All too human
After publishing more than a dozen major works of fiction, it’s extraordinary Haruki Murakami can still consistently entertain, thrill and move his readers. In his new story collection, “Men Without Women,” he remains in top form. All the hallmarks of the Murakami universe are here: emotionally struggling characters, nods to magical and Kafkaesque realities (one character awakens as Gregor Samsa), and of course Western culture — the Doors, Woody Allen and Jimi Hendrix get name-dropped.
Let’s not forget Murakami’s men. He knows the minds of men. And the men in these seven long stories are haunted by the women they’ve loved and lost.
A bar owner named Kino is one such haunted soul. After discovering his wife in bed with his best friend, Kino listlessly drifts through life, existing in a vague “ambiguous ambiguity.” Pursued by a strange entity that knocks at his door, he only begins to feel again as this knocking syncs with his cluttered heart.
Hearts repeatedly break, get mended, and shatter again in these stories. Probably because there’s so much adultery happening.
The college-age bonehead of “Yesterday” thinks it’s a brilliant idea to set up his girlfriend with his new pal. This guy asks his friend to report back about her doings. What could possibly go wrong? In “Scheherazade,” a hermit has an affair with a woman who brings groceries, has sex in a “businesslike manner,” and then whispers to him outrageous tall tales.
These stories exist in the present, yet Murakami loves highlighting the strangeness in the everyday, making a Tokyo side street or apartment seem otherworldly — like an alternate reality beside our own. This is the magic of Murakami.
Look at Dr. Tokai of “An Independent Organ.” Tokai’s a philandering “veteran bachelor” and plastic surgeon who dates married women. He likes being “a casual number-two lover,” but after an unexpected rejection, he erases himself, “lying in bed, obsessed by love to the point where he became shriveled like a mummy.”
Murakami’s characters carry the weight of failed relationships with them, burdened by former loves. As the narrator from the title story remarks, “[L]osing one woman means losing all women.”
Like Murakami, Tessa Hadley’s marvelous new collection, “Bad Dreams and Other Stories” scrutinizes difficult, messy relationships. But her 10 emotionally perceptive tales — which reveal our jealousies, desires and humiliations — are told through the lives of some fascinating women. And what muddled lives!
Fifteen-year-old Jane, from “Abduction,” moves from innocence to experience in a single day. After three Oxford blokes “abduct” Jane from her yard, she grows enamored of one “crushingly beautiful” abductor. She shoplifts, loses her virginity and rockets into adulthood when a hard truth about her crush gets revealed.
Hadley demonstrates how brief, powerful relationships can forever change people. Many of these stories are set in mid-20th century England, and along the way we get a tour of English cities: Leeds, Liverpool, London. Deliciously, Hadley’s characters also practice the art of deceit, unaware how stacked lies will eventually topple over onto them. In her story worlds, keeping a secret from others means deceiving oneself in the process.
The naive Latin teacher from “Deeds Not Words” has an affair with a married colleague, but she’s blindsided when the man dismisses her because “she was unchaste.” There’s also soon-to-be-divorced Laura, from “Experience,” who temporarily house-sits for a glamorous woman named Hana. After locating keys to locked doors, perusing Hana’s diaries, and discovering Hana’s “little sex kit,” Laura must decide which path to follow when Hana’s mysterious exboyfriend appears on the doorstep.
Hadley’s title story is the thorniest of all: A young mother awakens at dawn to find overturned chairs around the house. A burglar? No, the mother believes her husband exacted “this silent violence between them.” In fact, her daughter overturned the chairs as a prank. We know this. The mother does not, and a childish joke will one day turn into a child’s heartbreak.
Young children dash throughout Ellen Klages’ genre-bending collection, “Wicked Wonders.” Some have mischievous personalities, sure, but her wide-eyed characters are relatively innocent. That doesn’t mean profound events don’t befall them. One 11-year-old girl bicycles around her neighborhood bidding goodbye to everything familiar before her family boards a flight to Mars.
“We’re achieving humankind’s greatest dream,” she says.
Klages’ use of mostly youngster narrators — a difficult technique — allows the reader to revisit childhood, especially when she conjures in us feelings of wonder. Artifacts of youth are everywhere: fairy tales, secret passageways, curiosities in the woods. Klages also leans on classic Americana, playing up penny arcades, soda fountains and summer camps.
In “Friday Night at St. Cecelia’s,” a student at an all-girls school disappears down a passage and finds herself face to face with Professor Plum.
“Don’t tell me,” she says, “This is the Conservatory.” It is. Other board games she must navigate: Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders.
There’s also Polly Wardlow, of “Hey, Presto!” who spends a summer helping her estranged father, a magician, with an illusion. Despite the fact they were “for all intents and purposes, strangers,” Polly doesn’t harbor ill feelings. In fact, she uses her own magic to protect him.
While Klages’ collection lacks the emotional complexities of adulthood predicaments, she’s big on ideas and plot. The reader never knows what fantastic surprise may come next. Enthusiasts of genre fiction — fantasy, science fiction, metafiction — will delight in these 14 strong tales. And given these strange days, Klages’ magical realms are a welcome respite in a world desperately in need of the empathy and imagination of children.