The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami (EPUB)

Description

From internationally acclaimed author Haruki Murakami—a fantastical illustrated short novel about a boy imprisoned in a nightmarish library. Opening the flaps on this unique little book, readers will find themselves immersed in the strange world of best-selling Haruki Murakami’s wild imagination. The story of a lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plotting their escape from a nightmarish library, the book is like nothing else Murakami has written. Designed by Chip Kidd and fully illustrated, in full color, throughout, this small format, 96 page volume is a treat for book lovers of all ages.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Strange Library is a dark work, powerful in its own terms, yet ultimately quite stark and grim.The first thing to note is the exquisite design of the book. A Kindle version will not do. It is a beautiful object and is meant to be handled and appreciated for the artistry of presentation. There are all sorts of little things, like, for instance, a notation on the spine of the book that let’s one know that one cannot read the book outside the precincts of the library. So, you, the reader, are also inside the strange library.The voice of this work is vintage early Murakami: Whimsy, laconic humor, a mysterious beautiful girl, a sheepman, labyrinths, and worlds with permeable borders. Critics sometimes note a connection to the French theorist, Lacan, and a theme of ever deferred desire in Murakami. This may be true, but this work is more Heidegger and his notion that all being is “being towards death,” for mortality is the overt threat and deep context that suffuses the entire tale with ennui.For the rest of this, I am going to talk details, so this is a spoiler alert. Don’t read further if you do not wish to discover the plot and denouement.The modern West is secular, superficially optimistic, and more deeply nihilistic. This is my view. We distract ourselves from the ominous and ever present danger of death, which we nonetheless have hidden away as much as possible. Our consumerism is driven by the need for novel spectacle to keep darkness at bay. And yet, we are also still the heirs of Western Christendom. Why this excursus? Because Christianity tells a story of death’s defeat. The most fundamental reality is deeply comic, because life has the last word.So, even a secularist in the West will often bear a trace of religious belief. We like happy endings and we “believe” in them. Thus, Murakami’s tale will be unsettling and disappointing, because it subverts hope. Death is victor in this fairly tale for adults.If one wants a rationalist version that could explain the plot. Here it is. A little boy, thoughtful and sensitive, is living with a sick mother and his pet bird. At a subconscious level, he knows his mother is dying, but he doesn’t want to face it. Then one day, his pet bird dies. The death of the bird makes grief and loss existentially real for him. The yawning abyss of loneliness that awaits should his mother die suddenly becomes overwhelmingly real. The little boy hides out in a library for three days. He loses his new shoes. When he returns home, his mother is sweet to him and doesn’t berate him, for she is full of unspoken understanding.The last page of the book is written in tiny print. The boy’s voice is reduced to almost nothing. His grief wishes to make tragedy disappear. He announces that his mother has died of a mysterious illness and he is alone. Grim, single m.In this context, the fabulous tale is an effort to escape what cannot be escaped. That is why the boy’s allies disappear and his seemingly successful attempt comes abruptly to nothing. The boy’s courteous nature before the menacing old man is a wish that decency and good manners would win out over evil and decay, but it just doesn’t. More could be teased out, but this is probably already too prolix.Bottom line: This is a good, early work, but you might feel cheated. You might feel it’s unnecessarily bleak and mean. One might alternatively appreciate the work as a blend of adult insight, ingenious design, and child-like dreaming that embodies an idiosyncratic myth. The darkness at the end may appear a relief from sentimental and too cheaply bought victories.This reader appreciates the latter possibility, but as a believer in what Peter Leithart calls “deep comedy,” I was rueful of the ending. I prefer Murakami when he offers a more comic vision, though I suspect his metaphysical agnosticism more naturally tends in this direction.

⭐I like trying new things. New foods, different videogames, new TV shows, new ways of doing things. You get the idea. This is also true of my approach to reading and writing. I’ve always been one to want to delve into something that’s unique or different in some way. One of the ways I’ve been doing that is by participating in the BookTube SFF Awards where I’ve been reading some of the nominees in different categories. One such book was Haruki Murukami’s THE STRANGE LIBRARY. I didn’t really know what to expect other than that this would be a weird one and I was excited to see just what this book had in store.I think I’m going to be a bit in the minority on this one, but I truly just did not care for this book as much as I thought I would. I found it lacking in a number of different ways and am actually hurrying to write this review because I find myself forgetting this story’s details already.VISUAL PRESENTATIONWhile not normally something that I’d put in a review, the visuals for THE STRANGE LIBRARY are actually very important to one’s enjoyment of the piece. Additionally, it is critical that you buy the “correct” edition of this book and avoid my mistake of purchasing the rather pricey eBook (it costs almost as much as the paperback). This story is filled with trippy artwork and when reading this on an eReader app, those images do funky things with the way the text appears. Pages won’t be filled all the way, sometimes there will be a couple sentences below the image and there is just an awful lot of white space around said images. In short, this is clearly something that the publisher had no business turning into an eBook, especially if they were going to do such a sloppy job with it. That said, I really should have looked into the contents of this book a bit more like I normally do before making a purchase, but because I wanted to get this bought and read right away for the readalong, I sort of just hastily got the lackluster Kindle version.I don’t know that buying the hard copy edition of this work would have solved all of my problems with it though, because I didn’t care for the artwork very much. It’s not bad, so much as that I didn’t find it aesthetically pleasing. But, after checking out videos of people who have the hard copy, I can say that the way the book is put together is definitely weirdly unique and well worth the couple extra dollars plus shipping. If you are going to read this, it really needs to be read on paper.CHARACTERSThe characters in this story are a bit of a double edged sword for me. On one hand I really loved how exotically colorful and paranormally weird they were, but on the other, they felt like empty shells of characters that could have been interesting. They were effectively both my favorite and least favorite part of this story.The main character is a polite, young boy. I can’t quite remember what his name was or if he even had a name at all. Could I look in the book and find the answer to that? Yes, but there really isn’t any point because he could be anybody. He’s one of those characters that isn’t quite a Mary Sue since he does have a tiny bit of character development, but he’s also generic to the point of his name being entirely irrelevant.The same is true for pretty much everyone in the supporting cast. The Sheep Man and the Old Man are by far the most distinct personalities in this story, but even they just don’t feel complex enough for me to have really found them compelling in any way. I think a good analogy for this cast is that they feel like people you might meet in a dream. They are wild, wacky, and sometimes a little twisted, but they’re so out there that by the time you wake up, you realize they aren’t even close to an actual person in real life. This was effectively the sensation I had upon finishing the book. After “waking up” I just had an overwhelming sense that all of these personalities felt too wispy to be truly memorable.WORLD/SETTINGThis world is a regular rabbit hole if there ever was one. What starts off as a normal library quickly turns into a horrific dungeon of strangeness and woe. Like the characters, the setting is very dreamy, but is far more distinct. If I had to pick one aspect of the book that I liked consistently the best, I would say it was this very strange library. Murukami vividly describes each section and I rarely felt wanting for more detail in this area. I’d like to go a little deeper with this particular element, but because this is such a short story, it would be difficult to do so without getting into heavy spoilers.PLOT/TONELike I just mentioned, this is a VERY short piece of fiction. I don’t know what the exact word count is or anything, but I would be very shocked it it was anything more than what most generally consider a short story (15,000 words or less). It could be within the novelette range, but I’d be shocked if it was in the novella category. Page-wise, I think it will probably fill the same space as your typical novella, but half of that is really just pictures.To be clear, I have NO issues with short stories. In fact I love them. The main issue here is that since this is being given the full book treatment, I think I wanted more from it. More content, more character development, more substance in general. I really just felt like plot seemed rushed or somehow abrupt at every turn. The world is intriguing and the characters show promise, but Murukami seems bent on rushing readers in and out of this tale as quickly as he can. Now obviously, that is not Murukami’s intent here. Despite all of my criticism so far, I actually think that Murukami is an author of exceptional talent.Where I believe the story might be tripping me up is in the fact that everything in this book appears to be a symbol for something else. I’m the type of reader that likes a bit of symbolism or open endedness. I think books that leave a little room for a reader’s own thoughts to enter into the story space are those that resonate the most with readers that like interacting with the fiction they read. I suppose I’ve just never run into a story where there is so much empty space, that the work seemed a little empty. I simply wanted more substance with which to draw conclusions and come up with different interpretations.CONCLUSIONI wanted that little bit of space at the top of the coffee cup with which to put my cream and sugar, but what I got in this case was a cup half full. There’s just too much negative space here for the story to feel truly worthwhile. I know the elements are purposeful and representative of much larger ideas and I have several interpretations of my own regarding what all of this strangeness really means. It’s just that I wanted a story with a little more depth in terms of the main narrative. I think I’d be open to trying something else by this author later on and I certainly didn’t hate this book. I’m just not understanding where all the love and praise is coming from for this work (maybe there’s something I missed) and it’s very likely that the details of this story will fade from my memory at a rapid pace.Because of it’s short length, this can be easily read within a single sitting and I’d recommend that anyone reading does in fact consume this all at once in order to potentially get the most out of it’s contents. It is a curious read that’s (kind of) unlike any other that I’ve read before and any who are entertaining the thought of picking it up should definitely do so and see if it resonates with them a bit more than it did with me.

⭐A very short illustrated book with large print told from a child’s POV.But I don’t think it’s really a children’s book.If you like Murakami, you will probably like it.If you haven’t read any Murakami yet, don’t start with this one.Almost like a Neil Gaiman short story.

⭐‘“If all they did was lend out knowledge for free, what would the payoff be for them?”“But that doesn’t give them the right to saw off the tops of people’s heads and eat their brains. Don’t you think that’s going a bit too far?’”If you haven’t ever read a story by Murakami before, he’s odd. Very odd. I’m trying my best to review this without giving away any spoilers at all for those who just want to read the story and for those who like to dig for the deeper meanings.That being said, The Strange Library is a short story presented in a lone book. The book itself is odd, the cover has to be flipped open and has very strange vintage Japanese illustrations to match the story. Everything about the story seems simple and straightforward- not digging deep into characters or plots- adding a richness and dreamlike quality to the story.But, if you take it to the true Murakami level of reading (we’re talking deep philosophy here) then the reader just might see that the story really revolves around the boy, his pet bird, his mother, and death.<<<>>> visit blog for original review with details (contains spoiler)Overall The Strange Library was a fabulously odd short short story wether you’re just looking for a quick read or something you can sink your teeth into. I’d suggest getting a hardcopy instead of an ebook for this one just because the Chip Kidd design does add a lot to the story.

⭐Haruki Murakami is the master of ambiguity, and this neat little hardback sits well with the writer’s other Kafa-esque masterpieces such as Norwegian Wood and After Dark. Here, an unnamed boy one day finds himself in the titular bibliotheque, where his pedestrian aspirations are juxtaposed against a series of weird characters, who either oppress or assist him. As a Murakami completist I easily devoured this Raman noodle of a short story in one (brief) sitting, and was left hungry for more. Fortunately the Japanese master also released a full-length story: Colourless Tsukury Tazaki, at the same time; I intend for that to be dessert.As far as this one is concerned – don’t whine about its brevity, just enjoy.

⭐This is one of my favourite stories but Murakami albeit a short novel. If you have read any of his stories then you will feel at home reading it.If you are new then you will have to have an open mind.I let my 10 year old son read it,it was his first Murakami novel and probably most appropriate for his age.Ill even lend it to my partner and believe she will like it.If you love Murakamis books i recommend this, if your new or want a quirky story i would jump in.Delivery was very quick, quality excellent plus its a very nice book to keep with pictures, great for a Murakami collector.

⭐Insanely stunning. The illustrations glow and surprise and delight. The quality of the pages and the attention to detail cannot be topped. I’m on a murakami discovery journey and can’t wait to read more. Dream like story telling, the characters come to life and feel real in some fantastic scenarios, this allows the reader to trust and believe in the protagonists plight and moreover to care.

⭐This is a very strange, very short little book which I read in maybe 15 minutes. It is the story of a boy who visits a very strange library indeed, who meets some vey odd characters.There are illustrations on almost every page, and some pages are just a few words. So why is it so haunting. I don’t know – the story is creepy, somehow, and I haven’t figured it out yet, thought provoking and very unusually presented.I’m glad I bought this

⭐Murakami is a brilliant writer and in this volume of short stories his skill is well exhibited. Beautiful illustrations compliment the words perfectly and you find yourself completely immersed in the story. If you’re new to Murakami then this is a good starting point but equally fans will devour this. An excellent read.

Keywords

Free Download The Strange Library in EPUB format
The Strange Library EPUB Free Download
Download The Strange Library EPUB Free
The Strange Library EPUB Free Download
Download The Strange Library EPUB
Free Download Ebook The Strange Library