> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://log.desipundit.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Strange Library ★★★☆☆ - URL: https://log.desipundit.com/the-strange-library/ - Published: 2026-11-09T13:53:11.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-09T13:53:11.000Z - Author: PM - Tags: Books Strange, short, and well made, and I’m still not sure what it was about. I haven’t read much Murakami, so some of this may be on me. Even so, *The Strange Library* was a wee bit strange. A boy walks into his local library and ends up imprisoned there until he has read and memorized three thick volumes. His way out comes from two unlikely helpers: the Sheep Man, who I’m told turns up in other Murakami books, and a beautiful girl who can turn transparent. There’s an allegory in here somewhere. I can see its outline but can’t make out its face. The closest I got was the boy’s own complaint: “Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don’t want to do?” A kid too polite to say no ends up locked in a room. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s only part of it. What I can say for sure is that the writing works. It’s crisp and clear, and the odd details land with a dry humor. An old man’s patchy baldness gets compared to a mountain after a forest fire, which is both unkind and accurate. For a short story, it never stagnates or drags. You’re through it before the strangeness has time to wear thin. One line stayed with me more than the plot did: “The tricky thing about mazes is that you don’t know if you’ve chosen the right path until the very end.” That’s how the book felt. I reached the end and I’m still not sure I took the right path through it. --- ## Edition Read - **Edition Type:** Kindle Edition - **Number of Pages:** 97 pages - **Date First Published:** January 1, 2005 - **Publisher:** Bond Street Books - **ISBN10:** 0385683154 - **ASIN:** B00PP3AHDW - **Language:** English ## Description > Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this is a unique and wonderfully creepy tale that is sure to delight Murakami fans. > > "All I did was go to the library to borrow some books." > > On his way home from school, the young narrator of The Strange Library finds himself wondering how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. He pops into the local library to see if it has a book on the subject. This is his first mistake. > > Led to a special 'reading room' in a maze under the library by a strange old man, he finds himself imprisoned with only a sheep man, who makes excellent donuts, and a girl, who can talk with her hands, for company. His mother will be worrying why he hasn't returned in time for dinner and the old man seems to have an appetite for eating small boys' brains. How will he escape? *Source:* [GoodReads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/isbn/0385683154?ref=log.desipundit.com) --- ## Notable Highlights > His baldness looked incomplete; he had frizzy white hairs plastered against both sides of his head. It looked like a mountain after a big forest fire. *\[loc. 39\]* > Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don’t want to do? *\[loc. 107\]* > The sheep man has his world. I have mine. And you have yours, too. Am I right? “That you are.” So just because I don’t exist in the sheep man’s world, it doesn’t mean that I don’t exist at all. *\[loc. 248\]* > No matter what the situation may be, I still take pleasure in witnessing the joy of others. *\[loc. 304\]* > At the same time, my anxiety had turned into an anxiety quite lacking in anxiousness. And any anxiety that is not especially anxious is, in the end, an anxiety hardly worth mentioning. *\[loc. 325\]* > The tricky thing about mazes is that you don’t know if you’ve chosen the right path until the very end. If it turns out you were wrong, it’s usually too late to go back and start again. That’s the problem with mazes. *\[loc. 372\]*