Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women
Men Without Women (2014) by Haruki Murakami
My Rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had heard great things about Haruki Murakami, but I had never actually read any of his work until now. One day a few months ago when I first decided to make an effort to study Japan, I was roaming YouTube trying to find some good lectures on Japanese culture and I happened upon a lecture by Jay Rubin giving a lecture about Haruki Murakami.
Jay Rubin has a Ph.D. in Japanese literature from the University of Chicago and taught at the University of Washington for eighteen years before moving on to teach at Harvard University, which he left in 2008, and he is known for being one of the main translators of Haruki Murakami’s work. He wrote Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (1992), a book about his thirty-plus year struggle with teaching and learning the Japanese language, and after working with Murakami for years and becoming close friends, he wrote a biography, Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words (2002). While watching Jay Rubin’s lectures, I was persuaded to read Murakami’s work for myself.
Men Without Women was the first book that I’ve read by Haruki Murakami. I don’t usually read the types of books he’s is known for, but I was pleased to learn that this book was more philosophical and realistic than magical. This short story collection contains seven stories, each around 40 pages long, about men who in some shape or form are alone—each for very different reasons.
To be honest, I enjoyed the short story collection, Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Ranpo, which I read simultaneously alongside this one, slightly more for its creepy and suspenseful stories. However, this book, which doesn’t lack in imagination, has a lot more depth, and the stories it contains are much more relatable.
Quick Background: Who is Haruki Murakami?
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto and didn’t start writing until he turned 29. He was running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo when he got the sudden urge to write while watching a baseball game. Extraordinarily, his first novel won a new writers’ award and was published in the following year. He reached major fame in 1987 when his novel, Norwegian Wood, was a huge hit—becoming a best-seller that was translated into many languages, of course including English.
Haruki Murakami is famous for his surreal and fantastical novels such as A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002), and 1Q84 (2009–10). His work has received numerous awards, including the World Fantasy Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, and the Jerusalem Prize. He even translates books into Japanese.
In addition to being known for his magical realism and surreal works, he is known for his discipline—writing ten pages a day followed by a long-distance run of only ten kilometers (a little over six miles), and working on translations. He wrote a book called, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), which I haven’t read myself, but I assume he mentions his escapades in running marathons and other races which he started doing in 1982. Including his book on writing, he has written three non-fiction works, the other two are Absolutely On Music (2011) and Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (1997).
Disclaimer: This section contains spoilers
My Favorite Story: Drive My Car
Of the seven stories in this collection, I really enjoyed the first four: Drive My Car, Yesterday, An Independent Organ, and Scheherazade—my favorite being Drive My Car. Set in Tokyo, the story is about an actor probably in his fifties named Kafuku who is in need of a driver. After months of driving Kafuku around in silence, Misaki, a quiet young woman in her twenties, asks her employer why he has no friends provoking Kafuku to open up about his now-deceased wife’s numerous affairs with other male actors, and his attempt to befriend one of her lovers to uncover what he may be lacking as a man, as a husband, and as a human being. She then asks him why he decided to become an actor:
“A college friend of mine, a girl, asked me to join her theater club. […] After I’d been acting for a while, though, it dawned on me that I really liked it. Performing allowed me to be someone other than myself. And I could revert back when the performances ended. I really loved that. [...] 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.”
I found this to be very relatable to my own life. I’ve never dreamed of being an actor, but I have sometimes dreamed of being somebody else, especially during my childhood. I remember watching Naruto and Avatar the Last Airbender and dreaming that I could have been someone with special powers or someone with a more exciting life as I’m sure many other people have had similar thoughts. But, after getting older and looking back at my past, I’ve come to realize that my life was actually pretty exciting after all, but it still would be nice to have some special powers.
As the story was coming to a close, Kafuku reveals to Misaki that there was an ulterior motive for befriending the young actor who had been sleeping with his beloved wife—he wanted to destroy the man’s reputation and career as an actor in order to exact his revenge. However, in the end, after getting to know the man, Kafuku decides against revenge. The following quote is from a scene where Kafuku is talking Takatsuki, his wife’s last affair partner, about his desire to understand everything about his wife. After hearing Kafuku’s obsession, Takatsuki gives his thoughts on understanding people:
“From what I can gather,” Takatsuki said after a long silence, “your wife was a wonderful woman. I am convinced of that even as I realize my knowledge of her is no more than a hundredth of yours. If nothing else, you should feel grateful for having been able to spend twenty years of your life with such a person. 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.”
This is my favorite part of the story because it gave me some very practical and philosophical advice that I think I’ve needed for a long time. I personally haven’t spent much time trying to figure out my own personality and behavior, probably because I thought I understood myself more than I actually do, which has led to some questionable decision-making. It wasn’t until I looked in the mirror and took the time to reflect on my life so far that I was able to begin moving in the right direction. To quote Uncle Iroh from one of my favorite scenes from Avatar the Last Airbender, “It’s time for you to look inward, and begin asking yourself the big questions: Who are you? And what do you want?”
After doing some soul searching, I realized that my behavior/actions mapped toward a move to Japan after graduating from University. It was a huge risk—and it’s definitely had its hardships, but I like to think that the move has done a lot of good for me. I’ve matured a lot and I’ve greatly improved my Japanese, which has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid.
I connected with Drive My Car the most which is why I enjoyed reading it more than the other stories. It was also the most straight forward and easily understandable story of the seven. The others need to be reread to fully understand what is trying to be said in each story. To be honest, I thought that some of the stories were just interesting stories that may not have any underlining profound meanings, but on the other hand, I’m not used to this style of writing, so I definitely would struggle to comprehend the deeper meanings if there are any. Give it a shot for yourself and let me know your thoughts on this book!
Thanks for reading my review! Let me know your thoughts on the book in the comments below.
What’s your favorite book by Haruki Murakami? If you read this book, which was your favorite story?
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Had to include this scene for those that haven’t seen Avatar the Last Airbender, or for those who have forgotten.