First Person Singular is a collection of short stories by award-winning author Haruki Murakami. Most of them are characterized by unexpected happenings, philosophical musings, and events that arise out of banal circumstances. In the first story, “Cream,” the narrator is on a futile errand and meets an old man who challenges him to imagine a circle with many centers and no circumference (a notion I’m going to use, with credit, in something I’ll write in the future). “On a Stone Pillow” is an interesting memory of dating a woman who like to shout out the name of another man when she orgasmed. “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey” involves a talking (and highly cultured) monkey who gives massages at a hot springs. When I read stories like these, I wonder how they come together for him. In some of the other stories, however, I’m not sure it came together at all. Here’s what The Guardian says:https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/12/first-person-singular-by-haruki-murakami-review
