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5 Reasons to Love Haruki Murakami’s The Strange Library
Just in time for the holidays, a new story from Haruki Murakami is coming to bookstores, in an illustrated, book-sized edition that’s a perfect gift for fans who’ve already vacuumed up Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. The Strange Library concerns a boy whose routine trip to the city library turns nightmarish, and the strange characters who abet his escape. Here’s why it belongs under the tree or alongside the menorah of your favorite lover of surreal fiction.
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The story
A young schoolboy takes direction from a bad librarian and ends up a prisoner inside the labyrinth below her desk. It’s a fable that could double as an origin story for all of Murakami’s nameless male narrators, who move through life without strong family ties or powerful desires. The boy’s clear-eyed first-person narration drives the story, as he first regrets his over-obedient nature, which allowed him to be captured, then determines to break free. The book ends with an unexpected coda that deepens the character’s seeming connection to, say, the adult protagonist of A Wild Sheep Chase.
Murakami Land
Take a hard left turn into weird and you’re there: Murakami Land, where the girls have slim ankles and beautiful ears, curious characters are accepted without comment, and meals are described in such luscious, crisp detail you wish the books doubled as takeout menus. This story includes a mysterious library, an alluring girl, a timid man in a sheep costume, and a docile narrator who takes his trip down the rabbit hole in stride.
Signature cool
The book is narrated with Murakami’s accustomed remove, which gilds every detail and gives the simplest moments weight. There’s no better guide through his bizarre subterranean landscapes and lonely, surreal cities than his mild narrators, who speak with equal candor of what they ate for breakfast and the ghosts that visit them at night.
The edition
With its narrow size and vertical flap cover, the book fits perfectly into a coat pocket, and is the perfect conversation starter for anyone who doesn’t mind being interrupted when reading in public. Its pages are interspersed with photos and illustrations in styles ranging from comic book to cave drawing to traditional Japanese art.
Transporting power of books
The boy spends his strange imprisonment reading a book about tax collection in the Ottoman Empire. As he reads, he becomes Ottoman tax collector Ibn Armut Hasir, walking the pungent streets of Istanbul before coming home to his three wives and beloved parakeet. As is so often the case with Murakami, the magic is implied if not explicit. His protagonist is transported by his book in just the way dedicated readers are by Murakami’s work. For them, The Strange Library will be its own magic key to other worlds.