The T-Shirts I Love by Haruki Murakami

I think this was my 5th Murakami book. I've started several others, but pooped out for one reason or another. But I do have some love for HM, and I am found of T-shirts, so when I heard about this book I immediately put my request in at the public library...and, much to my surprise, it was in my Holds just a few days later. 

It's a small book: according to Amazon, 5.64 x 0.82 x 7.03 inches, 15.02 ounces, and 192 pages. (Questionable on that last, but it doesn't really matter.) Also, just to put this into scale, the audio version only takes 1 hour and 44 minutes. Which makes its price tag of $25 a bit heavy. 

And more than a little bit ironic given the fact that in the course of this book, Murakami makes at least a half-dozen comments which seem to show that he's kind of a cheap skate: how he won't buy a t-shirt if it's more than a couple of dollars at a thrift store, how he buys drinks when they're 30% off, how he won't pay more than $50 for any record, and how he thought that the Champion T-shirt that Brad Pitt wore in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was nice, but too expensive (you can get one for $20). 

Put all of that in the context of Murakami having an estimated net worth of $10 million, and you just have to feel a little distant from the guy, don't you?

But it gets worse. Because this $25 book is pretty much a complete waste of your time. The writing is so superficial and stilted that (and I apologize for this) it reminded me of Paul McCartney's writing in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present--Volume I, at least as my love for McCartney couldn't overcome my dislike for his writing in this book. Here's an example of Murakami's writing here:

"The next shirt is from a surf shop called Bear Surf-

boards. The thing is, it's actually an imaginary surf

shop that appears in John Milius's film Big Wednesday,

and doesn't really exist (as far as I know). But it's a 

great design, and became pretty popular for a time.

That's when I bought this shirt. Big Wednesday was a 

fun movie, very entertaining."

Now I know I'm a nobody retired high school teacher living in Louisville, Kentucky, and Haruki Murakami is one of the Contemporary Gods of Literature...but that is a bad paragraph. It's superficial, giving no details about the T-shirt, the movie, or anything else. It's redundant, telling us that "an imaginary surf shop...doesn't really exist...." And the parenthetical "as far as I know" is puzzling as well. Doesn't Haruki have access to the internet? For fuck's sake. There's really no excuse for many I Don't Knows in 2021.

This kind of superficial writing is pervasive in the book. And it makes Haruki look kind of stupid. Another example: there's a picture of a T-shirt with Dostoyevsky on the front. It's a pretty common picture of Fyodor, one I've seen on many of his books. Yet here's the comment that Haruki makes: "I think it's Dostoyevky, but I could be wrong." Well, first off, how could he not recognize Dostoyevky? Second off, why the fuck didn't he check if he wasn't sure? There's this thing called Image Search, for one thing. It also makes me wonder why an editor didn't stop Haruki and say, "Of course that's Dostoyevky! Have you been drinking?" and correct this comment.

So...that's why I didn't enjoy this book. And why, despite my still-intact love for Haruki Murakami, I would suggest that you pass this one by...especially if you're already a fan. No sense in tarnishing the silver.