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A review by polly_baker
Barn Burning by Haruki Murakami
5.0
You could be forgiven for reading this story and thinking it's a bit of a non-event. The bulk of the story is hidden among vast narrative gaps and unknowable characters. And with that comes a deep sense of unease.
The open and naturally trusting nature of the narrator helps disguise reality. His position as a writer makes him react with curiosity rather than alarm towards the boyfriend, romanticising him in writers' terms as "Just like Gatsby, a young man who is a riddle". It is that same characteristic that draws him to the girl at the beginning - she has an air of mystery about her which intrigues both narrator and reader, her captivating mine of peeling tangerines creating the surreal and sublime feeling that "the sense of reality is sucked right out of everything around you".
Indeed, it is a story that muddles appearance and reality, firstly with the invisible tangerines, then the distorting effects of grass and finally the bizarre confession of 'barn burning'. The narrator's fixation on the barns, tracing them across his neighbourhood reveals as much about him as the boyfriend who confessed it.
At the end you are forced to reevaluate everything you were told, trace it backwards, like barns on a map in search of reality. Murakami tactfully doesn't name any characters - leaving them blank and unknowable. Making them noone and everyone at the same time, burdening you with a deep sense of paranoia that these characters live among us, quietly burning barns that no one will miss.
The open and naturally trusting nature of the narrator helps disguise reality. His position as a writer makes him react with curiosity rather than alarm towards the boyfriend, romanticising him in writers' terms as "Just like Gatsby, a young man who is a riddle". It is that same characteristic that draws him to the girl at the beginning - she has an air of mystery about her which intrigues both narrator and reader, her captivating mine of peeling tangerines creating the surreal and sublime feeling that "the sense of reality is sucked right out of everything around you".
Indeed, it is a story that muddles appearance and reality, firstly with the invisible tangerines, then the distorting effects of grass and finally the bizarre confession of 'barn burning'. The narrator's fixation on the barns, tracing them across his neighbourhood reveals as much about him as the boyfriend who confessed it.
At the end you are forced to reevaluate everything you were told, trace it backwards, like barns on a map in search of reality. Murakami tactfully doesn't name any characters - leaving them blank and unknowable. Making them noone and everyone at the same time, burdening you with a deep sense of paranoia that these characters live among us, quietly burning barns that no one will miss.