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Celeste Loughman (review date Spring 1994)

SOURCE: A review of The Elephant Vanishes, in World Literature Today, Vol. 68, Spring, 1994, pp. 434–35.

[In the following review, Loughman discusses the sense of emptiness conveyed by the themes and characters of The Elephant Vanishes.]

Among Japanese writers born after the war whose work has been translated into English, Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) has received the most attention, especially since the 1989 publication in English of his 1982 novel Hitsuji o megaru bōken (Eng. A Wild Sheep Chase; see WLT 64:4, p. 701). The Elephant Vanishes is the first collection of his short stories, many of which have appeared elsewhere, including several in the New Yorker and in the recent anthologies Monkey Brain Sushi and New Japanese Voices (both 1991; see WLT 66:2, p. 406).

Readers familiar with Roland Barthes's Empire of Signs...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism
   1. Naomi Matsuoka (essay date 1993)
   2. Yoshio Iwamoto (essay date Spring 1993)
   3. David L. Ulin (review date 4 April 1993)
   4. Brooke Horvath (review date Fall 1993)
   5. Jim McCue (review date 19 November 1993)
   6. Constance Markey (review date 2 January 1994)
   7. Elizabeth Ward (review date 16 January 1994)
   8. Alan Wearne (review date February 1994)
   9. Alexander Harrison (review date 18 March 1994)
   10. Celeste Loughman (review date Spring 1994)
   11. Celeste Loughman (essay date Winter 1997)
   12. Elizabeth Ward (review date 9 November 1997)
   13. Lindsley Cameron (review date 1998)
   14. Edward Hower (review date May 1998)
   15. Matthew C. Strecher (essay date May 1998)
   16. Julian Ferraro (review date 1 May 1998)
   17. Michael Wood (review date 11 May 1998)
   18. Tom Hiney (review date 20 June 1998)
   19. Yoshiko Yokochi Samuel (review date Spring 1999)
   20. Phil Baker (review date 23 July 1999)
   21. Lorna Sage (review date 30 September 1999)
   22. Scott Reyburn (review date 15 November 1999)
3. Further Reading
4. Copyright