“This is very important, so don’t forget.” Yet Kino cannot restrain himself and knowingly signs the last postcard he sends of course, he suffers the consequences. “Do not write your own name or any message whatsoever,” Kamito had cautioned him. Then I’ll know you are O.K.” The narrator, Kino, leaves town as instructed, but he does not follow instructions perfectly. And every Monday and Thursday make sure to send a postcard. Go far away, and don’t stay in one place for long. So when a customer named Kamita gives the bar owner unusual, prophetic advice, it only makes sense to follow it: “Here’s what you do. I never expect to understand entirely everything in a Murakami work of fiction: The little people in 1Q84 - Who are they? Where do they come from? Is there really a whole other alternate existence occurring under another moon? I was not surprised in the story “Kino” when first the neighborhood cat disappears, and then legions of snakes begin to arrive. Finding meaning in the strange events that invariably occur continues to be elusive. Life remains confusing, cats continue to be a source of comfort, characters find solace in bars while drinking whiskey and listening to jazz. THE MEN IN ALL of the stories in Haruki Murakami’s new collection, appropriately titled Men Without Women, are indeed men without women, growing older and perhaps becoming just a little bit wiser.
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