First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami

First Person Singular, Murakami’s 2021 short story collection in lovely English translation by Phillip Gabriel (shout-out to translators, I love you all so much) are a succinct path to the heart of joy Murakami can bring. Murakami’s writing helps affect this mood, its soft and winding river of introspective prose is like a lullaby to anxieties, and the stories are always a fantastical and philosophical, low-key extravaganza that manage to both appease both the literary and childlike-wonderment parts of the reader. It’s a mood, really, and one I’d love to be able to embody. Perhaps it is because the protagonists always have this refined aloofness about them, unshakable in the face of an abrupt surrealist maelstrom as they simply crack a single small beer and vibe with whatever befalls them.

There is something I find very calm and comforting about reading Murakami. Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells' song, although it is widely thought it was titled after the Beach Boys tune), Norwegian Wood (after The Beatles' song) and South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part being the title of a song by Nat King Cole). Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko.

He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences. Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature.

His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'. Murakami Haruki (Japanese: 村上春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator.

First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami