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.