YESTERDAY

 A short story by Haruki Murakami

 

yesterday follows our main character Tanimura as he looks back on a friendship he had with a strange fellow called kitaru. kitaru is on the path to have a great life or a life that society deems fulfilling. He is smart (really smart), a great career awaits him when he  finally decided to apply himself and pass his university exams, he has a beautiful and devoted girlfriend, whom any guy would want for a life. He has everything on life's grocery list for the perfect life, all laid out in front of him, everything that people fight for. but he consciously or subconsciously rejects it all or self sabotages it.

REVIEW

Yesterday was a beautiful surprise, I picked it up needing a Murakami story or world to jump start my reading after months of being in a grief induced reading slump. i feel like mainly it's a story about rejecting societal expectations and creating a life that you want for yourself even if it looks nothing like what society applauds or recommends.

kitaru where consciously or subconsciously rejects it all and chooses to go the opposite direction. he rejects the perfect office job, the perfect girl and the perfect salary but chooses a life no one understands but he loves.

Existentialism is the main theme of this book. The notion that life has no inherent meaning or predetermined path for us to follow but is ours to create.

LESSONS?

I think i read this story at the perfect time. I've spent my whole life chasing after the grocery list of things i needed to do or get to have a fulfilling life but its left me exhausted and tired. Because none of it has made me happy. i guess i never bothered to ask myself what i wanted or what it was that truly made me happy. living in a small conservative, traditional society makes it a little difficult to stray away from the laid out safe path. it doesn't encourage asking questions or soul searching or finding a life that puts you at the center of it. your job is to fit yourself in life's pattern and become a functioning part of an old machine that hardly changes but works well.

After my losing my Mom, i found myself lost and introspective a lot and mostly i found myself finally rejecting everyone else's idea of what a happy should look like. i allowed myself to slow down and ask myself; what i really want, what will make my life truly happy despite it not looking like what society recommends demands.

kitaru taught me it's okay and possible to do so. to slow down to a pace i can handle and live a life I'm actively a part of and not passively living chasing after things that make should in theory make me happy but doesn't.

it's gets it's title from a Beatles song with the same name, it gives the story that extra melancholy which i find delicious (might need therapy i don't know lol).

I might read another story in my library that has a similar theme. it's called Convenience store woman by Sayaka Murata.

xx

Dailess