One of the only things of note, the narrator muses at the end of the story, are the teeth marks that she left on his towel, which she bit into as she orgasmed. By the narrator’s own admission, his experience with the woman was unexceptional it was a chance encounter between two acquaintances. And I’m willing to bet she doesn’t remember me, either.” The story then goes on to depict a sexual experience that the narrator had with the woman. I can’t even remember her name, or her face.

“I’d like to tell a story about a woman,” begins the story “On a Stone Pillow.” “The thing is, I know next to nothing about her. The women in his stories are enigmatic - they perplex the narrator, and through the narrator’s perplexment, Murakami guides the story to some greater truth about the nature of loneliness, nostalgia or intimacy. Murakami seems to treat his characters as nothing more than symbols. True to its title, these short stories are all narrated in first person singular and, more often than not, by an unnamed, middle-aged man grappling with loneliness. “First Person Singular” is a collection of eight short stories. But, upon reading, I ultimately found myself disappointed.

Afghanistan, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Anguilla, Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Fiji, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Jersey, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Republic of Cuba, Republic of the Congo, Reunion, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, San Marino, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Korea, Sudan, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Virgin Islands (U.S.Before its release, I anticipated with eagerness Haruki Murakami’s new short story collection “First Person Singular” - published in April this year and translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel.

Murakami singular