Status Updates From Người Tivi

Oh my. What a great story. Reminds me of The Yellow Wallpaper, but much more psychological and disturbing. If I can give more scores I would. Perfect 5/5.

Okay. I finished that story. Upon arriving at the ending, I thought, hey, that was abrupt. So she finally gave in to insanity, that's it huh. I wasn't satisfied. So after a round of the internet, one interpretation rocked my mind and literally gave me shivers: the shadowy men rocking her back and forth is her husband and son, trying to wake her from her finally sleeping and put her back to her mundane routine life.

Who haven't had million of thoughts when you can't sleep?

This whole story is basically one long internal monologues and it's hard not to feel sympathy for the character, who still exists in today's world - the housewife, the mother whose day-to-day life consists of the same routine, whose life got churned into meaningless cycles of tasks and responsibilities.

Okay, reading to feel asleep is... so me. Im reading a character, describing something that...im doing

Losing your self-identifying hobby just because of growing up and having no time to do so is sad but again, relatable to so many of us out there. That's why brands BANK on nostalgia.

My gawd. This story is SO RELATABLE. As adults, who haven't got a sleepless night once? Who haven't tried everything to get their mind to shut up? Who haven't got a nightmare and sleep paralysis when you finally do get some sleep? I was quite surprised to find that this story is also another horror-adjecent themed, and even more surprised to see that I was actually scared when reading about her nightmare.

6th story. Ah , you cant have a murakami story without sex...

5th story: Zombie!
This brief one is full-blown horror - and I enjoyed it tremendously! I feel like it could even sit comfortably in one of Stephen King's short story collections - it's dark, short, and disturbing. Perfect 5/5!

Note: Apparently, "Kano Creta" and "Zombie" remained untranslated for English readers, which is such a shame!

...Score: 4/5

The 4th story, Kano Creta. By this time I was fairly used to Murakami's writing style and topics. But this story got my eyes opened wide with surprise: it was filled with supernatural horror. My god. Murakami really unleashed himself here. By the end, not only my eyes, but my mouth opened too. A disturbingly creepy story, and I dare say it's even darker than the darkest stuff that any western writer can come up with

... score: 4/5

...and why the narrator, at the end, changed his previous impressions of the character and became sympathetic to him.

3rd story. "A Folklore for My Generation: A Prehistory of Late-Stage Capitalism"

This one, like the narrator said, doesn't contain any moral message. It just happened, and like what he had said, in a way that many people can relate to - a bittersweet first love. Of course, it ended with some kind of a twist, something that most young adult male won't be able to resist (that's why the character became a folk legend).

....lost his voice and capability to express his thoughts in words (according to the story TV people); so, she cried twice that day. And now that he is older, he reminisces on this story, and he realized how he had been talking to himself, sounded like deep poetry, but actually gibberish poetry.

Beautiful story. Minus the weird sex language. 4.5/5.

...this man, the narrator, even though is a person who clearly have deep thoughts, keen observations and awareness of the wife's feelings and troubles (by narrating this story) - He didn't actually talk to her about it Didn't or couldn't? Maybe couldn't, because even when the wife mentioned that he talks, but only to himself, and only gibberish things - only about airplanes (the stuff in TV people) because he already

I think i get the second story now. In a way, the wife in the 1st story isn't any different from the wife in the second story. They obviously have an unhappy marriage, unable to communicate their feelings to their spouse. Only that in here, the wife doesn't leave her husband, but chooses to have an affair instead. And the ironic thing here is, she couldn't connect and communicate with the cheating partner either bcos

The 2nd story didn't interest me as much as the 1st one, but I do get that melancholic "Murakami" feeling (along with that weird sexual language)

With passive entertainment, most people lose their ability to think, have their own voice (ahem brainrot children and doomscrolling adults)

To add to the 1st story:
Thanks to the internet, I was able to read more on other people's interpretations, and one is pretty close to how I was feeling about it: the tv people literally represents the people IN THE TV, and TV - as a mean of mass media, had invade other people's home, providing easy but PASSIVE entertainment (that's why the prot. couldnt focus on reading books) - and with that....

and that's when I get to the 2nd story, Aeroplane. After the 1st story, I had my hopes and expectations up again. Might this book be a great one? ANNDDD typical Murakami sexual lingo strikes again. My eyes widen unbelievably, since Im reading a VIetnamese translated edition (VN books are known for censorship) so it's hard to believe such explicit language are used here.

"TV People": it's an abstract story, for sure, and even though it contains no mature language, I bet that only adults can really relate to its meaning. Marriage, depression, conformity, mass entertainment. The story really speaks to me. 5/5!

2nd time reading a book by Murakami. This time, it's a short stories collection. Coming from Norwegian wood, I have zero expectations (i didn't enjoy reading that book and really really hated the ending). So by the time i finished the first story, I was surprised to find that I loved it.