Review: 'Men Without Women' by Haruki Murakami

By Shoshana Olidort

Chicago Tribune

•May 08, 2017 at 1:06 pm

Loneliness, studies show, can be lethal. But while most of us won't die of being alone, many will experience, at some point, the dull, gnawing ache of it. This ache pulsates through each of the seven stories in Haruki Murakami's newest collection, "Men Without Women." In every one, a male protagonist suffers the loss of a woman he loves, or is compelled to recognize that he will never have her in the first place.

But unfulfilled or disappointed romantic longing are just devices in stories whose real subject is a loneliness so profound, it "seeps deep down inside your body, like a red-wine stain on a pastel carpet," which, though it "might fade a bit over time ... will still remain, as a stain, until the day you draw your final breath." That is the conclusion drawn by the protagonist of the collection's title story, a grown man who learns that a girlfriend from junior high has committed suicide. Though many years have elapsed since the two broke up, and there had been no contact between them in the interim, the man, now married, considers himself the "second-loneliest man on the planet," reserving first place for the woman's husband.

In the suggestively titled "An Independent Organ," a cosmetic plastic surgeon named Dr. Tokai is perfectly content with his superficial life. Successful at work, Tokai is an all-around affable guy, a great conversationalist with a sense of humor, who has "none of the traits you would associate with an unstable personality." In other words, he is a man not easily given to strong emotions. Having decided against marriage and family, Tokai instead maintains regular, casual relationships — the occasional dinner, sex and intimate conversation — with multiple women. Many of these women are themselves often already in committed relationships, which helps to ward off the possibility of anything serious developing, until, of course, it does. There is nothing exceptional about the woman Tokai falls for, but he falls hard. Suddenly, along with the unfamiliar feeling of love, there is a terrible dread brought on by the fear of losing her, though he knows that as a married woman with a child she is all but lost to him already. The burst of feelings also brings about a dawning awareness of his existential loneliness. Despite his successes — professional, social and romantic — he is struck suddenly by the lack of meaning in his life and finds himself wondering: "Who in the world am I?"

One of the strongest stories in the collection is "Scherezade," about Habara, a man who lives in virtual isolation, except for twice-weekly visits by a woman whose job it is to buy groceries and procure whatever else he needs — books, CDs, DVDs. Though not part of her job description, the woman soon begins to have sex with him, as if it were her job. The sex is not passionate, but it is not joyless either, and the highlight is what comes after: the stories she tells, always, after sex, stories that dazzle her listener so that he begins to call her Scherezade, after the queen in "One Thousand and One Nights." Like so many of the male characters in this book, Habara is quickly overcome by a fear of losing the woman in his life. It isn't just the sex that he is afraid of losing, but everything the woman represents for him, what all the women in these stories represent for the male characters, women who are seen as offering moments of connection and "the opportunity to be embraced by reality, on the one hand, while negating it entirely on the other."

In each of these stories, male desire is glorified under the guise of existential loneliness, and the women's function is reduced to that of potential saviors. Not surprisingly, the female characters in this collection are never fully realized.

Given the author's penchant for stories about loneliness and alienation, the recurring allusions to Kafka in Murakami's work are not surprising. His Pulitzer Prize-winning 2002 novel, "Kafka on the Shore," paid homage to the author. In this collection, "Samsa in Love" reimagines Kafka's most famous work, "The Metamorphosis," in which the main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into an insect. In Murakami's version, the metamorphosis is reversed and an unidentified creature is inexplicably transformed into Gregor Samsa. The mix of pathos and humor in this story is best captured in the character's observations of the naked male body:

Smooth white skin (covered by only a perfunctory amount of hair) with fragile blue blood vessels visible through it; a soft, unprotected belly; ludicrous, impossibly shaped genitals; gangly arms and legs (just two of each!); a scrawny, breakable neck; an enormous, misshapen head with a tangle of stiff hair on its crown; two absurd ears, jutting out like a pair of seashells.

The story begins to falter with the appearance of a hunchbacked woman who ignites Gregor Samsa's desire. What follows is yet another iteration of a motif that undermines this entire collection, one in which unrestrained male lust is glorified under the guise of existential loneliness and female characters serve as mere vehicles for the fulfillment or denial of male longing.

Shoshana Olidort is a freelancer.

'Men Without Women'

By Haruki Murakami, Knopf, 240 pages, $25.95

CHICAGO TRIBUNE