Having stuck to a specific set of themes and motifs throughout his career, many of Murakami’s trademarks once again make an appearance here including jazz bars and cats although slightly less prominently compared to some of his other work. The title story is a similarly abstract account of a man who learns that his ex-girlfriend has committed suicide after receiving a phone call from her husband.

While this collection leans more towards realism overall, the most surreal and perplexing story reminiscent of Murakami’s earlier work is ‘Samsa in Love’ – it made a bit more sense when I found out afterwards that it is a reversal of Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’ in which an insect turns into a man and has to adapt to living in a human body. ‘An Independent Organ’ is about a plastic surgeon who falls in love with a married woman and wastes away when he discovers she has had other affairs. Continuing the theme of titles taken from Beatles songs, ‘Yesterday’ sees the narrator reflect on friendships during his university years. The opening story and one of the strongest in the collection is ‘Drive My Car’ which is about a middle-aged widowed actor who employs a female chauffeur to drive him to theatres after a minor accident caused by a blind spot. The stories have been translated by Ted Goossen and Philip Gabriel who have both worked on many of Murakami’s previous books. Echoing Ernest Hemingway’s collection of the same name, the seven tales in this collection are indeed about men experiencing loneliness and isolation without the women who are now absent from their lives for various reasons. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.‘Men Without Women’ by Haruki Murakami is the renowned Japanese author’s first new collection of short stories to be translated into English in over a decade. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice.

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Men without women