MAM
A quiet ode to Yōko Ogawa’s female gaze
What Haruki Murakami overlooks, Yōko Ogawa insists on seeing
MUMBAI: If there was a Booker Prize for the number of times an author could fail the bechdel test, Haruki Murakami would win it every year, followed closely by John Updike and Philip Roth.
Murakami’s work has long drawn criticism for its depiction of women, who are often rendered less as fully realised individuals than as bodies to be observed. Physicality routinely eclipses agency in his writing, with women framed through a persistent male gaze that mirrors broader societal patterns of objectification.
If Murakami’s fiction is a corridor through which women pass, Yōko Ogawa’s is a room in which they inhabit fully. Here, they can stretch and breathe without every gesture being filtered through a sexualising lens. Here, their sexuality belongs to them alone, free from the weight of judgment.
Why Murakami’s women read like emotional rehab for broken men
In 1Q84 and Norwegian Wood, the female characters are frequently described in ways that emphasise their physical attributes, sometimes in contexts where such details feel gratuitous.
Another common critique centres on how female characters often function within the narrative and lack agency of their own: they tend to appear in the male protagonist’s life as catalysts for his emotional or spiritual development, rather than pursuing their own goals. This “muse” or “medium” archetype, which Murakami himself has acknowledged in interviews, can render female characters as plot devices.
In an interview with novelist Mieko Kawakami, Murakami justified his stance on women when asked about why it can be so exhausting to see this pattern show up in fiction: a reminder of how women are sacrificed for the sake of men’s self-realisation or sexual desire.
He explained, “Not to sound dismissive, but my writing doesn’t follow any kind of clear-cut scheme. Take Norwegian Wood, where Naoko and Midori are respectively grappling with their subconscious and conscious existences. The first-person male narrator is captivated by them both, and it threatens to split his world in two.”
“Then there’s After Dark. The story is propelled almost exclusively by the will of the female characters. So I can’t agree that women are always stuck playing the supporting role of sexual oracles or anything along those lines. Even once I’ve forgotten the storylines, these women stay with me,” he added.
While Murakami may resist schematic intent, the repetition of these tropes across decades of work suggests a structural pattern rather than an incidental one. The prevalence of sexual content involving female characters, has further intensified criticism, particularly in a contemporary literary climate more attuned to questions of power, agency, and representation.
What complicates the debate is Murakami’s global appeal. His work is often praised for its dreamlike atmospheres, emotional loneliness, and metaphysical curiosity, qualities that have earned him a devoted international readership.
For some fans, the women in his novels are symbolic figures operating within a surreal register, not meant to conform to realist expectations. For others, that symbolic framing is precisely the problem: abstraction becomes a convenient alibi for erasure.
Yōko Ogawa and the feminist lens contemporary literature needs
In Yōko Ogawa’s fiction of the late 1980s and 1990s, female narrators often linger over the fragile beauty of youthful masculinity, even as they remain trapped within the abject disorder of feminised domestic spaces. Kitchens, bedrooms and dining tables: sites conventionally associated with care and containment, become zones of unease, where desire, violence and decay coexist.
Food, especially sweet food, recurs as an unsettling motif in Ogawa’s work. Cakes, jam and ice cream appear across Pregnancy Diary (1991), Sugar Time (1991) and Revenge, not as sources of comfort but as expressions of female desire, bitterness and suppressed violence. These images of sweetness often sit alongside moments of bodily harm, hinting at a close link between indulgence and transgression.
In Revenge, they also draw attention to a homosocial female gaze (women observing other women) through which femininity is continually examined, particularly when shaped by anger or harmful impulses. Ogawa’s quiet, self-aware depiction of the woman writer further unsettles these themes, gently destabilising the familiar trope of the “mad” woman whose fantasies are dismissed as excess or pathology.
With prose that is restrained yet deeply unsettling, Ogawa explores memory, the body, desire and isolation, frequently through female perspectives that resist easy categorisation. Below is a curated list of her most widely read and influential works, each offering a distinct entry point into her world of healthy female gaze.
The Memory Police (1994)
Set on a nameless island where objects, and the memories attached to them, disappear without warning, this dystopian novel follows a writer trying to preserve what remains. As language, identity and history erode, Ogawa meditates on power, surveillance and the fragility of human connection. It is her most internationally recognised work.
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales (1998)
A linked collection of short stories connected by recurring images and characters, Revenge moves through kitchens, hospitals and apartments haunted by death, jealousy and obsession. Violence emerges quietly, often through domestic details, making the book one of Ogawa’s most disturbing and acclaimed works.
The Housekeeper and the Professor (2003)
One of Ogawa’s gentler novels, this story centres on a brilliant mathematician who can retain memories for only 80 minutes, and the housekeeper and son who enter his life. Mathematics becomes a language of intimacy, offering moments of grace amid loss and limitation.
Pregnancy Diary (1991)
Told from the perspective of a detached observer, this short novel chronicles a woman’s unsettling fixation on her sister’s pregnancy. Everyday domestic rituals, especially food, become sites of quiet menace, revealing Ogawa’s early mastery of psychological horror.
Hotel Iris (1996)
Set in a decaying seaside town, this novel traces a sadomasochistic relationship between a teenage hotel clerk and an older translator. Spare and disturbing, Hotel Iris examines power, desire and emotional numbness without moral commentary.
The Diving Pool (1990)
This early collection features three novellas exploring adolescent cruelty, voyeurism and repression. In the title story, a young woman’s fascination with a boy at a swimming pool slowly turns sinister, showcasing Ogawa’s ability to mine darkness from stillness.
The Museum of Silence (1995)
A museumologist is invited to work in a remote village where grief and ritual blur into the surreal. This novel reflects Ogawa’s fascination with preservation: of bodies, memories and emotions, and the eerie calm that often accompanies loss.
MAM
Lego brings Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé, Vinicius together
Campaign clocks 314 million views ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026 buzz.
MUMBAI: Four legends, one frame and not a single tackle in sight. Lego has pulled off a crossover few thought possible, uniting Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior in a single campaign ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 only this time, they’re building dreams brick by brick.
Titled “Everyone wants a piece”, the campaign features the quartet assembling a Lego version of the World Cup trophy, before placing miniature versions of themselves atop it, a playful nod to football’s ultimate prize. Shared widely across social media, the ad carries a pointed disclaimer: it is not AI-generated, a subtle but telling signal in an era where even reality is often questioned.
The numbers tell their own story. The campaign has already crossed 314 million views on Instagram across the players’ accounts, with fans hailing it as a rare, almost nostalgic moment particularly for the reunion of Messi and Ronaldo, whose last shared campaign ahead of the 2022 World Cup became one of the platform’s most-liked posts.
Beyond the film, Lego is extending the play with exclusive, player-themed sets tied to each of the four stars, part of a broader football-led programme designed to ride the global momentum building towards 2026. The idea, as echoed by the players themselves, leans into the parallels between football and play experimentation, creativity, failure, and triumph.
Messi described the sets as a way to bring on-pitch moments into an imaginative, hands-on world, while Ronaldo called the transformation into a Lego figure a rare honour, blending sport with storytelling. Vinícius, meanwhile, struck a more personal note, recalling childhood moments of building with Lego and framing creativity as a universal language that transcends borders.
The timing is no accident. With the 2026 World Cup set to run from June 11 to July 19 across the United States, Canada and Mexico, and featuring an expanded 48-team format, global anticipation is already building. Argentina, led by Messi, will enter as defending champions, adding another layer of intrigue.
For Lego, the campaign does more than celebrate football, it taps into its mythology. Because when icons become figurines and rivalries turn into play, the beautiful game finds a new kind of pitch. one built, quite literally, by hand.
