The Elephant Vanishes

This Murakami book is unlike the others - as it is a set of short stories. The Elephant Vanishes is a great short read for anyone looking to dip into some good Murakami. Now, having read all of Murakami's works I can most definitely say that he is our modern day Anthony Burgess. Themes of alienation, insomnia and motifs of dream states are common to Murakami - but if they're not yet common to you - The Elephant Vanishes, I think, is where you should start. 


Characters:

Well, as the characters have no specific names - I am going to say that the woman from the story "Sleep" is my favourite as she denounces her sleep in order to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. If I could stop sleeping and just read I could....Oh wait, I do that most of the time anyway. I think that not giving this woman a name leaves out a vital part of her identity and this is what makes us empathise with her - if we knew her name, she would merely be a character to us. But, not giving her a name gives her more of a symbolic status - thus, making us remember her more. 

Themes:

I'm going to say themes, symbols and motifs of music is probably my favourite in here. As in "The Second Bakery Attack" they listen to Wagner and in "The Kangaroo Communique" they listen to Mahler and Brahms - music (especially classical) is used to enhance the atmosphere at times of requirement and Murakami uses this so well - we don't even realise it's happening. 

Storyline:

Now, as there's no particular storyline - I'm going to tell you about my favourite story in the book, "Sleep". This is obviously about a woman who denounces sleep to be able to stay up, drink wine and read Anna Karenina. But, as she takes a drive in her Civic, everything seems to become scary and unusual, having not slept for long lengths of time by now - she comes to see that sleep may be a necessity and that she was wrong for denouncing it. The end, whether it is real, a dream state, or sleep paralysis - we'll never know. But by God, the ending to this story is amazing. 

Verdict:

I give this book 9 out of 9. 

100% for characters: From the woman making spaghetti to the woman who denounces sleep - Murakami has three dimensional characters without a name and creating identities for characters down to an absolute that I, myself, could never achieve. 

100% for themes: I love the themes that are so typical of Murakami - but saying this, he does a different thing with them each time. 

100% for storyline: I have to say, "Sleep" really shocked me, and so did "The Second Bakery Attack". These stories have such simple plot lines, but require us to understand who the characters are in depth - without knowing their names.