
Haruki Murakami’?s always been one of my favorite authors. Even his weaker novels and stories are still worth reading; I?ve never abandoned one of his works. Just the opposite, in fact ? I find them impossible to put down, devouring them in as few sittings as possible. His Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Murakami?’s newest short story compilation is a collection of some of his oldest stories as well as his newest. Some of the earlier stories stand out –? they’?re not quite as polished, and they betray a feeling of an author finding their footing; sometimes the endings seem too pat. However, the last five stories (all written in 2005 and published the following year in Japan as a stand-alone book) are some of the best things Murakami has written, just as good as Hard-Boiled Wonderland.
The stories all fit the standard Murakami mold: ?The subtle magical realism, the digressions on ears, food and jazz, but not in a retread sort of way. He still has things to say, and this is still the best way for him to say them. He does play with the form a bit. After a few stories told in his standard first person; including a few where the narrator is a writer himself, you wonder whether or not the narrator is supposed to be Murakami himself and whether or not it?s based in true events. However, in the outstanding and moving ?”Chance Encounters”?, the narrator actually is stated to be Haruki Murakami, The Novelist. He states that it?s a true story ? though that whenever he says something really happens, no one believes him, since he?s known as a storyteller. Of course, I wonder whether or not it IS a true story. I hope it is, and I choose to believe it is.
Philip Gabriel (who translated half the collection, the other half going to long-time translator Jay Rubin) is improving in his writing style; he’?s still nowhere near as fluid and adept as the original English translator of Murakami?’s works, the brilliant Alfred Birnbaum (who translated Hard-Boiled Wonderland), though Gabriel?’s clunky translations no longer get in the way of enjoying the text (as they can in his earlier attempts, Sputnik Sweetheart
Unfortunately, it seems that Murakami?’s books don?t get the fanfare they once did –? it seemed up until Kafka on the Shore