53 pages • 1 hour read
Haruki Murakami, Alfred BirnbaumA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The narrative here breaks off, and goes back in time, to introduce two letters from the narrator’s old friend, the Rat. As he reveals himself in these letters, the Rat is a nomadic, searching, and obscurely-unhappy character. He is driven to move from town to town and to repeatedly change his identity: “At times I forget what I was like originally” (90). At the same time, he is unsure of how fit he really is for his peripatetic life, and tells the narrator that if the two of them had only been born in 19th-century Russia, they might have fared better: “I’d have been Prince So-and-so and you Count Such-and-such” (88-89).
In this first letter, the Rat does not reveal much about his present dwelling, other than that it is very cold. He instead describes his practiced method of adjusting to a new town: discovering a town’s center, getting a feeling for the concerns of the townspeople, and making up an according identity. It is a method that seems to work for him all too well, and to ensure his isolation and anonymity, rather than lead to any lasting connection.
By these authors
1Q84
Haruki Murakami
After Dark
Jay Rubin, Haruki Murakami
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel, Jay Rubin
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Alfred Birnbaum, Haruki Murakami
Kafka on the Shore
Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami
Killing Commendatore
Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel
Sputnik Sweetheart
Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel
The Elephant Vanishes
Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum, Jay Rubin
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami, Transl. Jay Rubin
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel