Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of stories that explores an entire range of human experiences. I was introduced to Murakami through his short story collection, “The Elephant Vanishes.” While I have binged his novels since that rainy day at our local library, I haven’t gone back to his short stories. At the beginning of the book, Murakami talks about how writing short stories is an entirely different feat from writing novels. I’m a couple of stories in already, and each of them feels like a Murakami novel condensed into a few pages.
I find a certain calmness when I read Murakami. Looking at some forums, I see many others feeling the same way. Each story in this collection has an intense but ephemeral feeling that I keep coming back to.
I started reading this on my Kindle almost a year ago, so it is hard not to be a bit biased by the later stories, but, in order, these are the stories I liked most: The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day, A Shinagawa Monkey, Birthday Girl, and Tony Takitani.