Men without women6/8/2023 ![]() It recalls the similarly arrested development afflicting Tengo in Murakami’s massive 1Q84 - his memories of his long-lost beloved at age 10 initially thwart his efforts to move forward. Seeing her in his mind’s eye as “a young girl” while they make love, he holds her so hard that she tells him it hurts. In the title story, a man invents such an idealized past, imagining that he’d actually met the woman he’s long since lost when they were both just 14. ![]() In “Yesterday” itself, a man who has loved the same woman since they were both children ultimately sacrifices their potential future as a couple. ![]() In “Kino,” a husband catches his wife with another man and then tamps down the hurt, even if that means turning his back on the living. In “An Independent Organ,” a physician playboy who’d prided himself on avoiding “sticky emotional conflicts” falls madly in love at age 52 - only to lose his beloved and confront his largely unlived existence. In “Drive My Car,” an aging actor mourns his deceased wife, despite the four affairs she’d never disclosed. ![]() Or, in this new collection, a time before these stories’ male protagonists lost the women they’d most loved. Men Without Women, a new collection of seven stories by Haruki Murakami, could best be summed up by the title of the second one: “Yesterday.”Īs one might expect from an author whose breakout novel is named Norwegian Wood, this story’s title refers to the aching Beatles song pining for a receding past. ![]()
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