I didn’t hugely enjoy this collection of short stories, to be honest. I found the style difficult going, although either it changed as it went on, or I adapted to it, since I found some of the later stories better than the earlier ones. Some of the stories were mainstream, some verged into fantasy but either way, most of them just ambled along, zigzagged for a bit and then just stopped, having had no point, or even a story. Either that, or I’m just not getting them. I also found them a bit “gofffff” for me in places. Whining about the woes of life; I just wanted to scream at some of the protagonists to just get on with it. And what’s with Murakami’s aversion to names? Many of the stories seem to go out of their way to avoid naming anyone.
Bron recommended the last story (“A Shinagawa Monkey”) in particular and that one was actually quite good. But not good enough to make up for a disappointing collection.
