Haruki Murakami

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hmmm... available already? indie bookstore or something?

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Thursday, 30 December 2004 20:01 (nineteen years ago) link

Borders - Tottenham Court Road. I was surprised myself, I thought Jan 6th was official day.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 30 December 2004 20:03 (nineteen years ago) link

i prefer his books about weird stuff to the love stories, so i'm preordering this. US release date is the 18th, d'oh.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Thursday, 30 December 2004 20:12 (nineteen years ago) link

Good news for residents of second-rate towns: MURAKAMI books 3 for 2 in OTTOKAR'S.

― Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 31 December 2004 11:59 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm about 60 pages into Underground and it's pretty good. It's a collection of interviews from victims of the Aum sarin gas attack. I like how he's organized the interviews into groups from specific subway lines.

― Drake Beardoooo, Friday, 31 December 2004 14:10 (nineteen years ago) link

I really liked Underground, his conclusions at the end are quite touching.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 31 December 2004 14:14 (nineteen years ago) link

Right now, Murakami seems to be stressing the point that none of these victims are necessarily angry with Aum. Maybe later interviews are not like this, but for now I find that fact pretty interesting.

― Drake Beardoooo, Friday, 31 December 2004 14:33 (nineteen years ago) link

Murakami's are all cheap in Fopp. Must get round to reading some of his. Norwegian Wood seems to be the title that comes up the most, so...

― stew, Friday, 31 December 2004 15:22 (nineteen years ago) link

Another despatch from the boonies:

PJM's beloved Ottakars are selling 'Norwegian Wood' for a mere 99p, see http://www.ottakars.co.uk/Internet/home/harukimurakami.jsp

+ £3 off 'Kafka on the Shore'

+ still doing 3 for 3 offer

― Mooro (Mooro), Saturday, 8 January 2005 18:41 (nineteen years ago) link

D'oh! Maybe that should be 3 for 2 ...

― Mooro (Mooro), Saturday, 8 January 2005 18:43 (nineteen years ago) link

Mooro beats me to it again!

I've got mixed feelings about 'Norwegian Wood' costing less than the postage Archel paid.

Jel, I've seen the film of 'Sound of the Mountain'! Corking proto-'Vera Drake' stuff.

― Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 9 January 2005 13:38 (nineteen years ago) link

40% into 'Kafka On The Shore', well into familiar Murakami territory. Reading the book is literally compulsive, had to take it into work today for a few sneaky chapters. Of course I don't have a fecking clue what it all means but I do know that if I think about it too much my world seems to start unravelling.

And I don't think that I will ever be able to drink Johnnie Walker again ...

― Mooro (Mooro), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 23:23 (nineteen years ago) link

I recently read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. A very impressive work - the first and only of Murakami's that I've read. I was fascinated from the beginning. The delicate simplicity of his imagery makes it very easy to digest his ideas, and the gradual introduction of the surreal elements gives you space to accept the bizarre and inexplicable without getting disoriented or flustered.

This thread has put me off reading more of his stuff though, as I don't know if I could go through a similar experience again so soon.

― Andrew (enneff), Monday, 17 January 2005 02:21 (nineteen years ago) link

i enjoyed 'kafka', but i wish he'd turned the quirkiness down a couple of notches.

― zappi (joni), Monday, 17 January 2005 02:35 (nineteen years ago) link

i haven't been this excited about a book coming out ever. maybe if _mason & dixon_ hadn't been about mason & dixon, but... though when is a new delillo coming out?

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Monday, 17 January 2005 03:09 (nineteen years ago) link

gah

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 17 January 2005 03:29 (nineteen years ago) link

Guh?

I sorta begin to think I'll enjoy reading fiction again if/when I can get one of my own books published.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 17 January 2005 03:31 (nineteen years ago) link

is gah you don't like murakami?

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Monday, 17 January 2005 03:34 (nineteen years ago) link

That price of Norwegian Woord is still 99p too much. I am sure Tracer Hand will agree with me on this.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 17 January 2005 03:44 (nineteen years ago) link

Hopefully Norwegian Wood is not the only Murakami you've read. I didn't like that one and he is, by far, my favorite author. Probably.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Monday, 17 January 2005 03:52 (nineteen years ago) link

I have just discovered Murakami (apparently I'm late to the party) and find myself addicted in a slightly shameful way. Have read hard boiled wonderland and sputnik sweetheart and have yet to hit that eww of reading the same book too many times (a la vonegut or palahuniuk).

― mouse (mouse), Monday, 17 January 2005 04:03 (nineteen years ago) link

he is an author that you can get addicted to. i haven't been as obsessive about buying every single book by an author since my kiddie reading years.

― jellybean (jellybean), Monday, 17 January 2005 08:26 (nineteen years ago) link

Finished Kafka last night, thought it was pretty good - a bit hmmm, 'dodgy' mind. The charcter Hoshino, is kinda who you feel like reading Murakami, you don't get it all, but you follow along anyway.

Blimey, I must track this "Sound of the Mountain" film.

I'm going to borrow Natsume Soseki's "I Am a Cat" from the library tomorrow.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 18:53 (nineteen years ago) link

i just started it... and currently i am hoping to find a way to skip work the next couple days to just stay home and read.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:11 (nineteen years ago) link

Sound of the Mountain film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047682/

I think it's better than that review implies.

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Thursday, 20 January 2005 09:46 (nineteen years ago) link

i enjoyed 'the wind up bird chronicle' and 'dance dance dance' but recently gave up in exasperation on 'hard boiled wonderland' after a couple of chapters. i think maybe his style and imagery have become a bit played out for me.

or maybe i am a snob, and i just don't like the sort of people who read him. it makes me vaguely irritated that he is often compared, favourably to paul auster, who i rate a lot more highly.

― debden, Thursday, 20 January 2005 15:07 (nineteen years ago) link

Finished 'Underground' two days ago. Ronan OTM upthread about Murakami's conclusions. It was a great read and vastly different from what I experienced with 'Hardboiled Wonderland' and 'Wind-Up Bird'.

― Drake Beardo (cprek), Thursday, 20 January 2005 15:21 (nineteen years ago) link

They had the new one in the library, but I didn't get it.

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Thursday, 20 January 2005 17:40 (nineteen years ago) link

two months pass...

i finally read Kafka over the weekend, and I was really disappointed. It just didn't have the feel and excitment of the older books. Maybe I started on the best ones (Wind Up Bird Chronicles and Hard Boiled Wonderland)

― jellybean (jellybean), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 22:28 (nineteen years ago) link

I finished Kafka last Friday...and I really enjoyed it. I haven't read his others, but I enjoyed just being carried along by the story. Plus I love that even though you get caught up in the dreamlike narrative, he writes so well that every so often you stop & go 'Wow, that's a great sentence', etc. I'm in love with the cover as well. That ceramic face haunts my dreams.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link

three months pass...

Has anyone seen "Tony Takitani"? I'm getting a burn of it later today and my friend says it's really good, she mentioned La Jetee and Eureka which made me more enthusiastic than I thought I'd be. I vaguely remember the story from a New Yorker a few years ago, but I always thought someone should attempt Murakami on film.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 16:40 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.tonytakitani.com/e/index.html

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 16:45 (eighteen years ago) link

6/24- Dole Cannery Stadium 18 Theatre Honolulu, HI
7/8- Wallace Maui Mall Complex Kahului, HI
7/29- Angelika Film Center New York, NY
8/12- Landmark Clay Theater San Francisco, CA
8/12- Landmark Shattuck Cinemas Berkeley, CA
8/26- University Town Center 6 Irvine, CA
8/26- Laemmle`s Playhouse 7 Pasadena, CA
8/26- Laemmle`s Sunset 5 Los Angeles, CA
8/26- Landmark Ken Cinema San Diego, CA
9/9- Ritz at the Bourse Philadelphia, PA
9/30- Landmark Century Center Cinemas Chicago, IL
9/30- Landmark Inwood 3 Theatres Dallas, TX
9/30- Crest Theatre Sacramento, CA
10/14- Landmark Dobie Theater Austin, TX
10/14- Landmark E Street Cinema 8 Washington, DC
10/21- Landmark Kendall Square Cinema Cambridge, MA
10/21- Landmark Varsity Theater Seattle, WA
12/2-12/4 Detroit Institute of the Arts Detroit, MI

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 16:46 (eighteen years ago) link

I finished Kafka recently and loved it. I've yet to be disappointed by one of his books. Definitely dreamy. I also really wish I could hear the song KAFKA ON THE SHORE now, even though it doesn't exist.

― gunther heartymeal (keckles), Thursday, 7 July 2005 16:48 (eighteen years ago) link

i read somewhere that there's a huge online kafka on the shore resource in japanese. does anyone know if portions of it have been translated?

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 7 July 2005 16:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Oddly enough events of today made me think of the Tokyo attack and by extension Murakami...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 July 2005 16:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Me too.

― k/l (Ken L), Thursday, 7 July 2005 17:03 (eighteen years ago) link

I started a Tony Takitani thread for those interested.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 17:08 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah might have to have a re-read of Underground

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 7 July 2005 17:18 (eighteen years ago) link

five months pass...

So obviously he's addictive. Everyone I know who reads Murakami becomes addicted to him. My experience is confined to reading the Wind-UP Bird Chronicles, Sputnik Sweetheart, and watching the elephant vanishes. BUt I'd be curious about other people's reactions--not why you like Murakami, but what specifically makes you a Murakami addict.

For example, he's definitely much easier to read than the typical postmodern writer and his lyricism has an awkwardness to it that makes it more digestible than poetry, maybe like Kurt Vonnegut. And he seems to combine pulp forms (sex! what happened to the girl!) to give the reader something to be interested in, so the novel goes by much faster than if it were just quirky surrealism.

― kenchen, Friday, 16 December 2005 16:41 (eighteen years ago) link

kafka was... disappointing.

― mark p (Mark P), Friday, 16 December 2005 16:46 (eighteen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

so i read my first murakami, dance dance dance, last month for my book group. i was expecting to love it, given what i'd heard about it. instead, i really hated it: the surrealist touches were either thuddingly obvious or 'wackily' contrived; the attempts at revelation and meaning made me cringe; the 'mystery' lost all momentum midway through the book (i think the only point at which i cared about it was after the girl in the hotel told her story); the sheepman is one of the worst inventions in modern literature; the narrator is an extremely tiresome person to be around. it bore similarities to what david mitchell's number 9 dream would be like if it was really boring and conventional.

any defenders?

― The Lex (The Lex), Wednesday, 4 January 2006 17:53 (eighteen years ago) link

not round my way

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 4 January 2006 17:59 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah but dance dance dance
is not the right place to start
as it's not that strong

lex if I were you
I would try norwegian wood,
hard-boiled wonderland

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 4 January 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago) link

i'm not reading norwegian wood, i have had it up to here with people lionising the beatles.

murakami reminds me a little of nick hornby urgh!

― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 5 January 2006 12:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Norwegian Wood is good, and not much to do with the Beatles if I remember rightly. Sputnik Sweetheart also good. But I have a harder time with his more wackily surreal mystery type novels.

― jz, Thursday, 5 January 2006 12:35 (eighteen years ago) link

What a timely revival, I've just started the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, my first Murakami. I'm enjoying it so far, it's funnier than I expected and there's some nice writing. Some of the narrative non-sequiters remind me of Ishiguro's dreadfully tedious The Unconsoled
, though, which isn't a good sign.

― chap who would dare to work for the man (chap), Thursday, 5 January 2006 12:45 (eighteen years ago) link

lex otm. i shall doubtless end up reading dance dance dance, though, as i have an inability not to read his books, even though i've only enjoyed one or two of them. i really don't understand why he gets so much love. the wind up bird chronicle in particular is ridiculously overrated.

― toby (tsg20), Thursday, 5 January 2006 13:17 (eighteen years ago) link

I rather like him, though the translation sometimes jars a bit. I find the books to have that just keep reading quality (similar to "inability not to read", maybe). I don't know that I'd make any claims for them to be works of great literature, but they're certainly entertaining enough.

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 5 January 2006 13:22 (eighteen years ago) link

a backlash at last? he's hugely overrated. the books are quite enjoyable but instantly forgettable.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 5 January 2006 13:39 (eighteen years ago) link

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