New Murakami Short Story
Good news for Haruki Murakami fans! A new short story has just been released.
Earlier this month, The New Yorker published a new short story by Haruki Murakami. The story is called “Kaho” and is available for free on their website. It begins:
“I’ve dated all kinds of women in my life,” the man said, “but I have to say I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.”
The story has a female protagonist who is almost unnaturally plain in appearance and the short shares various other features of Murakami’s fiction (no spoilers):
a man has a strange name (Mr. Sahara, like the desert)
conversations are unusual and foreboding
the imagery is odd and memorable
the protagonist’s choices define expectations
a bizarre dream features in the story
it is, ultimately about identity
My assessment of this short story (and again, no spoilers) is that this is Murakami’s response to criticisms about his depictions of women. He has long been accused of sexism and these complaints are understandable. Here, he seems to—in his own strange way—comment upon the unreasonable beauty standards society forces upon women, showing that he is not ignorant of them and that his own depictions should be read more carefully. Naturally, it is not a straightforward explanation. It does not really answer those criticisms in a direct way. But in a sense it seems like he is addressing them.
Here is a discussion of sexism between Murakami and Mieko Kawakami.
I also see Murakami in the protagonist, which is not unusual for his prose (particularly the early ones about young, single men), but here I feel he has deliberately written himself as a woman to confuse the relationship between author, protagonist, and reader, whilst the there also seems to be a discussion about the relationship between good guys and bad guys, aggressors and victims.
Of course, it is all subtle and unclear, but if you know how Murakami writes (and for that, you may want to look at his book Novelist as Vocation) then you will see that the protagonist, the titular Kaho, has a very similar process.
As always, the fun of reading Murakami comes from deciphering it, and most of us will come to quite different conclusions…
Again, here is the link to the full story. Enjoy!