Murakami

user_173 · Post by **user_173** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:30 pm

I've read Windup bird chronicle, hard-boiled wonderland, and after the quake. Do i read Kafka on the shore next or something else?

hatta · Post by **hatta** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:06 pm

I'd read A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance, Dance, Dance and Norwegian Wood before Kafka

user_173 · Post by **user_173** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:00 pm

I understand that Norwegian Wood is pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, I have no interest in that.

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:30 pm

you've already read the best ones, so don't have especially high expectations for the rest. my wife claims that his latest one is a return to form, but those of us who don't speak Japanese are going to have to wait a few years for an English translation to see for ourselves.

user_531 · Post by **user_531** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:01 pm

Whaaa??? There's a latest one? As in after Kafka on the Shore? It doesn't seem like all that long since that one came out. Kafka was pretty good but, yes, you've read the absolute best ones I think. I reckon Wild Sheep Chace and Dance, Dance, Dance are the best ones to attack next.

user_173 · Post by **user_173** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:35 pm

Yea, his most recent is After Dark. Kafka on the Shore came out in Japan in '02. Apparently After Dark was published in '04. I've read projections on a US release ranging from '06 to '10. Luckily, we have a short story collection to look forward to this year.

sevenarts · Post by **sevenarts** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:42 pm

yea my favorite is Hard Boiled Wonderland, followed by Wind-Up Bird

but it's def. worth reading Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance, and The Elephant Vanishes as well. i haven't read Kafka yet, but i think i'll read a few of the other older ones before i get to that.

user_1119 · Post by **user_1119** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:40 am

I really thing Norwegian Wood is one of the best, simple but rich in possible meanings. Perhaps don't bypass it so quickly.

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:53 am

didn't see this for a while, sorry...

shawn wrote:Yea, his most recent is After Dark. Kafka on the Shore came out in Japan in '02. Apparently After Dark was published in '04. I've read projections on a US release ranging from '06 to '10. Luckily, we have a short story collection to look forward to this year.

right, this is all correct. besides After Dark, there was a new short story collection in Japan also a few months ago (which is entirely different from the one coming out here).

there's a pretty good story by him in the current New Yorker, their anniversary issue...

apfEID · Post by **apfEID** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:06 pm

shawn wrote:I understand that Norwegian Wood is pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, I have no interest in that.

I'd recommend reading it anyway, it's a fast read.

I've read South of the Border, West of the Sun three or four times, simply because it's short enough that I can knock it back in two or three sittings.

Wind Up Bird and Hard Boiled Wonderland are his best books, but I'm re-reading Wind Up Bird now 6 years after I first read it and it's impact is diluted significantly by how often he has repeated the same themes and character traits in most of his books. Dude in his late 20's, lacking direction, trouble with wife, cat-symbolism, jazz and western literature name drops, rich uncle who owns a club and knows that to succeed in the club/resturant business you need to find the right people and pay them a lot of money...

I'm tempted to start a web site to list recuring themes, character traits, anecdotes, symbols that appear often.

I would avoid Sputnik Sweetheart; it was either the least inspired of the books of his that I've read, or it was the straw that broke this camel's back in terms of him regurgitating the same concepts.

I recommend underground and the elephant vanishes in addition to the books recommended above.

come to think of it, I don't think I've read wild sheeps chance nor dance dance dance. I haven't read kafka on the shore yet either.

faster · Post by **faster** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:42 pm

I second _Underground_.

I think it's his second best after WUBC. It seems boring at first (interviews with *everyone* who was on or working the subways the day of the gas attack), but by the end it emerges as an amazing glimpse at the vagaries of memory and point of view. For me it is a deep piece of non-fiction writing, that does a lot of the things Rashomon does, but better, because it's real, while also detailing a piece of near-contempory history.

user_1019 · Post by **user_1019** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:31 pm

user_363 · Post by **user_363** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:21 pm

i've read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and After The Quake...

i liked After The Quake more. i didn't like the ending of Hard-Boiled Wonderland (it was kind of surprising, but (paradoxically) in such a way that it was disappointing), and the story seemed less... "solid" after i finished reading it and thought back about it. whereas all the novels (or almost) in After The Quake had something "special" i particularly liked about them.

mshiflet · Post by **mshiflet** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 9:20 pm

how much do his books go for in the states? unfortunately the only english translations i can find here are from britain & are pretty pricey, $18 even for the short paperbacks. wondering if i should just go ahead & grab them or hold off & get a few when i'm back in the states this summer. i've only read 'wind-up' and 'kafka' so i really want to dive into some of his others.

mshiflet · Post by **mshiflet** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:42 am

still curious about prices if anyone can help out with that...

AND, an interesting story: günter müller and i were talking expressing mutual interest in murakami the other night at dinner & our host said that murakami isn't that popular here because many japanese people think he 'panders to the west.' i thought that was very interesting since his writing is so unique - and for a couple other cultural reasons to lengthy to get into here.

have you heard anything like this from your wife jon? it doesn't seem that implausible to me, but i've met quite a few people here who offer their own opinions with preferences of "many japanese people...," so i'm curious.

Post by **grisha** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:27 am

i actually heard it mentioned during one q&a by russian writer Vladimir Sorokin, who lived in Japan for a while. exactly what you were told, word for word. he also said that Ryu is the more popular of the two Murakami's.

mshiflet · Post by **mshiflet** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:48 am

interesting. thanks grishna. seems a pretty odd, uninformed criticism.

hard to express accurately, but the main reason i don't get it is that such a huge percentage of japanese art is used to back up the notion that japan is more like the west and is culturaly superior to other asian countries. look at manga, the most popular and far-reaching japanese art: japanese characters are almost always drawn with huge round eyes and often blond hair - which is no coincidence and is actually a characteristic of art here that dates back centuries.

there are several other things: the fact that i've seen the bland, trend-chasing artwork of hisao domoto accompanied by the description: "he tried many styles over the years, but mastered them all," the first half of which is actually true; the fact that everyone here listens to shitty american music, watch shitty american movies, etc. leaves the impression that if murakami were doing pale imitations of western stuff, he'd be heralded, but since the work is difficult/abstract/whatever they just say "pandering" and write it off.

hatta · Post by **hatta** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:06 pm

It is worth mentioning that Murakami did basically flee Japan after writing Norwegian Wood due to it's overwhelming popularity. From what I understand he has always appealed to the younger crowd who may be more willing to embrace his western pastiche. There is some good information on all of this in Jay Rubin's fascinating book on translating Murakami: Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:02 pm

hatta wrote: From what I understand he has always appealed to the younger crowd who may be more willing to embrace his western pastiche.

this was basically Yuko's answer, she says that Haruki has always been an outsider to the Japanese literature tradition, and that many older critics have never accepted him because of this. he's made something of a point of being outside of this, not even reading most of it himself, which of course ends up cutting both ways. I'm pretty sure he's ridiculously popular among younger readers there, I know that she was obsessed with his work long before she moved here.

as for the Ryu/Haruki comparison, she basically said that Ryu may sell more copies, but it's like J-pop, not nearly as serious writing.

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:03 pm

and Mike, you can just check prices in the US on Amazon US, can't you?