He held my body, not me.
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Category: Just About Anything
A Six-Word Story
For your sake and mine… goodbye.
Quote of the Week
In the end there doesn’t have to be anyone who understands you. There just has to be someone who wants to.
-Robert Brault
Friday Haiku
Day after day I
waited. All I had was a
cold dreadful silence.
Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Book #23.
Men Without Women is comprised of seven short stories about, as the title suggests, men without women. These tales all feature male lead characters contemplating on themes like love, loss, solitude, grief, loneliness and infidelity. Every story features a kind of relationship that has a great impact on our male protagonists, how lack of women in their lives affect them and the way they perceive women. No, it won’t take you to the surreal and complexity of worlds in the likes of Kafka on the Shore. These stories are far easier but darker and somewhat reminds me of Norwegian Wood.
As always, Murakami was able to create characters very delicately and similar with his other works, he always gives us the most important details but lets our imagination finish the rest of the concept/idea. Other elements present in the stories familiar to Murakami readers include jazz music, baseball, whiskey and cats.
I don’t think I will ever be disappointed by Murakami though whenever I read his works, I always need to put myself in a particular frame of my mind. I’m not really sure what that particular frame of mind I’m talking about exactly is but it makes me unified with the book. And though you won’t like every story in this collection, I’m pretty sure you’ll like at least one of them. This would be a good choice for anyone who wants to try reading his books but don’t know where to start. Or a well worth stopgap for his fans while waiting for the next big one.
Now this leaves me thinking what about women without men in Murakami’s pen?
Quotable Quotes :
“Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try and fix it…But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”
“I guess I was happy then. But that much happiness can lead to an equal amount of pain.”
“As time passes, memory, inevitably, reconstitutes itself.”
“Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt.”
“…in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong.”
Rating : 5/5 stars
A Six-Word Story
Always give with no strings attached.
Monday Haiku
Sheer joy walking with
your arms around me beneath
the glittering stars.
Quote of the Week
What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.
-Kazuo Ishiguro
I Might
I am not afraid
because it’s too high. But I
might jump and that’s why.
