I think this was my sixth Murakami and the weirdest one by far. Like, completely bonkers and a little uncomfortable in places. More gore than usual but still ticks all the classic Murakami boxes.
My favourites were Barn Burning (the film of this is great), and maybe Sleep. I can’t stop thinking about The Dancing Dwarf, that story now lives rent-free in my mind.
What a fucking weird book. Four stars.

For a while I didn't get the hype. I'm still not entirely sure that I do. But there were a few gems here that I'll remember.

Around the World Reading Challenge: JAPAN
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3.5 rounded down

I knew I wanted to read a short story collection by Murakami for Japan, as I've been meaning to give him another go after the unbearble slog that was [b:The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle|11275|The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle|Haruki Murakami|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327872639l/11275._SY75_.jpg|2531376]. I'd heard good things about the female protagonist in Sleep (as in, unlike all of his other female characters, she came off like a complex being), so I figured I'd give this collection a go. While I can't say I'm in love with his writing style, these certainly worked much better for me than the long book of his I read. Which I think is mostly because they were shorter. I find all of his characters to be sort of vague, apathetic, untouchable creatures, entirely divorced from reality--as in, they don't feel real to me, and it's almost impossible for me to connect with or empathize with them. That's not so bad in a short story, but it's brutal with a 600-page one. There were a number of stories here that I found fascinating and compelling, all the more so for their open endings. I continue to feel disappointed with the vast majority of the female characters he writes, who feel even more insubstantial than the men, as their primarily purpose is entirely in relation to men. I also find his obsession with sex, and the way that he writes it/alludes to it, to be sort of gross and uncomfortable--I can't quite place it, but it's very off-putting to me.

So, on the whole, I did enjoy reading this, and I'd read more of his short stories, but it confirmed for me that I'm not really interested in reading any more of his novel-length stuff.

Thanks to a tip years ago, I got put on to Murakami and really enjoyed his work. I was told that this is where it all started.

Wow. Tales of the surreal, told with humor and an almost palatable "what the HELL is going on here?" vibe, really comes alive. He does so much with so little; his talent for describing and setting the scene is great, and his characters kind of go through it with something akin to blind faith but more than a hamster's inkling that something bigger is going on here.

I always find myself conflicted when rating a short story collection, especially for someone like Murakami, whose works tend to be super hit or miss with me.

It was the same for this collection. I found that I disliked most of the stories in The Elephant Vanishes, however the stories I did like were SUPERB. I don't think short stories do Murakami's writing much justice, because while they are characteristically bizarre, meandering, and thoughtful, they are not given space to work through their internal logic in the same way a full novel would be — especially given that one of the most prevalent themes in these stories seems to be the permeability of the world and the human mind.

Thinking in particular of the excerpt of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle that was included in this collection. Wind-Up Bird is one of my favorite Murakami novels, and this section in particular is one of my favorites from the book. But it probably would not be had I just read it isolated from the context of the whole book. The movement through various spaces, histories, realities that was so vital in Wind-Up Bird kind of loses some of the impact when you zoom into just a single instance of that transition.

The most successful of these stories is probably "The Second Bakery Attack," which was my favorite of the whole collection, and "Sleep," both of which explore altered/liminal states of being.

"The Second Bakery Attack" opens with a recently married couple, who wake up one night feeling incredibly hungry. They search through their refrigerator but can find nothing to eat, except for condiments and a pack of beer — which they decide will have to do. However, nothing can satiate their hunger. After some time, the husband recalls the only other time he's ever felt a hunger this profound and tells the story to his wife.

"Sleep" follows a middle-aged woman who finds that she cannot sleep — and, more surprisingly, that she doesn't seem to need it.

“The Second Bakery” would make a great short film.

bizarre, touching, way hornier than I expected. loved it