Men without Women by Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen

Abstract

author with whom he greatly identifies; he remembers a woman he met in a different city whose address is the only tangible thing he knows about her anymore; he reflects on the attic room he stayed in during his university days in which he read passionate poetry. Bae’s greatest strength as a writer lies in her ability to take what at first appear to be disjointed images and scenes and weave them together into one beautiful story. The attic room, the poetry, the woman on the platform he longs to kiss are all connected in her character’s mind with a meditation on time and space: “When was it that he had last kissed a woman so ardently, his lips as passionate as when they pronounced poetry? In that city or this, at the house of his acquaintance or on the platform in the north station, while waiting for the train.” The entire collection is as riveting and poetic as the title story: an author recalls several visits to her mentor; a young man is reconnected with a former lover while struggling with questions about his sexuality ; a playwright experiments with how to portray time on the stage. These stories are a great place to start for those looking to get a taste of Bae’s innovative style. For those already familiar with her previous novels, it is exciting to once again encounter more of the author’s intriguing and thought-provoking prose. Melissa Beck Woodstock Academy, Connecticut Haruki Murakami. Men without Women. Trans. Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen. New York. Knopf. 2017. 227 pages. Men without Women comprises seven short stories, four of which have appeared in other publications. All display elements of Haruki Murakami’s fiction that readers have come to expect: magical realism, the Beatles, cats and jazz, and abrupt endings without easy resolution. We come to realize this last element is entirely appropriate precisely because there is no pat answer, no comfortable place, no way to tie up loose ends for the protagonists of these tales who, as the title notes, are missing an important woman. The parameters of this lack differ, of course, and the degree to which we can sympathize will likewise vary, but the emotional complications of that lack are something most readers will understand and appreciate at a visceral level, even if the tale seems beyond comfortable comprehension. Three of the stories are particularly effective. “Samsa in Love” is a playful reversal of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.” Here, Gregor the cockroach wakes up to find he is human, and his first interaction is with a hunchbacked woman who is convinced he is slow and only interested in her for kinky sex. Like Gregor, we know nothing but the realities of the moment. “Scheherazade” is the most unsettling work in the collection. Here, Murakami is at his best, probing the seemingly unfathomable reasons for connection while asking of the reader a degree of indulgence and understanding of what it means to be needy and the lengths one might go to satisfy those desires. Finally, “Kino” raises far more narrative questions than it answers before sinking almost languidly into a surrealistic pool of self-questioning that also appears to offer an answer only to pull it away at the last moment. This instability powerfully conveys the force of the protagonist’s loss. Despite the generally engaging nature of these seven vignettes, however, it was with some disappointment that I put the book down, for I could not help feeling that Murakami had been unable to go beyond his previous work. The specific contexts are new, and a different problem is the focus, but the stories feel overly familiar, as if we have read them before. Die-hard Murakami fans will welcome them, and readers new to Murakami will discover Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès Island of Point Nemo Trans. Hannah Chute Open Letter In Island of Point Nemo, Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès constructs a novel of grand adventure that weaves together two narratives: one that takes readers on a murder-mystery romp across the globe and another situated in an absurd e-reader factory. Translated from the French, the novel’s...