Rodolfo reviewed Uomini senza donne by Haruki Murakami
Review of 'Uomini senza donne' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Piacevole ma non imperdibile.
Hardcover, 240 pages
English language
Published May 9, 2017 by Doubleday Canada.
Across seven dazzling tales, award-winning internationally best-selling author Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men, who, in their own ways find themselves alone. Some a trapped indoors, some in their own heads; they are chauffeured around in cars by silent women or haunted by the ghosts of women they once knew.
Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders, and even Kafka's Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In Men WIthout Women Murakami has crafter another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humour and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.
Piacevole ma non imperdibile.
There's a common thread running through what little Murakami I've read; or perhaps better said, a common thread not-running: Connection. His characters all seem to go through the motions of living, but entirely in a cargo-cult way. They talk, drink, fuck, sometimes even laugh, but it's all hollow. Emotionless. There's no love of any kind, no real communication or listening or feeling. Is that the point? Is Murakami satirizing the rat race? Highlighting the uniqueness of our one life and the quickness with which we turn our back on it? That's the other thing about Murakami: I'm not really smart enough to get him.
Honestly, one of the worst things I have ever read.
Either the author is misogynistic or he likes to repeatedly write characters who are. Either way women exist in this book only as objects for men to think about "having".
It's appalling. Don't read it.
In many of these the man is some kind of victim of infidelity or caprice and the women's intentions or motives are not explored, so it's a little mopey