Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

A collection of 26 stories, each story tied to the other, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is an oddly gratifying serenade.

Buy the book: Amazon

The stories illustrate love, loss, sexuality, and unsolicited passion. While love translates into grief into beauty into loneliness, you slowly dive into a world where only metaphorical relations are possible.

Where matter has more meaning.

Where solitude brings incomparable comfort and joy.

Where there’s a deeper insight into what life is all about. As with any Murakami book, what you read doesn’t come easily to you. And yet you feel each character’s presence as if it’s your own. You want to draw a poetic picture that only you can recognize.

I do not have a personal favorite as there’s simply no comparison to how odd but deeply satisfying the narration of each story is. This book has its own movement and noise. You can look at it, breathe it in, and let it pass through you. What you experience are infinite possibilities. Similar to how chemicals transform, this book continually changes color and shape. And somewhere between turning pages and mulling over each story, your love for simplicity arises. Which is a fragile thing and yet it is the book’s strongest suit.

Observe and you become that pot of spaghetti, the dabchick, or a poor aunt.