First Person Singular

Not his best work. Not even one of his mediocre works. I thought this was a pretty lame attempt at trying to be Murakami, from Murakami himself. I thought the first short story ("Cream") was fine and almost what I was looking for out of Murakami short stories, but it was mostly downhill and rock bottom from there (looking at you, "Caravel". One can only read about Murakami's thoughts on ugly women for so long).

The only exception was "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey", which I thought was fun and conjured up some amazing mental images. A talking monkey scrubbing someone's back and making smalltalk? Sure, I'm here for that.

I'd pass on this one though, even if you're a Murakami fan. Maybe for completion's sake once you've read just about everything else by him. It's a quick read, if nothing else.

It's not terrible but it's not great. There are three other collections of his I'd recommend before this one. However, the first story, "Cream", does seem like a great way to introduce people to his writing. If you can handle that story you an handle pretty much anything he's thrown at us over the years and if you can't you probably shouldn't bother reading him.

“And here I was, a first person singular. if I’d chosen a different direction, most likely I wouldn’t be here.”
Best to read in a lonely right with a beverage to accompany yourself. Typical Haruki style with a lot of self-introspection and reality twist. It’s way heavier with this “First person singular” collection.

Latest from Haruki Murakami. Read it on Kindle. I usually enjoy his short stories and this one was no exception. I liked the last two stories "Shinagawa Zaru(Shinagawa Monkey)" and "Ichininshou Tansu (First person singular).