A Strange Library, Art and Formatting- Reshma Subramonian

 I really enjoyed A Strange Library. So many of the things we’ve seen in Murakami’s past works were present in this one as well– a somewhat passive protagonist, a girl with something supernatural about her, and the pleasantly surprising return of the Sheep Man. I think that there’s something pretty interesting about the illustrations in the story. When I was younger, I picked up an old version of Alice in Wonderland from a second hand book sale, and it had these weirdly grotesque drawings that would sometimes sharply contrast with how whimsical and lacking in gravity the events they were depicting were described. I think I sort of felt the same way regarding the pictures in A Strange Library– oddly colorful and uncanny, which was jarring against the tension and slight horror in the story. I think the choice of font was interesting as well, resembling a typewriter. The choice to have the final page of the book have smaller text centered in the middle of the page felt appropriately lonely, as well and I thought it was a nice touch. I’m curious about how exactly the illustrations were developed as the story was written, and how the formatting was discussed.