The Elephant Vanishes: Stories

Murakami is right on par with Raymond Carver, maybe even more challenging and interesting -- since Murakami's story premise is more often absurd and surreal, unlike Carver's "around the house and in the yard" focus. But the clipped sentences, the meetings of strangers, and the very self-aware male narrators, are quite similar.

"The Kangaroo Communique," which appears in this collection, is one of my all-time favorite pieces of short fiction -- and it actually reminds me more of Borges than of Carver. It is about kangaroos, and customer service at a department store, and stalkers, and the nature of self-representation.... well, just read it.

Thematic similarities between Murakami and Carver: lapses in communication, people just missing each other, chance encounters between urban strangers, etc. One major difference between the two writers is that Murakami is always in awe at the (sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes cruel) beauty of the world, while Carver tends to border on the morose.

Personally, I much prefer Murakami's stories to the one novel of Murakami's ("Hardboiled Wonderland") that I read -- his succinct, slightly neurotic, slightly dreamy first-person style is (in my opinion) best suited to the short story form.

Overall, these are exquisite short stories, perfect for the age of chance meetings, lonely drifting souls, and cyber-disconnectedness.... If you like these stories, you may also like Murakami's very imaginative and inventive novels. (I prefer his short stories, but that's just me.) For fans of clever, self-referential, semi-surreal short stories similar to Murakami's, I'd highly recommend the short story anthology "Ficciones" by Jorge Luis Borges.


Japan, with fries.   May 25, 2001
24 out of 25 found this review helpful

A fabulous, if a bit uneven collection of stories from one of the modern masters of fiction. The first story, "The Wind-Up Bird..." is the first chapter from his spectacular novel, "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles." All the characters in these stories are vaguely cynical, listless inhabitants of postmodern Tokyo - the city, as well as its people, are cosmopolitan and hyper-westernized, and many of the stories deal with discomforting lack of certainty and stability of the existence in such a world. People disappear, monsters plead for love, and real people act/talk as though they were characters in jaded fables. You might think Murakami's doing a version of magic realism, but he's more sly than that: no matter how fabulous events seem to be, the characters, the exacting details of the events, the dead-on metaphors/themes ground all the stories firmly to reality. The stories are a blast to read as well. When a hungry couple pulls a heist of a McDonald's and steal 20 big-macs, they politely pay for their two drinks and walk out. ("Bakery Attack") Trust me. You have to read it.


Amazing! Murakami at his best   May 29, 2002
Charles E. Stevens
21 out of 22 found this review helpful

I was going on a road trip and needed something to read ... other than Sputnik Sweetheart, I'd already read all of Murakami's work, so I thought I'd give The Elephant Vanishes a shot. Am I ever glad I did!

Murakami shows off his trademark humor, wit, and versatility while spinning tales about his favorite topic: humanity. That's the best explanation I can give to someone who wants to know what kind of writer Murakami is: he writes about what it means to be alive. Love, death, life, Murakami deals with the whole spectrum of human existance with amazing skill and grace.

Listing my favorite stories in this work without listing the entire table of contents would be a challenge, but I think it would be fair to say that my favorites were "The Silence," "The Wind-up Bird" (from a longer Murakami novel), "The 100% Perfect Girl," and "The Kangaroo Communique." If you haven't read Murakami before, this would be a great book to get your feet wet with. If you're a Murakami fan but haven't read this one yet, what are you waiting for? "The Elephant Vanishes" is Murakami at his best.


Bizzare and obscure, so what!?   June 21, 1999
Sujin Lee (New york)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

I'm a big fan of Murakami's, but I love his short stories much better than his novels. it is the book you have to read to feel great to live on this planet with Murakami.some people say he is too American and his stories dont make any sense. why does a story have to make a sense? this life doesnt make any sense sometimes. I think his cute, little but deep and touching stories can touch your soul.They are strange, but beatiful. In some stories it is impossible to happen in your life time. but we can dream and imagine whatever we want. Call him a dreamer, and sentimentalist, but so are you.


THE SUBTERRAIN OF PROSE   July 21, 2003
Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

An untouchable mystery of thought, madness, and equally unexplained sadness -- such is the gloomy psychological landscape in which Murakami typically sets his intriguing narratives. All those deliciously subcutaneous elements of prose are as evident in this collection of over a dozen stories as in any of his longer novels.

Geographically, many of them are based in Tokyo, but it might be any of the world's vast unforgiving cities where people get lost like tears in the rain and finding love is sometimes as hard as solving Rubik's cube in the dark. Reading Murakami is an unsettling, disorienting experience that can leave you feeling rather empty, but always somehow thoughtful.

Minor gripe: my favorite translator of Murakami's work is Jay Rubin and I am certain that under his watchful pen the stories would have more closely resembled the verve of their originals (in Japanese).

Nonetheless, if you have never read Murakami before, this marvellous collection is a great way to start in manageable dollops of his style. And if you are familiar with the author's dour tracts, this book should be an unmissable little something to relish on a sunny Sunday afternoon.