The Elephant Vanishes
A collection of short stories that appeared in various publications between 1983 and 1990, this particular compilation was first published in 1993. It includes the opening chapter of what would later become The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in addition to sixteen separate stand-alone works.
The Elephant Vanishes demonstrates two things about Murakami’s writing style. First is his remarkable ability to draw attention to minute and subtle details of the everyday and blending in the decidedly surreal. Second is the fact that his strength appears to lie more in longer novels than short stories. While every tale in this book exemplifies the nuances of his writing style that fans will find instantly familiar, many feel like unfinished fragments of longer stories (this is actually true in the case of The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women). Interesting characters are introduced, given depth and then placed in unusual situations but these ideas are not followed through to their full potential.
Anyone who remembers the second half of End of Evangelion and various bits of Kare Kano may have suspected that within the mind of Hideaki Anno lurked a live-action director anxious to get out. I was interested to see how his own distinctive style (complete with what I’ve come to call ‘Anno-isms’) transferred from animation to live action, which includes the feature Shiki-Jitsu, a.k.a. ‘Ritual’.
The cover says it all. A saturated, colourful shot of a guitar in mid-chord with the band name in barely-noticeable text: My Bloody Valentine. The record that represented the pinnacle of shoegazing after almost bankrupting the label that supported it, Loveless was a commercial failure at its release but it has stood the test of time and inspired countless other proponents of the ‘wall of sound’.
An ordinary life of an ordinary man becomes decidely extraordinary when he is sent on a hunt for a very special sheep. The unnamed hero’s journey takes him from his home and work across the length and breadth of Japan to a run-down hotel, the wild hills of Sapporo and chance meetings with some colourful characters, both old and new.