Note: I wrote my first and only book review way back in 2021, but I might start posting more here. We’ll see!
Last week, The New Yorker’s annual fiction issue brought a surprise to my doorstep: a new short story by Haruki Murakami. “Kaho” opens in medias res, with the titular heroine finding herself blindsided by a blind date: “‘I’ve dated all kinds of women in my life,’ the man said, ‘but I have to say I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.’”
What kind of thing to say is that? What kind of man says it? Murakami raises more questions than he answers. We do, at least, learn that the man’s name is Sahara and that he drives a BMW motorcycle. His predatory instincts remind Kaho of a spider. I half expected him to turn into one, Gregor Samsa-style. (Murakami’s 2013 story “Samsa in Love” follows an insect undergoing the opposite metamorphosis.)
To my initial disappointment, I admit, everyone stays human until the very end. Murakami has imagined enough talking cats and parallel universes to fill an entire shelf in my room. Here, the only nod to his hallmark magical realism is Kaho’s career as a writer and illustrator of children’s picture books.
The novelty of “Kaho” lies more in its narration than its narrative. Murakami has faced heavy criticism over portraying women as “gateways, or opportunities for transformation” for his male leads, according to fellow literary star Mieko Kawakami — who, incidentally, was the other featured author at the first public reading of “Kaho.” Over a page and a half in, Kaho had yet to say a word, and I feared she would join the ranks of Murakami’s many “female characters who exist solely to fulfill a sexual function,” as Kawakami said.
Instead, Kaho’s silence forms a barrier against Sahara’s cruelty, though not an airtight one. Despite Sahara interpreting her calm demeanor as proof of her invulnerability, she is so deeply hurt by his words that she starts breaking into a cold sweat at the mere sound of a motorcycle. Murakami spares little detail in describing how Kaho’s anxiety persists for months after her last meeting with Sahara, who himself remains an infuriating and inscrutable character. The mystery around his motives only amplifies his sinister, lurking presence.
Kaho finally escapes from Sahara’s web by writing a story about a girl’s quest to find her stolen face. The idea of art as “emotional healing” is by no means an original one, but Murakami’s spin on it is sincere and neatly executed. Kaho’s eventual realization that “I can live in this world as me, just as I am” evokes the author’s older novels with young protagonists in search of themselves: Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, to name a few. In this way, “Kaho” has the heart of a Murakami classic, even though it might not appear to at face value.