I don’t usually enjoy reading Haruki Murakami’s stuff. Obscure imagery and cryptic storylines do not a satisfied reader make. But ‘Birthday Girl’, a short story released in celebration of his 70th birthday, was engaging and easy to read. All the more memorable because I was reading it while hauling my baby girl like a bag of bricks in a futile attempt to stop her from crying. I even found one page that I wanted to use as a mini comprehension exercise for my hospitality students. The English looked doable!

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Occupational hazard aside. The main character was a 20-year-old waitress working on her birthday. Oh this fateful day, she had to deliver dinner to the mysterious and reclusive owner of the restaurant she was working at. They talked, and the owner granted her a wish. We never find out what the wish was in the end. And the plot thickens because the story fast forwards into the future, in which she was relating this life-changing experience to an unidentified narrator called ‘I’. Short piece that raises a barrage of questions - with the answers to be filled in at your own discretion.
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The moment I finished reading this book, my baby girl was no longer in my charge. But that’s not what you are concerned about. Oh the first thing I did was to Google “What did she wish for?”. This led me to Quora, where I spent a few delightful minutes scrolling through other people’s opinions.
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Of course, I have my own answer in regards to her wish. Colour me biased because it’s shaped by my two years of living in Japan (and familiarity with its culture as a result of being married to one Japanese lady). I think that’s the greatest strength of this book: that it lets you project your lens and life experiences onto his characters. #birthdaygirl #harukimurakami #bookstagram #murakamiharuki #japanesestory