Pretty good stories about desperately lonely men. Some repressing their feelings, some confused at what they're suppose to feel, and others accepting everything as it goes. ( )

It's a short story collection, so each story will vary, so me giving the book as a whole a 3 star rating is based on how much I like the collection overall.

My favorite short stories were "Drive My Car", "An Independent Organ", and "Scheherazade" - 3 out of the 7 stories included. The rest were either just okay, a little hard to understand, or just not for me. But throughout all 7 stories, you see this ongoing theme of men dealing with the women in their lives, and how the presence or absence of women affects them. There also seems to be a running theme of infidelity in a lot of these stories, but that could also be a cultural thing.

To quickly summarize/review each story individually:
1. Drive My Car - man who can no longer drive hires a female driver to chauffer him around, while mourning his late wife and the life they could've had. 5/5 stars, I wish this was a longer, standalone book.
2. Yesterday - the main character befriends a very eccentric Tokyo-born man with a Kansai accent that he learned and purposely uses instead of speaking in Tokyo/standard Japanese. A short exploration of their friendship and the man's eccentricities. 2/5 stars, it was tolerable, but I think I'd have to understand way more about modern Japanese culture to really appreciate it.
3. An Independent Organ - the main character tells a story about a surgeon he knew who'd never fallen in love, and seems to have his way with multiple women at the same time, which leads the surgeon to wonder who he is as a person. 5/5 stars, again, I wish this one was a longer, standalone story because it had an interesting concept.
4. Scheherazade - Homebound man has a sexual relationship with his visiting nurse, and as they continue to have sex, she tells him more about herself and her life - particularly when it comes to breaking and entering. 4/5 stars, I wish there was more to get me invested in the pair as a pair, but the nurse's background is really interesting. Could probably be it's own standalone book if there was more content to be had, but I think the way it ended was kind of the point? Even so, I still want more.
5. Kino - Man opens a bar, but the bar seems to have very few customers, and one customer even suggests that the bar is "missing something", so Kino (the main character) sets out to find whatever this "missing something" is at the behest of his customer. 3/5 stars - it's a very easy story to get overwhelmed with because of everything happening all at once, but I think I understood it in the end.
6. Samsa in Love - man wakes up in a house, unfamiliar with his surroundings (and even simple words and concepts being unknown/foreign to him) has a series of weird interactions with a female locksmith who's at his house to repair a broken lock. 2/5 stars - but I think I might just not get it because I haven't read anything by Franz Kafka, and even the main character is named Gregor Samsa, a direct reference to Kafka's Metamorphosis. So whether this is meant to be a simple reference, a continuation or AU of that story, or something else? I can't tell. But the titular Samsa being kind of aloof can be a little endearing in it's own way.
7. Men Without Women - main character wakes up in the middle of the night to a phone call that a woman is dead. He calls the woman M and then fantasizes about the life they could've had together, and why they ultimately didn't end up together. The story also really brings the theme of "men without women" back home, since he describes himself as being in a state of "men without women" because of M's sudden death. 2/5 stars, and that's being generous. I give it that mostly for bringing the central theme full circle, but oh my god, does the main character talk too much about his penis. And I feel like the story would've been more interesting if there was some actual reality attached to it, rather than him making a fanfic of a call he received in the middle of the night; or at least a mix of the real, surreal and fake world that made me like Haruki Murakami's other works. ( )

I read this book slowly over many trips to the bookstore - one story at a time - so many of my thoughts have slowly faded. Overall, it was reasonable - a good format for Murakami, whose writing otherwise is often too whimsical for me in novel form, with plots that rarely satisfy. Im not sure I “got it,” and many stories were intentionally unsatisfying, but it wasn’t bad. Not sure who I’d really recommend this book to... ( )

"Em contrapartida, M passou desde então a estar em toda a parte. Vejo-a em todo o lado. Continua viva nos mais variados sítios, nos mais variados momentos e nas mais variadas pessoas. Sei disso. Quanto à metade da borracha, guardei-a num saquinho de plástico e acompanha-me sempre, como uma espécie de talismã. Como uma bússola que me indica o rumo a seguir. Estava piamente convencido de que, se andasse com ela no bolso, conseguiria encontrar M um dia, algures no planeta. No fundo, deixara-se seduzir pelas falinhas mansas de um marinheiro avisado e fora levada para longe, a bordo de um navio. Porque ela era uma pessoa que queria acreditar em algo. Uma rapariga capaz de partir uma borracha nova em duas, sem hesitar, e oferecer metade."

Do conto "Homens sem mulheres"

Nessuno puo’ sapere cosa sogneremo domani. (73)

Le medesime passioni hanno nell'uomo e nella donna un ritmo diverso: perciò uomo e donna continuano a fraintendersi.
FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE

Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi
che ’n mille dolci nodi gli avolgea,
e ’l vago lume oltra misura ardea
di quei begli occhi, ch’or ne son sì scarsi;

e ’l viso di pietosi color’ farsi,
non so se vero o falso, mi parea:
i’ che l’esca amorosa al petto avea,
qual meraviglia se di sùbito arsi?

Non era l’andar suo cosa mortale,
ma d’angelica forma; e le parole
sonavan altro che, pur voce umana;

uno spirto celeste, un vivo sole
fu quel ch’i' vidi: e se non fosse or tale,
piagha per allentar d’arco non sana.

Petrarca

Lui per un certo periodo si dedico’ con particolare passione alla calligrafia. Tracciando ideogrammi sulla carta candida col pennello imbevuto di inchiostro nerissimo, gli pareva di veder sciogliersi a poco a poco il groviglio che aveva nel cuore. (17)

Se nel nostro operato non intervenisse un organo che ci spinge ad altezze vertiginose o ci fa precipitare storditi in fondo al baratro, un organo che a volte ci mostra splendide visioni, a volte ci induce a cercare la morte, la nostra vita sarebbe una cosa ben squallida. Si ridurrebbe a una serie di abitudini. (110)

Perche’ le donne offrivano un tempo speciale che annullava la realta’, pur restandovi immerse. (141)

Ma tra noi due, fin dall’inizio, era come… come dei bottoni sfasati rispetto alle asole…
“Dei bottoni sfasati rispetto alle asole”, penso’ Kino. (165)
To do list: comperare ago e filo.
Alternative: cucire tutte le asole ed usare i bottoni lanciandoli sopra l’acqua di uno stagno (che rimbalzano!).
Infine: ‘Posto che la verita’ sia una donna’... (sempre lui).

Gli bastava pensare a lei, rivedere mentalmente la sua figura, per sentire un calore in petto. E comincio’ a rallegrarsi di non essere un pesce o un girasole.
…
Rimase per molto tempo seduto a occhi chiusi. Assaporava tranquillamente quel calore, come una persona accanto a un falo’. (204-5)

Un giorno all’improvviso diventi uno dei tanti uomini che non hanno una donna.
…
Mentre controlli la pressione delle gomme, versare lacrime sulla strada arida. (215-6)
( )