Men Without Women: Stories
53 pages • 1-hour read
Haruki Murakami, Transl. Philip Gabriel, Transl. Ted GoossenMen Without Women: Stories
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Stories 5-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm, sexual content, mental illness, gender discrimination, disability discrimination, emotional abuse, and physical abuse.
Story 5 Summary: “Kino”
Kino owns and operates a small bar named Kino. There is a man who frequents the bar who always sits in the same seat, orders the same drinks, reads, pays his bill, and leaves. They only speak when the man is ordering his drinks, and Kino doesn’t even know the man’s name, though he does not see this as an issue.
After college, where Kino was a middle-distance runner, he found a job at a sports equipment company, where he worked for 17 years. He often travelled for work, and once, arriving home a day early, found his wife in their bed, having an affair with his favorite coworker. When he saw them together, he turned around and left. He quit his job the next day and never returned to the apartment.
Kino had an unmarried aunt who always liked him. She owned a coffee shop with a living space above it in an alley behind the Nezu Museum. She had asked him to take over the shop for her when she retired and moved, but at the time, he refused. In the aftermath of his wife’s affair, he called her and asked if he could open a bar there and pay her rent. Trusting him, she agreed.
Pouring half of his savings into the project, Kino transformed the coffee shop into a bar. His furnishings are simple, and he makes sure that he has speakers to play music. He waited days for the first customers to arrive, having not advertised. As he sat and listened to music, he thought of his wife, realizing that he was not angry with her. Though he was surprised, he felt as though it was inevitable.
A gray cat found its way into the bar, soon making it a home. It now sleeps on the bar, and Kino feeds it twice a day. With the cat came customers, and two months after it opened, the strange man began visiting. Two months later, the man finally introduces himself as Kamita. On that day, Kamita is one of three customers in the bar. The other two are businessmen, drinking and having a conversation. When a disagreement arises between them and grows confrontational, Kino asks them to calm down.
The two men try to intimidate Kino until Kamita interrupts them to explain that he lodged the complaint, as their rowdiness made it difficult to read. The men ask Kamita to step outside, only worsening Kino’s worry. Kamita agrees and pays Kino, just as the men do, before disappearing into the rain. Kino waits anxiously until Kamita returns. When he asks Kamita what happened, Kamita warns Kino that it is better he does not know. Later that night, Kino walks around the neighborhood, looking for signs of a fight, but sees none.
A week after the incident, Kino sleeps with a woman for the first time since separating from his wife. She is younger than him and a customer of the bar. She often visits with a man, who seems to be her partner. She likes jazz and talks to Kino about it, though Kino tries to avoid her, as the man is clearly unhappy when they interact. One night, she comes to the bar alone and asks Kino to play music for her. When he asks where the man is, she tells Kino that he is far away and that they are considering splitting up. She tells Kino that she and the man do not have a relationship. Kino asks what she means. In response, she unzips her dress and shows Kino a cigarette burn on her back. She tells him that she has more, though they are in places hard to show.
Though Kino later cannot remember why he had sex with the woman, he realizes that he wanted to have sex that night, and she wanted to have it with him. After locking up the bar, the two go upstairs to Kino’s apartment, where the woman shows Kino the scars around her private areas from cigarette burns. Kino cannot fathom why the man would do this to her, or why she would “allow” him to do it. After showing him her scars, the woman and Kino have sex, and when Kino wakes the next day, she is gone. Though she continues to frequent the bar, the man is always with her, and Kino is wary of his jealous gaze.
As summer ends, Kino’s divorce becomes official, and his ex-wife meets him at his bar to finalize some matters. After signing the requisite papers, the two talk over glasses of wine. Kino’s ex-wife apologizes to him for the affair. Kino shrugs it off, saying that she already apologized and he accepted it, that there is nothing that can change. She encourages him to forget about her and find another woman, believing that there is someone who is right for Kino.
The cat disappears when fall arrives. Kino is wary of the cat’s disappearance, believing her to be his good luck charm. In her place, snakes appear. Snakes are uncommon in Tokyo, but over the course of a week, he spots three, one of which looks poisonous. He calls his aunt to ask if the snakes are normal, and she tells him she never saw any. She suggests that they may be there because they sense an earthquake coming before offering him a more mystical answer. She tells Kino that in legends, snakes are guides, though their aims are never clear. Despite his fears, the snakes do not harm Kino.
One night, Kamita comes into the bar before it closes and tells Kino that he must close the bar for an undetermined period of time. He is ambiguous about his reasoning, but tells Kino that there is something missing in the bar, and that this is the reason the cat left. Kamita demands that Kino take a trip far away and leave the bar before the next stretch of rain. He does not want Kino to stay in one place for long; he tells him to send postcards twice a week with nothing on them other than his current address. Kamita reveals that he knows Kino’s aunt and directs Kino to send these cards to her. Kino’s aunt actually asked Kamita to keep an eye on Kino.
That night, Kino packs his bags and puts up a sign to say the bar is closed. He begins his journey, travelling across Japan, moving every few days and sending postcards. In Kyushu, he finds himself in a cheap hotel, bored. When he goes to send his aunt a postcard, he decides to write her a small message. Before he decides against it, he drops the card in a mailbox and returns to his room.
That night, at 2:15, Kino wakes to knocking at his door. Kino knows who is knocking and knows that they cannot open the door; only he can. As he sits, listening, thinking of how he was waiting for something like this to happen, he remembers when his wife asked if he was hurt by her betrayal. He realizes now that he was, but refused to acknowledge it. He tries to ignore the knocking, but it persists, and Kino knows that it won’t stop, as it is not someone knocking at the hotel door, but at his heart’s door.
The knocking stops briefly, only to continue through the wall that faces the outside of the building. Kino thinks of the bar, and the cat, and the willow tree outside its door, trying to calm down, but the knocking persists. As he waits for dawn, he hears a voice: “Don’t look away, look right at it […] This is what your heart looks like” (184). In the dark, Kino feels a warm hand within himself reaching out to grab his hand. He realizes that he misses this sensation and finally accepts that he is hurting, and he weeps.
Story 6 Summary: “Samsa in Love”
The protagonist wakes to find that he is transformed into Gregor Samsa. He is in a room, alone, on a bed, staring up at the wall. He looks around the room and realizes that it is bare apart from the bed. When he tries to remember who he was before becoming Gregor Samsa, “something like a black column of mosquitoes swirled up in his head” (187). Deciding that he must move, he tests how his new body works.
Samsa begins by moving his fingers, though he struggles to synchronize these movements with so many joints. As he moves more and more, the numbness of the shock wears off, and he realizes that he is very hungry. He decides to search for food. He looks in horror at his body. He sees a weak, unprotected, fleshy body that makes no sense to him. He sees no means of protecting himself.
When Samsa finally stands up, he takes time to adjust. Next, he tries to walk. With only two feet, he feels as though walking upright goes against natural movement. He slowly makes his way to the door and opens it. It is not locked. The hallway outside is empty. He makes his way through the hall past closed doors shrouded in mystery.
Samsa smells food downstairs. He uses the banister to support himself and slowly works his way down. He wishes that he could be a fish or a sunflower and live out his life in peace.
In the dining room, Samsa finds the table set, with steaming food, though the room and house are abandoned. He ignores this and devours the food, so focused that when he accidentally bites his own fingers, he does not feel it. After his meal, he drinks some coffee, and finally satiated and calm, he feels cold.
He is naked, and not wanting to be caught like this, he begins his search for clothes. In the front hall, he finds an umbrella and begins using it to support himself as he walks, though he can now do so without leaning against the wall. He looks out the front window and sees people walking along the street, all wearing clothes. Samsa explores the downstairs, but finding no clothes, decides to go upstairs.
Samsa finds climbing the stairs to be easier than descending them. When he reaches the top, he explores the rooms behind the four closed doors. Each is unlike the one he awoke in. They are furnished, not freezing, and comfortable. He finds a dressing gown in one and puts it on. It is the easiest piece of clothing for him to comprehend and use, not needing to worry about buttons and ties. He also dons a pair of slippers.
He takes a nap in the biggest room, only to awake to the doorbell ringing. He opens it to find a hunchbacked woman. She informs Samsa that she is here to fix a lock. When she asks where the rest of his family is, Samsa suggests that they are out on an errand. He watches as she suddenly twists her body without explanation, fascinated. Complaining about the difficulty of reaching the house, she suggests they look at the lock quickly.
They walk upstairs, and when she asks which door has the broken lock, Samsa suggests it is one of the four. She grows frustrated, but checks the door of the room he woke up in first. Inside, she lays out her tools and takes the lock apart. As Samsa watches her work and twist her body occasionally, he realizes that his body reacts. He gets an erection, the bulge of which is clear in his dressing gown.
The woman takes the lock out and tells him that it is broken beyond repair, and she does not have the necessary parts with her. She will have to take it back to the shop so one of her brothers can fix it. She explains that her brother was supposed to come, but with all the blockades, it was easier and less dangerous for her to travel.
Samsa asks the woman why she continues to twist her body at random, and she explains that it is because of her bra, which is uncomfortable and ill-fitting, made worse by the fact that she has a hunched back. She suspects that he is mocking her, but he assures her that he is not. She hears sincerity in his voice and believes him. For the first time, she really looks at him and immediately notices his erection. She admonishes him for being a sexual pervert, interested in her because of her hunched back. He pleads with her, saying he does not understand the accusation. She excuses him, realizing that something is off about him.
She tells Samsa that she will need to take the lock with her, and they walk to the door. She asks that he tell his parents that she took the lock with her. She explains again that her brother was meant to come, but with so many tanks and soldiers outside, they sent her, as no one would notice the girl with the hunched back. They are worried for her brother because when people are arrested in Prague, no one knows when they will come back.
Before she leaves, Samsa asks if he can see her again. She once again presses him about his erection and his motivation, but he assures her it has nothing to do with it. He feels a genuine interest in her and wants to talk more. He thinks she can teach him about everything going on around them. She is hesitant, aware of their differences in class, but tells him she will be back with the fixed lock, or if her brother cannot fix it, the broken lock and the bill for her services. She suggests that they can talk more then.
As she leaves, she muses that it is strange that Samsa’s parents cared so much about the lock. With war all around them, people care about the smallest things. When she asks Samsa why his parents need such a big lock on that empty room, he tells her he doesn’t know.
The woman finally leaves, and afterwards, Samsa notices that his erection disappears. He thinks of the woman, as well as the people in the house, wondering where they went and if they will return. The only thing Samsa knows is that he wants to see the woman again, reveling in the feelings she stirs up in him. He feels that these feelings make his transformation worth it, even if life as a fish or sunflower would be easier. He goes upstairs again, determined to learn how to dress himself better.
Story 7 Summary: “Men Without Women”
The narrator wakes to the phone ringing at 1 AM. A man on the other end calmly tells him that his wife, the narrator’s former girlfriend, died by suicide the week before. The husband seems unfazed, leaving the narrator confused. He wonders why the husband knows about him, why his former girlfriend would even tell her husband about him, or why she died by suicide. The narrator believes the man, and when they hang up, he returns to bed. His wife asks if someone died, and the narrator tells her no, though she does not believe him.
This woman is the third that the narrator once dated who has now died by suicide. He cannot believe that his former girlfriend, whom he dubs M, would die by suicide, and hopes that he played no part in it. He cannot share much about her life, other than that he dated her for a while, and then they broke up.
The narrator instead tells the story of how he wished they had met. When they were 14, they were in the same class. One day, the narrator did not have an eraser, and when he asked M for one, she broke hers in half and gave it to him. She was beautiful. Just as quickly as they met, they parted, and M disappeared from his life. The narrator suffered, and ever since, sees M everywhere, in everything. He tried to find her, thinking that she met a sailor and travelled the world with him. The narrator would find clues and travel the world after her, but always arrive a day late. Meanwhile, his 14-year-old self waited.
In reality, they did not fall in love when they were 14, as that came later. Despite this, the narrator believes that it would have been better to meet at 14 and fall in love then. Even after this, when she left again, the narrator was devastated. Now, upon hearing about her death, he feels as though he has lost his 14-year-old self. He feels as though he is the second loneliest man in the world, behind her husband. Both are experiencing the loss, though in different ways.
The narrator feels as though this day, the day he becomes “Men Without Women,” snuck up on him. He did not see it coming, but it is here. He believes that no one can feel the pain of this transformation unless it happens to them. He feels the heartbreak of losing his younger self. The narrator hopes that M’s husband will recover, and wonders why the man even knew about him. He thinks of the reasons M would have to share her past with the narrator with her husband, and wonders if it is because she always thought he had a beautiful penis.
When the narrator goes on walks, he often stops in a park and looks at a statue of a unicorn. Now, he feels as though the unicorn is emblematic of “Men Without Women.” The unicorn is a solitary creature, and the narrator believes that all unicorns are men, their horns always pointed skyward, looking for something, or someone more. He muses to himself that the “Men Without Women” should adopt the unicorn as their mascot.
All it takes to become “Men Without Women” is to love a woman and lose her. After this, loneliness worsens, and the world appears different to the likes of men like the narrator. The narrator and M only dated for two years before splitting up. As he reminisces about her, he remembers her obsession with elevator music. She told the narrator that the music helped her to relax, and when he suggested that the music made her feel like she was in heaven, she agreed.
The narrator feels as though he loses elevator music, too. He loses everything he ever associated with her, as well as his own past. He is alone now, with no one but the unicorn. He thinks of M and hopes that she is in heaven, listening to elevator music.
Stories 5-7 Analysis
In “Kino,” the narrator, Kino, faces a massive change in his life and wrestles with The Relationship Between Masculinity and Emotional Unavailability. He not only discovers his wife’s infidelity, but divorces her, moves, and opens a bar. Throughout this tumultuous time, Kino assures everyone that he is doing alright and convinces himself that he does not feel bad about how his marriage ended. He buries that pain, not wanting to confront it: “When I should have felt real pain, I stifled it. I didn’t want to take it on, so I avoided facing up to it. Which is why my heart is so empty now. The snakes have grabbed that spot and are trying to hide their coldly beating hearts there” (181).
Kino represents how emotional repression can be a detriment to men. He does not share or even fully feel his pain, scared to do so. He does not want to further complicate this difficult time in his life, choosing to present as a strong man. As a result of this, Kino feels as though his heart is empty now. Only when he takes a break from his life and travels does he finally confront these emotions and reflect on his wife’s betrayal: “She apologized right to my face, and I accepted that, he thought. I need to learn not just to forget but to forgive” (184). Kino recognizes that his first instinct was to simply forget and move on. As a man, he wanted to jump to the next part of his life and not wallow in the pain his wife caused him. Now, he realizes that he cannot move on until he forgives her as well. Forgiveness is a key step in the process of healing from the loss of love, and by not doing so, it only exacerbates the depth of Kino’s pain.
In “Samsa in Love,” Murakami reimagines Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, using it as a framework for his own examination of love. Whereas in Kafka’s version, salesman Gregor Samsa wakes one morning to find that he is a giant insect, the protagonist of Murakami’s short story experiences an inversion of this. He wakes as a human, named Gregor Samsa, having transformed from a bug: “He woke to discover that he had undergone a metamorphosis and become Gregor Samsa. He lay flat on his back on the bed, looking at the ceiling” (186). These opening lines of “Samsa in Love” even resemble the opening lines of The Metamorphosis: “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka, Franz. “Excerpt From The Metamorphosis.” Penguin Random House, 1972).
Murakami continues to draw inspiration from Kafka’s original work by having his protagonist examine his new body, much in the same way as Gregor Samsa examines his new insect body. Both are foreign and incomprehensible to them. Murakami’s reimagining of The Metamorphosis creates a situation in which a character experiences being human for the first time. In these first hours of new life, the protagonist meets a woman and immediately falls in love, slowly learning how his body and mind react to her. In this way, the protagonist learns to accept himself in his new body and finds value in being a human capable of experiencing an emotion as exciting and fulfilling as love.
Of the seven stories in Men Without Women, the titular story focuses the most on The Conflicting Nature of Memory After Loss. When the narrator learns that his first love died, he remembers her and reimagines their time together. In doing so, he examines his own memory to not only characterize her and their relationship, but also the ways in which his life was changed because of her entrance and departure from it. Upon hearing the news, he feels a sense of loss, not so much for her but for himself: “When she died I lost my fourteen-year-old self. Like a baseball player’s number that is permanently retired, the fourteen-year-old inside me up and left for good. My fourteen-year-old self was now locked away in a thick safe, intricately locked, buried on the bottom of the sea” (219). He experiences the loss of M as equivalent to the loss of his youth.
This attitude reflects how the narrator communicates with his memories. While this woman was still alive, his younger self lived on inside him, with her. Now that she is gone, this version of himself disappears with her. He separates his life into time with her and time after her. Though the reminiscence of their time together brings him joy, it also brings devastation, as he realizes that he can no longer look at those memories in the same way ever again.
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