bongjoonno

i have to say, my my first time reading murakami was intrguing. I LOVEEE HIS WRITING STYLE, he just has that perfect way of wording things. i just wished he chose different subject matter for his writing, some elements like in “shinagawa monkey” or “a pour aunt story” seemed kind of dumb to me, to me his more practical stories such as ‘tony takitani’ (my favorite of all of them) are his best.

i absolutely love how murakmi says things, but not always what he says. i believe murakami is mainly split into two sections, which are interwoven throughout his work: his more fantastical side and his more philsophical/serious side. in this collection of short stories, 'men without women', i saw this more serious side in the most beautiful light. particularly in stories like 'drive my car' and 'an independent organ' (which were my favorites).

i absolutely love murkami's writing style, but i feel that the contents (plot elements) of his stories are sometimes lacking. they are not very interesting, and while he tries to make up for this by using fantastical elements, it takes from his writing and makes it seem more child like. in this sense, i'm always grasping for something more with murakami, if the level of his plots rose to the level of his prose, then he would be one of the greatest authors of all time. i assume that because this is a short story colleciton, that the plots will be of lighter quality, so i expect more fleshed out plots within his novels. when i read 'after dark' (my third book of his), i will look for this. i truly love this 'slice of life' style writing, but when it's in every single story i just want some variation. i wish murakami tettered between 'slice of life' and 'plot focused' stories. 7.5/10.