to each other, like cats, or daiquiris, or a narrator working at PR department of a household electronics firm, or a man named Noboru Watanabe, or strange dreams that warp the reality, or uneatable spaghetti. Maybe because of that I had a hard time differentiating separate stories. The few that really stood out for me were The Second Bakery Attack, Sleep, and The Dancing Dwarf. I loved the quirkiness of the first one, strange contemplative nature of the second, and the dark fairytale feel of the third. Also, On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning is incredibly beautiful and sad for being so short. These are probably the four I would recommend the most.

Hannah Lee

3.5 maybe. Most of the stories feel incomplete.

In the tales that make up The Elephant Vanishes, the imaginative genius that has made Haruki Murakami an international superstar is on full display. In these stories, a man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald’s in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard. By turns haunting and hilarious, in The Elephant Vanishes Murakami crosses the border between separate realities—and comes back bearing remarkable treasures. Includes the story "Barn Burning," which is the basis for the major motion picture Burning.

Stories

Eri Asahi

Murakami's short stories are the user-friendly version of his works.

Hellboy TCR

Alithea

Carina Almeida

mhm i have a lot to say and also really nothing that will make any sense strung together at all about this book. i read it all in one day (maybe that was the reason i couldnt appreciate it as much as other people seem to?) but anyways i definitely loved some of the short stories and disliked others

Scott Taylor

Some wonderful stories, but also some that left me confused as to why Mr. Murakami included them in the collection.

Momo

I love the idea of the different voices within this book of short stories and their neurotic adventures about the mysteries of life before realising it may not actually be worth it. All of the characters have a unique voice and experience. There's a connection between all of these stories and they're all a tad bit relatable.

When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset; a couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's; a woman finds she is irresistible to a small green monster that burrows through her front garden; an insomniac wife wakes up to a twilight world of semi-consciousness in which anything seems possible - even death. In every one of the stories that make up The Elephant Vanishes, Murakami makes a determined assault on the normal. He has a deadpan genius for dislocating realities to uncover the surreal in the everyday, the extraordinary in the ordinary.

cory malnarick

Classic Murakami. Some stories in here deviate from what you'd expect, but for the most part, these stories truly take you into the minds of his characters. You feel so close to their thoughts and get lost in their world behind their eyes. Maybe its my own approach, but I always thought Murakami as a very cerebral, personal, subjective author, one that presents the world through thought rather than narration. You hear their inner dialogue, and its beautiful.

The Elephant Vanishes

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