First Person Singular is a short story collection book by Haruki Murakami, originally published in 2020. This book is consist of eight short stories.
Descriptions of each of the stories are wrote by simple first person singular noun and its view. So the stories appears to be made by real personal experiences, and their mysterious occurrences and unexpected plots have certain realities and worths. I think readers should read these stories are Murakami’s real experiences. And I felt the purity of Murakami by the voice or connotation of BOKU (僕) the Japanese first person singular noun of which boys and men use and speak. (Only First Person Singular is described by WATASHI (私), the first singular noun of women and serious adult men.)
I enjoyed to read this book, but I couldn’t find new things. There are many frequently appeared motifs and storylines of Murakami’s works. For example, miserable and mysterious woman and her vanishment (Naoko in Norwegian Wood), strange old man like the God suggests a precept or gives a salvation (Colonel Sanders in Kafka on the Shore), longing for lost things (the Spaceship Pinball Machine in Pinball, 1973), black long haired beautiful girl (Naoko, the 100% perfect girl in On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning), support for weak and minor things (American literature in Norwegian Wood), ugly or fat but fascinating woman (pink daughter of the docter in the End of the World), to talk with non-human beings (Commendatore in Killing Commendatore) and to wear suit rarely (Wind-Up Bird Chronicleand Murakami’s some essays). All eight stories, I feel I’ve already read in novels and essays of Murakami. It’s a kind of déjà-vu.
Yet, this book is fine and interesting, and some descriptions are beautiful or wonderful. I think the stories are one of variations of Murakami’s works. But they are splendid variations, and excellent and skilful short stories written by the great veteran novelist. So I recommend this book for lovers of Murakami’s books also first-time readers will enter the world of Haruki Murakami.
Product Details
First Person Singular (一人称単数)
Haruki Murakami
Bungeishunju, Tokyo, 18 July 2020
236 pages, JPY 1500
ISBN 9784163912394
Contents
- On a Stone Pillow
- Cream
- Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova
- With the Beatles
- The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection
- Carnaval
- Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey
- First Person Singular
First Person Singular: Stories
Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator)
Knopf, New York City, New York, 6 April 2020
256 pages, $28.00
ISBN 9780593318072
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