Name: Tess 's review of Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Item: Men Without Women
Rating: 3.5
Author: Tess

Haruki Murakami

Men Without Women

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

aditi 

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.

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

Men without Women; i cannot tell who this man is. He definitely loved her, maybe was obsessed with her. He kinda sounds like a stalker or sb who just had very deep feelings and never recovered from parting ways. 

hannah 

And it would be nice if, as she listens to the pizzicato violins of "A Summer Place," her thoughts occasionally turn to me. 

Samsa in Love; yeah uhm that was too kafkaesk

Yet had he been a fish or a sunflower, and not a human being, he might never have experienced this emotion. So he felt. […] The world was waiting for him to learn. 

kino: he was an interesting person, the way he reacted to being cheated on. It‘s sad that he didn’t realise how deeply hurt he actually was by it. og katten

Yes, I am hurt. Very, very deeply. He said that to himself. And he wept. In that dark, still room. 

Scheherazade; this was disturbing, the way that murakami pictured that woman was way too obsessive; yeah crushes may be intense and like an illness, but not to such extend; what is habaras deal and why is he not able to go outside?

Whatever the case, Scheherazade had a gift tor telling that touched the heart. No matter what sort ot story it was, she made it special. Her voice, her timing, her pacing were all flawless. 

I guess that‘s real passionate love. it sounds beautiful and awfully cruel at the same time. "an independent organ"; no need to lie, reading this was weird because well Dr. Tokai‘s a bachelor living his best life having affairs with multiple women, but he still doesn’t sound too awful of a person. the woman he feel in love with was absolutely gruesome, he deserved better 

It feels like somehow our hearts have become intertwined. Like when she feels something, my heart moves in tandem. Like we're two boats tied together with rope. Even if you want to cut the rope, there's no knife sharp enough to do it. 

"Crying for someone else is nothing to apologize about," I told him. "Especially someone you care for, someone who's passed away."

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

(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."

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.

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

yesterday; i actually enjoyed this short story. yes kitarus concept of his relationship with erika is weird, but i did like the way he was talking and describing what he is feeling. good, that he tried to find himself, though i am sorry that he left his friend hurt.

We were friends just a few months, yet every time I hear "Yesterday" scenes of our conversations with him well up in my mind. [...] Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intense that they hurt. 

that's what I'm afraid of, just having to accept that yeah they're gone.

Kitaru didn't say a word to me about quitting his job, and didn't get in touch after that. He simply vanished. I have to say it hurt me. I'd thought we were good friends, and it was though to be cut off so completely like that.

I understand what he means, though I don't think it is fair for him to call Kitaru weird and question how he can be in any way attractive to that girl. you fall for a person, not just for their looks and sometimes not understanding is attractive as well.

"I figure, if she's gonna go out with other guys, it's better if it's you. 'Cause I know you. And you can gimme, like, updates and stuff."

That didn't make sense to me, though I admit I was interested in the idea of meeting Erika. I also wanted to find out why a beautiful girl like her would want to go out with a weird character like Kitaru.

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

Vojtech

This book was definitely a pleasant read although I feel it didn’t reach up to its potential. The romanticizing of men without women and the varying intensity of their feels was beautifully portrayed. There weren’t any other views from men that enjoy the solace when without women. I feel it lacked diversity when it came to men who enjoy being without women.

I think my favorite story was the story about Dr. Tokai showed the painful death of oneself when left without love or when love is ripped out of your chest.

Tess 

This book was definitely a pleasant read although I feel it didn’t reach up to its potential. The romanticizing of men without women and the varying intensity of their feels was beautifully portrayed. There weren’t any other views from men that enjoy the solace when without women. I feel it lacked diversity when it came to men who enjoy being without women.

I think my favorite story was the story about Dr. Tokai showed the painful death of oneself when left without love or when love is ripped out of your chest.

Aakankaha Dwivedi

Midori Kobayashi

Whether you want to or not. But the place you return to is always slightly different from the place you left. That’s the rule. It can never be exactly the same.


Typical Murakami style with quiet rains, somber music and a tinge of the supernatural. Loved reading all seven short stories, they are all about men who have never or atleast in the present had woman in their lives and tho each story has a diff set of characters, they are all very intriguing nonetheless.

If you're already familiar with Murakami's writing and want a short reliving of that experience this a perfect book for you, or if it's gonna be your first time reading Murakami, this is a short yet very good book to get a hang of his writing style.

Daniel Lazaro

Stef

Satu hal yang menghubungkan cerita pendek di buku ini, semua karakter nya not ended up with women. Still my favorite story "Yesterday".

Hellboy TCR

3-3.5 stars, not his best. Some of them I have read before (Kino, Scheherazade), some like the Title story are new to me. There are lot of nice passages as usual.

Neverland ✨

Sanaa Shaltout

حبيت هذه القصة
حبيت تفاصيلها
بحب تفاصيل البنت والولد وخصوصًا البنت اللي تقعد تحكي قصص لجوزها حبيبها عشيقها صديقها جو حكاية القصص.
بحب الحاجات، وخصوصًا إني بحب أحكي أي رواية قريتها وأحولها لقصة.

القصة فيها من مستر وايت بطل مسلسل Breaking Bad
I'm not in danger, I am the danger.

جميل أنك تحكي ماضيك لحد متعرفوش، ومتتكسفش من حكاياتك، لأن اللي يعرفك هيأذيك للأسف بمعرفته.
وجميل أنك بعد فترة تكتشف إن الحاجات اللي كنت هتموت عليها كانت لها وقت صغير فترة وعدت، وفقدت شغفك بيها.

حبيت موراكامي 
<3

Kholoud Ayman

Audiobook.
 I loved all the stories especially (yesterday) and (an independent organ). 

And I can't love you more, Murakami.

Katie Chua

i give murakami a lot of shit but i liked this enough. there were a few moments that def made me roll my eyes. Men Without Women is not just the title of the collections, it's like a whole Thing that murakami decided to term sad bois and that's what all these stories touch on. sometimes i'm like, men so stupid, get over it, but other stories i found really insightful and touching so where does that leave us ... 

overall, i thought well-translated (i don't know japanese but i feel like it was very murakami-esque and also he's got great music taste. i always listen to jazz/classical after reading him)

A dazzling new collection of short stories--the first major new work of fiction from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami since his #1 best-selling Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. 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.

Jocelyn Poh

my rating | 2 stars


  ”You might meet a new woman, but no matter how wonderful she may be (actually, the more wonderful she is, the more this holds true), from the instant you meet, you start thinking about losing her.”

Some beautiful prose but after a certain point of the book I wasn’t sure if I was reading Murakami or erotica...

noha

a collection of short stories; all interesting, filled with beautiful writing ✨ quite a masterful author Murakami is <3 

There’s one that was actually surreal and funny it’s called “Samsa in love” and it’s a reversal of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in which Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself a human being after he was a roach! i loved it hhhhh 

now, It’s almost 3:30 am now and I gotta get some sleep, but really though after reading four books for Murakami; his power as a writer is pretty clear and I’m impressed and I’ve fallen in love with him since After Dark <3 
 The fact that there’s a whole world of Haruki Murakami out there for me to delve into and explore more makes me happy 💫 
That’s it. Read the book. You wouldn’t regret it.

Nico J

This was truly the middle of the road for me, which pains me to say about anything Murakami has written, but some stories were spectacular and some were off of the rhythm of the strange beat he already has. The strongest stories were Drive my Car; An Independent Organ; Kino; and Men Without Women. The remaining ones sort of fell off the radar or just felt out of sync with the overarching theme, loose though it may have been. It has some telltale imprints of his works - jazz, cats, gloomy and edgy urban settings with dreamy men wandering averagely throughout their lives, and strange women. I'm here for the aesthetic, and I'm here for the love.

Highlights of Drive My Car: The companionable silence of the drives; I can feel them, I'm there. Acting for others, that all our world's a stage.

An Independent Organ: Something about a man wasting away over a woman is quite a different story than most, in which we usually see women becoming something faint and emaciated over the men they pine over. There's something appreciative and kind in the role of Goto and his fondness for a man he knew and also didn't. 

Kino is far and away the most well-written of these, and it's like a mini-Mura story packed into a short one, with all of those telltale imprints in less words. The slightly tucked-away but mildly-seedy bar with magical happenings and a cat? Favorite. The postcard instructions? Nice and strange, just how I like it. You feel the build-up of a man needing to confront his own demons and issues, and that's what happens.

Men Without Women really does tie together what we've been carried along by during this but hasn't been said outright - how men feel when their women, a woman, any women, are gone, for whatever reason that is. They leave, they grieve, they divorce, they die, and men are exploring how to confront that. I think there are some perspectives that I'm not going to understand in the end, whether it's due to culture or gender, and that's acceptable. A book doesn't have to universally appeal.

This review will be updated later with specific quotes.

THE SUNDAY TIMESBESTSELLER 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

Helen 

My first Murakami book finished! My favourite stories were 'An Independent Organ' and 'Kino'.

Neha Kirpalani

Loved the last story, most. such a bittersweet ending!

Momo

I am a big Murakami fan and I was excited when I found out that he had a more recent book out so I was quick to buy it but I absolutely hated this book.
It is a collection of short stories of lonely men who have had women in their lives and lost them at some point whether it's through an affair, break-up, naturally or more. It does capture the harsh light of reality of the possibility of loss of a significant other. Furthermore, it does shine light on the various kinds of men there are in the world and their relationships with women. For example there are characters playboy doctors and procrastinating students. More importantly, it shines a light on their relationships with women and how they interact with one another.
On the other hand, I found the stories to be rather uninteresting and the characters unlikeable which is such a shame because I really wanted to like this book!
Although, I did not like it, it was well written and I would still class it as a good book.

Vojtech &
Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

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Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami