The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami Published by Knopf on March 31st 1993
Pages: 327
Goodreads
With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.
By turns haunting and hilarious, The Elephant Vanishes is further proof of Murakami's ability to cross the border between separate realities -- and to come back bearing treasure.
I’m giving this book 4.5 nuts only because there wasn’t more of it.
This collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami was everything I wanted and more. I chose it at random, so I didn’t expect much. I was happily surprised when I loved it.
The book occupies a sort of dreamland, half in reality and half in the sort of logic that makes perfect sense when you’re half asleep. Sometimes the story started in the dream, but other times it started solidly with both feet on the ground and then began to wander like an unattended balloon.
I got the distinct feeling that the stories were connected, like perhaps characters were shared between the tales, but the author’s disinclination to use names left me wondering. All the same, things bled together a little, but I loved it.
10/10 would read again.
From my bookshelf to yours, Laura
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