Haruki Murakami Anyone?

[Lote-Tree]

I have recently become fond of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami after - at the spur of the moment - reading his book "Sputnik Sweetheart" and "South of the Border, West of the Sun". He writes about isloation, loneliness, identity, unrequited love in such a simplistic fashion without being sentimental. In his book "South of the Border, West of the sun" he makes a point how our very living can hurt another individual. I think it was a poingnant statement about the nature of our lives.

Have you read Haruki Murakami? If so what do you make of him and his writings?

Regards,
Lote

[TheFifthElement]

Yes, yes, yes! I love Murakami, he's one of my favourite authors. You should read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance, Dance, Dance. All excellent books. I love the way he combines emotions, mystery, strange unexplainable elements, music, philosophy and modern culture in a non-cloying way. At the end of HBW&TEoTW he presents what I think is the most convincing theory of death and the afterlife that I've ever read. But I won't tell, you have to read it

I haven't read Sputnik Sweetheart yet - is it good?

[CdnReader]

I read Norwegian Wood (my first by Murakami) this summer and loved it. It's exactly what you said, Lote-Tree: "He writes about isloation, loneliness, identity, unrequited love in such a simplistic fashion without being sentimental."

I closed the last page, amazed and entranced by the writing and the story, and yet at the same time couldn't really explain quite WHAT it was that made it so magnificent.

From my book journal:
I cannot clearly describe why I loved this book SO much, but I certainly did. The writing is simple and beautiful, the story is well-crafted and intriguing, the pages flew by, and the last half of the very last page blew me away, and made me want to turn back to page 1 and start all over again. It’s about love and loyalty, about sex and death and insanity and reality, and about the world of college students in 1960s Tokyo. Poignant and lovely from beginning to end. I was transfixed.

FAVOURITE QUOTE: “It seemed as if the colours of the real world around me had begun to drain away from my having done nothing more than read a few lines she had written.” [p. 110]

[Virgil]

Never heard of him. I will have to look him up.

[Lote-Tree]

Yes, yes, yes! I love Murakami, he's one of my favourite authors. You should read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance, Dance, Dance. All excellent books. I love the way he combines emotions, mystery, strange unexplainable elements, music, philosophy and modern culture in a non-cloying way. At the end of HBW&TEoTW he presents what I think is the most convincing theory of death and the afterlife that I've ever read. But I won't tell, you have to read it

Ah Bueno! I have these titles but I have not read them yet. And yes "Sputnik Sweetheart" was good. Strange and mysterious.

I read Norwegian Wood (my first by Murakami) this summer and loved it. It's exactly what you said, Lote-Tree: "He writes about isloation, loneliness, identity, unrequited love in such a simplistic fashion without being sentimental."

I closed the last page, amazed and entranced by the writing and the story, and yet at the same time couldn't really explain quite WHAT it was that made it so magnificent.

From my book journal:
I cannot clearly describe why I loved this book SO much, but I certainly did. The writing is simple and beautiful, the story is well-crafted and intriguing, the pages flew by, and the last half of the very last page blew me away, and made me want to turn back to page 1 and start all over again. It’s about love and loyalty, about sex and death and insanity and reality, and about the world of college students in 1960s Tokyo. Poignant and lovely from beginning to end. I was transfixed.

FAVOURITE QUOTE: “It seemed as if the colours of the real world around me had begun to drain away from my having done nothing more than read a few lines she had written.” [p. 110]

I look forward to reading Norwegian Wood :-)

[Noisms]

I'm not that huge a fan of his novels. Norwegian Wood was good, but the others are a bit too dreary. That said, I loved After the Quake, which is a collection of short stories. All of them except one are really wonderful. Murakami was Raymond Carver's translator, and you can really see the influence.

Underground is interesting too. It's a collection of eyewitness accounts that Murakami gathered by long, in-depth interviews, of the Tokyo terrorist attacks of 1995, when Aum Shinrikyo - a Buddhist cult - killed a dozen or more people with Sarin nerve gas.

[TheFifthElement]

Ah Bueno! I have these titles but I have not read them yet. And yes "Sputnik Sweetheart" was good. Strange and mysterious.

Lote, do you collect books like I do? I have a stack of about 8 or 9 books (and some on their way!) that I haven't read yet and I go to two different libraries too and get books from there!

I will have to add Sputnik Sweetheart to the list now. Hard-Boiled Wonderland is my top favourite though.

[Nossa]

I've been wanting to know more about Japanese lit. actually, after I read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'll google him, and see what books I can read by him

[NickAdams]

I've read The Elephant Vanishes, or something similiar, and didn't like it.
It is a collection of his early short stories. He is said to have improved overtime, but what I've read has placed him at the bottom of the Lazarus pit. I will read Kafka on the Shore, or Hard-Boiled in the distant future.

[Lote-Tree]

Lote, do you collect books like I do? I have a stack of about 8 or 9 books (and some on their way!) that I haven't read yet and I go to two different libraries too and get books from there!

Sounds familiar pattern

I read "in-a-bout-of-obsessive-reading" and then will not read for a while. And when an idea strikes me I have to read everything about it. Now I am going through the "Harukami Murkami bout of obessive reading" so I will have to read all his works

I am currently going through his collection of short stories called "Blind willow, sleeping woman"...there are some memorable imagery in these little stories...

I will have to add Sputnik Sweetheart to the list now. Hard-Boiled Wonderland is my top favourite though.

I look forward to reading that

[xaqxit]

No one has mentioned The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle yet, which I've heard is supposed to be his masterpiece. Anyway, it's the only one I've read so I can't comment on the quality of his work as a whole. Something I've heard from two people who have supposedly read almost all his novels is, that once you read more of his works he gets a bit boring (though supposedly Norwegian Wood is different from most of his other writings), and repetitive overall. I hear most his works are extremeley critical about Japanese Capitalism, though I can't be too sure.

Anyway, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is very interesting and worth a read, though I think it loses steam in its last third, and don't expect all (or many) loose ends to be tied up. It's hard for me to judge the book, but as I said before, it is certainly worth a read.

[expired_water]

ive read a few of his books and i am a obsessed fan o.o i love the details he puts into his writing and how he takes the time to describe everything around the charecters. I read his newest book called "after dark" and my two cents thought on that was it dissapointed me =-( when i read the flap on the inside I thought all the charecters were going to be all connected with each other and bring this big twist at the ending of the book. instead, the were connected w/ each other by being in the dark? I wished murakami would of added more to it... maybe a second installment?!? =/ i doubt it

[Lote-Tree]

What do you make of the mysterious women who appear in his stories?

Is there some symbolism behind it?

[expired_water]

he does have alot of women in his stories with wacky personalities... symbolism? I wonder if most of the women he writes about are from past relationships because if you read "norweigen wood" he talks alot about women. It almost seems to real to be made-up but thats my opinion.

[expired_water]

btw how did everyone found out about murakami? I was walking around the library and the cover picture of "norweigen wood" caught my eye.