I was browsing an online bookstore to complete my Murakami collection when I noticed a couple of titles that I didn't have. One of them was The Strange Library. I was intrigued right away and ordered it. I mean, come on, it's Murakami. One thing I'd like him to talk about other than jazz or some weird ear fetishes is to talk about libraries and books.
When the book arrived, I was super hyped and felt... weird: hyped because it was a hardcover with beautiful illustrations inside... and feeling weird because, frankly speaking, this book didn't seem like a book written by Murakami.
Anyway, I started reading and finished the book in one sitting. It's a small book after all, despite the fact that Wikipedia states that it's a novella! The story tells the story of an unnamed child who returns some books to a public library and then decides to borrow some other books. The librarian tells him that he needs to speak to an old man who takes the young kid to a secret room, then a labyrinth, then down a stairway right into a jail cell... and locks him up.
"All I did was go to the library to borrow some books."
My reaction as I reached the final page was like my all other reactions when I finish any book by Murakami, except it was doubly so in this case. I was like Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas, trying to figure out the meaning behind the holiday.
I'm not an expert when it comes to allegory or symbolic hidden meanings, but I think I got the gist of the story. I think it's about obsession about the past/letting go of it/confronting it and accepting reality as it is. Maybe I'm wrong, drifting miles and miles away from what the story is really about. Maybe, this is the genius of Murakami, letting readers draw their own interpretations in accordance with their own experiences. Some might find the story is about grief or loneliness, or even find the entire escapade is a form of escapism. That's ok. That's the beauty of literature when it triggers readers to think of books as puzzles that need to be dissected and deciphered.
I think that the unnamed child's mother died before his venture into the backstage of the library (whether it's a dream or a parallel reality or a simple daydreaming sequence). Maybe she really died after that nightmarish sequence along with the starling (which makes the venture a premonition of what's to come). But one thing I'm certain of, which is that the whole sequence is some kind of coping mechanism (whether the narrator has developed or fate has chosen for him) that backfired on him and locked him inside. So, the boy's mother died. He retreats to reading as an escape, but this habit became an obsession that isolated him from the outside world. Remember, we're dealing with a very timid boy who "isn't good at giving anyone a clear no". In my Arabic culture, individuals with these traits are sadly stereotyped as 'lacking personality'. But no one is without character; it's just in these cases, their personalities have retreated from the surface, some kind of self-implosion. What they need are no helping hands from others. The only help that will have an effect on them, however, is the one they give themselves. So our young protagonist has to accept his loss by discarding everything to do with the accompanying pain (his shoes which were a gift from his mother).
***
Summary:
The Strange Library is indeed strange, one I enjoyed thoroughly. Why shouldn't I when it's happening in my favorite of all places--libraries. I've always dreamt of going to public libraries like Dublin's Trinity Library for instance, but Murakami has managed to make these cosy, happy places the birthplace of nightmares.
The story is short but the way it's told, with the use of the impressionistic form corresponding to meaning, makes it a unique reading experience.
3.5/5
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