Doing away with the Tanka format as 2025 draws near. It was an interesting experiment but I’ve come to find the structure too restrictive.

Finished this in a day.

Call me sentimental but Honey Pie was my favorite short story by a longshot.

Overall, I’m quite undecided on how to feel about Murakami’s short story anthologies. While I love his signature stream of consciousness writing style and listless protagonists (something you’ll still find in After the Quake), I can’t help but feel like the short story format inevitably gives Murakami too much creative license to end his stories wherever he feels like.

This is also probably why I prefer his longer novels (and by extension Honey Pie), since they read more as coherent narratives with an earned, if ill-defined resolution.

Then again, my gripes with some of the tales in After the Quake are the exact reasons some love Murakami’s work. Who am I to judge?

Maybe I just need more time to let it simmer. Either way, I still have The Elephant Vanishes, so I’ll see how I find that.

Happy 2025.

Godspeed.