As Neil Gaiman explains in his MasterClass course on The Art of Storytelling, a short story needs to be structured as if it were the last chapter of a full-length novel. In European (or Western) literature, the climax and conclusion of any story are critical. However, I can only judge the book by my own expectations.įirst Person Singular by Haruki Murakami (Publisher: Bond Street Books Aphard cover hardcover 256 pages) The end really matters Were I a Japanese literature reviewer, I would probably have a very different view of the book. Just analyzing the extremely complicated Japanese writing system would have been difficult enough for the translator. I have no idea how much subtlety, if any, was lost in the translation. I am judging a work which was written in Japanese with Japanese aesthetics by a quintessentially Japanese author, against European English Literature standards. This kind of down-beat, subtle tone, the muted-ness of the stories, reminds me of a classical Japanese ink wash painting, where less is more and the spirit of the subject is depicted, rather than its outward appearance.
And overall, it was a pleasant, intellectually pleasing reading experience – particularly for someone who likes music.īut, have I missed something in the cultural references, settings, characterization and aesthetics in the stories, because I am not Japanese and have not read many Japanese authors? Probably.
Make no mistake, his writing style, as mixed as it is for the different characters’ voices, is cohesive, consistent and meticulously expressed. Regardless of my own reservations, Murakami’s narrative strategy for these stories (analyzed below) is justified and very well executed, especially if one considers where the book ultimately leads the reader to. And it is definitely not the usual thing. The answer to the question is what you are left with once you put the book down – the final thought about it, so to speak. While looking at First Person Singular, by acclaimed Japanese author Haruki Murakami, I asked myself three questions in order to understand the collection of stories: what is it about?, what is the most important thing? and lastly, and then what happened? In this post I will answer the third question, which relates to the structure of the stories.
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