By men who don't have women

On Men Who Have No Wives is a book by Haruki Murakami . It was first published in Japanese in 2014, and in the same year in a German translation by Ursula Gräfe by DuMont Buchverlag . About Men Who Don't Have Women is a collection of seven short stories .

content

Drive my car

After the actor Kafuku lost his driver's license, he had Misaki, a young woman in her twenties, drive him to work in his cabriolet. He tells about his late wife and one of her lovers. Kafuku met with him more often after her death, but broke off contact with him when he noticed that he felt a thirst for revenge.

Yesterday

The Tokyo Kitaru taught himself the Kansai dialect and sings an idiosyncratic version of the Beatles' song Yesterday in Japanese. He has a girlfriend, Erika, with whom he has the same dream one night: You both look out of the porthole of a cruise ship and see a moon made of ice that will melt in the morning sun. When the first-person narrator meets Erika sixteen years later, he learns that Kitaru is now living as a sushi chef in the USA, but that his girlfriend at the time can still remember the dream. The first-person narrator thinks that he will be reminded of Kitaru for a long time when he hears Yesterday .

The independent organ

Dr. Tokai, an inconspicuous doctor, leads a bleak life in which occasional brief sexual relationships emerge. He has no interest in marriage or his own children. He falls in love with a woman with whom he has such a relationship. Shortly thereafter, she left both her husband and Dr. Tokai. From lovesickness, Dr. Tokai to death. In his estate there is a remark that all women have an organ of lies.

Scheherazade

A student named Scheherazade has a relationship with her boyfriend Habara. She confesses to him that she must have been a lamprey in a previous life. To make the relationship more exciting, she often secretly takes personal items from Habara's apartment and leaves her own items in exchange.

Cinemas bar

Kino, a former employee of an unknown Japanese sporting goods company, quit his job and opened a bar. Regulars include Kamita, who is always reading books in the bar, and a cat. When the cat disappears and snakes appear in the cinema's garden, Kamita says this is an ambivalent sign and that he should close the bar for a while and go away. On the trip, Kino remembers that his wife is also an ambivalent person.

Samsa in love

One day an unknown person wakes up as Gregor Samsa from Kafka's story The Metamorphosis . At first he is hungry and goes looking for food. Then he realizes he is naked and puts on a dressing gown. He receives a visit from a girl whom he initially wants to have sex with. When she leaves him, he wonders if he would see her again.

By men who don't have women

The first-person narrator is startled during the night by a phone call in which he is told about the suicide of his former childhood friend. He remembers that she went to sea and that he was once aroused by her to cheesy music. Finally he sums up that it must be terrible as a man not to have a wife.

criticism

“Because Haruki Murakami's defensive, low-speed narrative flow gets on your nerves from time to time, and of course that's exactly what it's supposed to do. It's just too simple to not be calculated, a subtle provocation that annoys some readers unbearably, but causes a lot of others leads to a diffuse restlessness that makes you read on as if hypnotized. "

- Andreas Schäfer in: The time

literature

• Haruki Murakami. By men who don't have women. DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-8321-9781-0

Web links

• Andreas Schäfer: Lava flow of the irrational. In: Die Zeit, November 6, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.zeit.de/2014/46/haruki-murakami-von-maennern-die-keine-frauen-haben