absurd, but it works

Considering this is my first foray into the surreal genre-bending stuff Murakami's been up to for a while, I had a better time than I expected to. Considering I also don't read a lot of absurdist, speculative short fiction like all of the stories in this collection, I tried to keep an open mind and think I'm doing a better job of embracing this genre and style of writing for what it is. It's definitely not my genre of choice, but also not at the bottom of my list either. All of that to say, a few stories really stood out to me as either especially weird and hard to grasp, or especially weird but, strangely, easier to grasp as a result. I was particularly drawn to the stories that had supernatural elements or unexplainable, slightly unsettling and creepy goings ons. For example, "The Mirror," which had a classic scary story setting, informative narrator, and nearly Edgar Allan Poe-esque kind of vibe. Or "Hanalei Bay," with a mother's terrible tragedy affecting her son and a ghost potentially haunting her that we don't find out about until the very end. Stories like "Dabchick" and "A Shinagawa Monkey" also worked for me in their really high level absurdism. "Dabchick" just made me laugh, because what are the odds there'd really be a dabchick chilling on the other side of the door at this guy's weird job thinking about death? And the way "A Shinagawa Monkey" starts with what seems like a clear theme about loss of identity ends with a literal talking monkey who steals peoples' names. I think what also really ended up working for me was viewing these stories through the lens of a writer as well as a reader; in other words, I admire how precise writing absurdist and surrealist stuff must be, because too much ridiculousness simply loses readers, while carefully curated randomness makes analyzing the steps the writer took (or may have tried to take) a true form of craft. In addition, keeping in mind that all of these stories were originally written in Japanese helped me understand that certain parts of the original plot may pack a bigger punch in their original language. While I don't assume this is the case for every time I came across something I couldn't understand in part of the stories, I don't discount it as a completely unviable possibility. Overall, I don't think too much was lost in translation (though I'll argue that Murakami's portrayals of realistic women could use some work). I enjoyed this collection more than I expected to. 

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Some of my favorite quotes from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman:

"No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all."

"What matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last."

"Thinking about spaghetti that boils eternally but is never done is a sad, sad thing."

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