/lit/ - Literature

>>2810518
>is this book just filled with sex, depression, and endless suicides for the sake of it?

Yes... and no. Those are the main themes of the book, but they are to portray something deeper, something more visceral. I know your feel about trying to form an opinion. For me I either like a book or don't. I can't really explain WHY I liked it.

My first novel of his was Kafka on the Shore, and I liked it a lot. A wild mix of doomsday, sci-fi, save the day that ultimately made me feel that the novel was not a dead medium.

Went on to tackle Wind-up Bird and found that I was so drawn in that I actually enjoyed the historical inter-chapters. The sexual tension is, again, what keeps it interesting and is ultimately a large factor in the meaning of the work.

Hard-boiled Wonderland turns out to be his breakout novel, stylistically, as the Wild Sheep Chase is good but not yet whole: like Rushdie in Grimus, he's not yet "hit his stride".

I put of Norwegian wood for the longest time because it is his only "realistic" novel. I figured I would hate it and didn't want to be put off reading others. Turns out I was wrong -- the sexual tension that exists between the main character and Naoko / Midori again makes the whole story (if you're not into that sort of thing, you're in the wrong man's library, by the way). The hundred or so pages where she's committed to the sanitarium and he's visiting her, I read all in one go because I couldn't put the book down.

Maybe you have to 1) live in Japan? 2) love Japanese women? 3) be into typical Japanese sexuality? to "get" this novel. In any case, when he finally gets hold of Midori at the end of the story, that's as good as it gets: Odysseus reaching the shores of Ithaca, a tortured soul arising, finally, from the underworld.

The whole dynamic between Naoko and her dead boyfriend *spoiler alert*

>she could never get wet for him
>but Toru proceeded to fuck the hell out of her
>and she's wet as a riverbed after a flood

There's something wrong with her vision of sexuality and the message of the book, in part, is to not see sex that way but rather as an ultimate liberator.

>>2810518
Murakami is all about isolation pointless sex and post modern bull shit. his characters are flat because to give them any more dimension then necessary takes away from the pointlessness of life. I have only read DANCEDANCEDANCE but that book sucked so hard i know i never need to read another story about nothing. I haven't read norwegian wood but i bet my entire paycheck it ends without concluding any of the conflicts the characters had and is some kind of grand statement like "life is meaning less if you don't search for the meaning of life". what pisses me off the most is he will try to create some kind of course of events that might become intriguing but then abandons it so he can take some kind of bohemian stance of nothing really matters

>>2810525
>>2810518
>>2810555

You guys are all still in your 20s, aren't you...

>>2810518
That is a well-designed book cover.

>>2810561
ah, does it show...

>>2810561
yes i am 26 and i found the book a waste of time. does my limited life experience some how stop me from understanding the the grand genius of
"writing is like shoveling snow"or
"children are like shoveling snow"
"being a prostate is like shoveling sensual snow"
and the great insight that a writer must keep his characters forever danceingDanceingDANCEING or the story ___

NW is pretty middle of the road, rather unimaginative Murakami.

Yes, it's not great. He has written much better stuff, so go check some of that out.

>>2810582
SRY t dropped the grand spoiler if you haven't read the book the sheep man is the author and all he does is blow the proverbial snow in your face you dont find out why the murder does what he does or if the romance of the characters is genuine or what happens to the daughter and her parents it just ends at the end. he could have fixed the book by keeping it to 1 page. it was like lost he kept it going because it was a nice paycheck but when the expense account dried up he stopped writeing

>>2810588
from what I've gathered it was an exception among his books, and not how he usually writes, so I will definitely check another book or two of his before I give up on him. thanks a bunch!

>>2810582

your age has a lot to do with your perception of things.
do you still find Annie Bananie deep?

>>2810588
Man, was 1Q84 that bad.

>>2810588
really mother fucker you put DANCEDANCEDANCE in top tier
OMG i wanna fuck u up what other writers do u like because unless you've only read dr suess i don't see how you can say that shit

HE basically wrote it as an insult to anyone who reads his shit. he staight out says i dont care what i write as long as i get payed because there will be more shit to write tomorrow i wanna fuck you up so bad i need to take a cold shower so i can calm down u better be trolling me son cause i am so pissed about this top tiers shit i might have a stroke. what other authors books do u think are atop tier?
>>2810588

Hey, don't take Norwegian Wood as typical Murakami. As others have said, it is his non-surreal one.

Hard to believe how, considering we are now in the 21st century, people still let things like "wrap up all loose ends" and "writing has to have a meaning" influence their judgement. I mean, come on, we had a whole century to destroy these idiotic ideias. Its not like everyone should like these kind of writing style, but see this anon>>2810608, its like 'you do this kindo of thing, YOU ARE GARBAGE'.

On topic, give After Dark or Sputnik Sweetheart a try, they're short and light. You go and see Murakami doing his thing and if you like get the bigger ones, Kafka on the Shore, Dance Dance Dance. I started with the latter, it gave me a very good impression on the Murakami universe. I higly recommend it.

>>2810588
Jesus christ why does everyone rave about Dance, Dance, Dance? I mean, it's okay, but I wouldn't say it's his best.

>>2810597
It read like a ghostwritten Murakami book, and considering the rewriting of a teenage girl's novel was a major plot point, the realization that it wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world if it had been (ghostwritten, that is) made me shudder.

I've never read this particular Murakami book, but I've noticed that if you don't have a thing for his kind of diction and don't enjoy his descriptions of seemingly meaningless things, you'll find his work dull.

For a more "normal" entry into Murakami, try After Dark. It's a good starter for his works. Or just read "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning", which is a nice short story.

I read Kafka & couldn't finish it. maybe it was the translation but this dude has the blandest prose style ever. and the fucking forced references to western pop artists were insufferable (Beatles, Radiohead, Prince, etc.)

>>2810795
it like he gives up on making characters with opinions so he takes pop culture references as some kind of substitute for substance. in dancedancedance the girl liked some music and he liked some other music and wow i am supposed to fill in the blanks of a generation gap

>>2810784
ok i apologize for my outburst, and i don't mean to bring violence into it or overreact but this book was recommeded to me very highly and then when i read it and found it lacking no body wants to discuss any part of the writing like "oh that doesn't matter a books not about how its written" and when i ask "well why do u like it?" they say "really i don't know it was cool" and i wanna pull out my hair but even when u complain about how ridiculous i am being you don't discuss any of the points i bring up. How did u receive his use of Shoveling snow? and i must assume u are fucking with me when u say expecting a proper ending to a story is an idiotic idea

>>2810790
Not really. "After Dark" is his only third-person work, and I wouldn't even classify it as "normal" Murakami.

>>2810829
what would you then?

>>2810824

Hello there. First, I'd like to say that I wasn't 'fucking' with you when I said the ending thing. Its not that you shouldn't expect a proper end, but to think that if a stroy does not present a proper end it is bad, this is a, at least, narrow way to read a book. OK, you don't like it, fine. But it isn't necessarily garbage. I, on the other side, find a bit forced some stories that try to wrap things perfectly and I enjoy very much an open ending.

Now, lets talk about the shoveling snow, that, like the melting tigers, or some others images used by Murakami, are somewhat of his style. He uses these exaggerated, and maybe filled with an bitter bad taste, to express, with humor, how desperately gloomy some of his characters are feeling. This, I expect, you know. You, I figure, don't like it and I understand and respect. I find some of this images funny. They are so out of place and, as in Norwegian Wood, so exaggerated I can't just don't see them as funny. Matter of taste, I think.

About Dance Dance Dance: ok, this is easy. As I said, I like open endings, I like, also, those everyday stuff, cooking, reading and driving, they bring a whole sensation of normal life to the story. Not only that, but they make room for those contemplative moments and contrast to the surreal side of the narrative. As Murakami said: "I like to make weird things happen to common people". I could continue, but I am not trying to write an essay here.

Please, overlook the mistakes. I wrote thios fast.

>>2810588

>Dance Dance Dance top tier
>Kafka on the Shore garbage tier
>South of the Border, West of the Sun and Norwegian Wood below After Dark

what the shit man

I'm beginning to feel like this guy is actually shit and people are now realizing it. Kind of like how a lot of you guys (myself included) enjoyed Chuck Palahniuk's shock shticks in high school.

I tried to give him an honest shot and read After the Quake. Holy fuck was that shit boring, unprofound, and stale. I couldn't get past the third story.

>>2810949

While I feel that his 'older' books (DanceDanceDance, Hardboiled, A wild sheep chase, The wind up bird) where his best, I don't necessarily find the new ones all bad. I liked After Dark and Sputnik Sweetheart; Kafka on the shore didn't really impress me very much, but its first half is amazing; Blind willow was, for me, the worst book he wrote, on a side note, the last five stories, from Strange Tales from Tokyo, are perfect. I didn't read 1q84.

Maybe he should go back, this is just me, to those less cramped narratives. Kafka on the shore suffered from all its elements. That said, people tend to like his works that present a great number of fantastic elements.

>>2810588
>>2810940

you're right, Wild Sheep Chase is much better than Dance, Dance, Dance.

change that one and switch Kafka on the Shore with After the Earthquake and it's decent

>>2810518

OP, Murakami's style of writing covers his meaning. Take the dining scene with Nagasawa for example; it refers to the seperate lives they will follow: a life full of differences and death

>>2810973

I loved Nagasawa, I could not get enough of his destructive behavior, but he was so small on the plot I found it lacking. He had such potential, it was like he was the extreme Toru, all his bad traces elevated, while only some of his good characteristics remained. The letter thing was really nice, though.

>>2810984

Nagasawa is just a character to symbolize the struggle within Toru. In 1Q84 Murakami focusses a lot on the unconscious mind; he uses a lot of references to Carl Jung.

In my opinion, Nagasawa is the 'bad' side of Toru, he represents his frustrating relation with Naoko, the suicide of his friend, his unsatisfying desire to sexual behaviour he can't understand.

Midori is his bright, happy side: she represents the joy of life like music, books and food. Her dying father shows Toru that when you look back at things, most of it is allright.

Just my theory, but both Nagasawa and Midori are merely instruments to show the difficult relation between Toru and Naoko

>>2810936
thank you for addressing my concerns
1 i like open endings to it lets me believe that like life the story doesn't end with the pages. My problem isn't that he didn't wrap up all my questions with a nice bow my problem is he said "it was all a dream". it isn't an open ending because he literally ends it with the last page nothing exist if he stops writing.
2 i like when he incorporate regular life routine it makes me think the characters breath eat and live but when the people randomly fly to Hawaii or just hand him a Ferrari just because the author thinks it might be amusing rips me out of the story.
3 i understand the appeal of poetic imagery but he used the shoveling snow metaphor as the thesis for the book. The daughters name was snow(which i just found insulting). but also the murder murdered the people for no reason and he killed himself for no reason and he was the only other character in the story besides the main character that knew the victims so there was no way i could even suspect anyone else of committing the murders
4 and while i can accept haunting magic and super natural shit the whole mysterious whole was just a elevator that took the characters to meet the author and end the story once they pull the curtain and reveal the wizard. Stephen kings Dark tower did the same thing and it sucked but it was a way better read then DanceDanceDance

here is some intellectual post modern shit i can at least respect http://www.scritube.com/limba/engleza/books/THE-LAST-ANSWER-by-Isaac-Asimo1625192311.php

just tell me y u liked the plot and the characters

DDD is great because it's the best amalgam of what Murakami does. It's a bit weird, yet focused and humane in regards to its characters. Quirky and fun, yet with a very dark streak and bleak outlook. Full of his usual conventions but also not afraid to take the piss out of them.

If you hate if you like the utter crap he has spewed until since the last 90s or you're a drone who thinks TWUBC is his magnum opus.

>>2811031
>If you hate if you like the utter crap he has spewed until since the last 90s or you're a drone who thinks TWUBC is his magnum opus.
wait what

>>2811041

Sorry, should have started "if you hate it, you probably like...."

>proofreading

But seriously. His old stuff is soooo much better than his new stuff. After TWUBC it is pretty much down hill. I find it hard to take anyone seriously who thinks the likes of - HBW&TEOTW, AWSC, DDD, TWUBC - aren't a fuck of a lot better than - 1Q84, KOTS, AD, SOTBWOTS.

I mean, c'mon. Sure, NW isn't a great early work, and SS is a later one that is quite all right, but really. Murakami has been been on the decline for almost 15 years now and finally hit bottom with his last novel.

>>2811011

No problem, anon, and thx for Isaac Asimov link, I'll read it latter.

You see, I am not a fan of those analysis that take the sheep man as the author, or such views that reduces fantastical things in mere allegories. There are, of course, interesting takes on fantastic writings, like Borges and the internet on the Library of Babel, but this one does not impress me. So I take the sheep man as a sheep man. Period.

I would write more, but I have to go. When I come back I'll write more.

>>2811031
>or you're a drone who thinks TWUBC is his magnum opus
Well, TWUBC *IS* his magnum opus! No point denying it.

My only complaint with Norwegian Wood (I haven't read it in a long time), was a pretty out there plot point idea that didn't end up manifesting, but would have made the story I think much more fulfilling.

I sincerely thought that Midori was going to end up being the piano student who ruined Reiko's life. I think it would have added a lot of extra dimensions to the seemingly pointless tangent Reiko went on in the middle, and made for a much more "meaningful" (to me) twist.

Yeah but it didn't happen and I was disappointed