The stranded males are forced afterwards to seek companionship in oddballs, teenage girls and sometimes even talking animals. In both Wind Up Bird Chronicle and Dance Dance Dance the protagonists’ partners leave abruptly and without explanation. Male loneliness is not new ground for Murakami, whose characters often find themselves deserted by their female partners. This is perhaps the biggest failing in an otherwise very strong collection, one which leaves the reader with much food for thought. Simply switching one rigid stereotype with another is a thinly-veiled ruse that often forces the characters into two-dimensionality. This effect, while successful in ostensibly creating a sense of evolution, feels false in reality. The antiquated gender roles have been reversed. Meanwhile, the men are left to pine and agonise, creating romantic illusions to keep themselves content. It is the women who take the position of power, who are also prone to infidelity and quick to throw away sentiment. In Murakami’s Men Without Women, however, the case is best described as inverted. The gender roles here are clearly defined, the man practical but lacking in empathy, the woman more empathetic but without that functional mode of thought. In Hemmingway’s famous ‘Hills like White Elephants’, contained within his Men Without Women, a couple reflect on their decision to have an abortion.

The difference between Hemmingway and Murakami’s collections is the way they deal with their respective gender roles. What at first glance appears to be another straightforward battle of the sexes, however, soon evolves into something far more sweeping in scope. What is signified in the title is not only physical absence of women in men’s lives but also the difficulty of these opposites to live harmoniously due to societal pressures. Sharing its name with an Ernest Hemmingway short story compilation released in 1927, Murakami’s Men without Women, like its titular predecessor, deals not only with isolated masculinity, but also with the delicately balanced equilibrium of heterosexual relationships.

Men without women by haruki murakami