Few things about the thing that is this book

I finished reading (re-reading?) 'Men without women' today. Before I talk about the book, I want to talk about the object that this book is, the thing I held in my hands.

I have read hardcovers before, most of the books I've read these past few months have been nothing but hardcovers. I love hardcovers. I have written about the design of this book, the interiors. I love the cover as well.

In this age of minimalism, and defaults, of things being simpler, we have lost appreciation for things built, and crafted with heart and passion. I want to appreciate that.

The other thing I want to talk about is the fact that this is a translated book. Mukarami writes in Japanese. When the book gets translated, is it a Murakami book or is it Philip Gabriel's (the translator) book. How much of craft is lost in translation?

Are stories all that matter? Is the idea all that matters? What about the execution?

Words matter. Don't they?

About the stories

This is a typical Murakami book. If you've read Murakami before, you know what that entails. If you haven't, go read some. There are some fantastical elements in Murakami's stories, but they are told in such a grounded fashion.

This is a collection of seven stories. The strangeness in the stories ratchets up as we go on.

Drive my car is about a man who has lost his wife to illness, and how he deals with that loss.

Yesterday is where the book gets its cover from, the moon of ice. Its about Kitaru wanting his girlfriend to date the narrator.

An Independent Organ is about a doctor who falls in love with a woman, who loves another man. The doctor loses all will to live. This is story that made me want to talk to more people more often.

I remembered SCHEHERAZADE from the first time I had read this book. Scheherazade tells fantastical stories to Habara, about being madly in love with a boy when she was young. Habara is afraid he might not see her again.

Kino is perhaps the most out there story. About a man who opens a bar when he ends his marriage.

Samsa in love is a sucker punch to the gut. It's sad, deeply, profoundly so. But in that depth of sadness, there's hope and love.

Men without women is the other book I remembered from my first read. It is philosophical, about a man who gets a call at night, that a person he loved for about two years, had killed herself.