The master of Japanese letters reconnects with the short form and launches two books that are both very small and immense in which he furtively reveals snippets of intimacy.
In 2019, in a rare interview, the popular Japanese writer Haruki Murakami told a journalist from the Worldabout his childhood, that it had been furnished with “cats, music and books, in that order”.
This is the tone of the two books he has just published, the collection of short stories first person singular and an novella beautifully illustrated titled Abandon a catin which the author of the trilogy 1Q84 summons the memory of his father.
In these surprisingly substantial plates, the discreet Murakami reveals in his own way — oblique and enigmatic — little bits of intimacy. Snippets of childhood, memories twisted by the passage of time, discovery of desire, melodies heard in dreams, poems inspired by the local baseball team, stories traversed by girls who love the Beatles or by a kitten caught at the top of a a pine… Through all the angles and all the perspectives, it is a question here of the ultimate quest for oneself, of a destiny which takes shape according to accidents and chance, of the stories that we weave to arrive to believe that our lives have meaning.
Two books that prove as satisfying to the admirer as they are accessible to the reader who has not yet boarded the train. A beautiful gateway into the world of Murakami.
The best
The eight stories of first person singular are existential short stories, infused with a drop of absurdity and a few pinches of mystery.
In The best, an old man appears out of nowhere to enjoin the protagonist to solve a riddle that will give him access to “the cream of the crop of existence”. To be able to taste this supreme nectar, it will be necessary to succeed in imagining “a circle with several centers and without any circumference”. Difficult task, even impossible, but the reward is too attractive not to try… By closing his eyes, by putting in the time and the effort of concentration, perhaps he will be able to achieve it?
In several short stories, the writer, born in 1949 in Kyoto, approached several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature, portrays characters who are burning with the desire to talk about music. Jazz, classical, pop: the music here is an obsession. The narrator-author seems to experience almost as much pleasure in listening to it as in discussing it with other music lovers whose intensity of passion matches his own, whether it’s an ugly girl, an unappealing record store or even a monkey!
Fascinated, the reader remains taken aback by this obvious fact: the Murakamian magic operates with each piece of news. You never really get to understand how the rabbit sneaks into the hat each time. And we ask for more of this alchemy that breaks down the boundaries of time and Cartesian logic… Great mastery; we fly very high in very small planes of papers and words.
One of the most powerful texts in the collection features a talking monkey (Shinagawa Monkey’s Confession). In addition to expressing itself with great refinement, the animal discourses on complex subjects, such as loneliness and the ultimate form of romantic love… And, of course, this monkey appreciates music, particularly that of Bruckner and that of Strauss!
In the last story of the collection, first person singular, a downside remains throughout the story. The author portrays a character in disagreement with himself since he should have come to life in the third person singular rather than the first. Another conjuring trick that revives the singular bond that unites the writer to his reader.
soldiers and cats
Haruki Murakami also publishes a small volume of about 80 pages inspired by his relationship with his father. Abandon a cat. Memories of my dad is a novella judiciously illustrated by the Italian Emiliano Ponzi, followed by an afterword.
We had seen dawning, in the collection, the desire more and more asserted in Murakami, despite the modesty, to approach his relationship to writing. And the need to evoke the memory of his parents, of their lives turned upside down by the war.
The result is a very personal story, where we learn how a man, who was about to become a priest, instead became a soldier in a bloodthirsty regiment due to a stupid paperwork error and how this man, a father figure -called ordinary, escaped death many times.
“While writing, I need to revive my memory, to reconsider the past and to transform it into sentences and words that we can see, that we can read aloud. And the more I write […], the more I am invaded by the strange sensation of becoming transparent. »
A bit like Kafka in his letter to the father, Murakami examines his relationship with the father, analyzes the tensions, frictions and recounts their reconciliation. Cats come and go, sometimes reappear where you least expect them.
An acrobatic double in which Murakami proves twice that he is as agile in small paintings as in large frescoes.