Oh noes! Not quite yet, but I'm going to be reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World this weekend. I'll be back to this thread after that.

I like his books. I've read a whole bunch now.... I think the first I read was Wild Sheep Chase. The last I read was IQ84 (and it took me forever and a day after I finished reading that to get that Q was a fill in for kyu/nine... and then I felt really stupid).

I haven't tried to analyze any of his books as much as I could have. I just enjoy them as a way to get somewhere completely different now and then. I like reading them when I go on trips. He does a good job at lots of stuff, but I really like how he makes his dream-ish settings end up feeling real.

Edit: You know what really bothers me? And I wonder if this happens to many of you too, or if it's just a me problem.... A lot of these books I've read not /too/ long ago, and I enjoyed them a lot. But I don't remember them. Like, if I was asked to summarize Hard Boiled Wonder Land and the End of the World, or Kafka on the Shore, or a Wild Sheep Chase, or most of his other stuff I've read in the last year or two, I couldn't do it. I could come up with a few scenes I remember clearly. All of those have a few scenes that are still really vivid to me. Same with After Dark etc, etc. One of the fictional hotel bars he made has become like, my dream bar to compare reality against. And I also feel certain that if I started reading the books again I'd be all "oh, yeah, this is what happens". But basically I'm pulling blanks on all of them except for IQ84. And that has nothing to do with me having loved IQ84 much more than the others, or having paid a lot more attention to it, or anything like that. This really annoys me. I don't want to say it makes me think I wasted my time, because I know I enjoyed the reads. But it's like having an itch I can't scratch. I haven't read much non-murakami stuff lately, so I can't really say if it's a broader issue I have or one just related to him. It's (kind of) funny though, since his works are so dream like, and this is the exact same thing that happens with me and real dreams, where they fragment once I wake up, leaving really vivid memories of one or two brief instances, and no recollection of the rest beyond some attached emotion.

Anyways, I'm glad to see this thread and (re)see the more general book thread. I'm going on a mini-vacation in November, and have a feeling that thread will be a great place to find an interesting read or two.

Last edited by Valeli (09-22-2013 03:48:52 PM)

Valeli wrote:

Edit: You know what really bothers me? And I wonder if this happens to many of you too, or if it's just a me problem.... A lot of these books I've read not /too/ long ago, and I enjoyed them a lot. But I don't remember them. Like, if I was asked to summarize Hard Boiled Wonder Land and the End of the World, or Kafka on the Shore, or a Wild Sheep Chase, or most of his other stuff I've read in the last year or two, I couldn't do it. I could come up with a few scenes I remember clearly. All of those have a few scenes that are still really vivid to me. Same with After Dark etc, etc. One of the fictional hotel bars he made has become like, my dream bar to compare reality against. And I also feel certain that if I started reading the books again I'd be all "oh, yeah, this is what happens". But basically I'm pulling blanks on all of them except for IQ84. And that has nothing to do with me having loved IQ84 much more than the others, or having paid a lot more attention to it, or anything like that. This really annoys me. I don't want to say it makes me think I wasted my time, because I know I enjoyed the reads. But it's like having an itch I can't scratch. I haven't read much non-murakami stuff lately, so I can't really say if it's a broader issue I have or one just related to him. It's (kind of) funny though, since his works are so dream like, and this is the exact same thing that happens with me and real dreams, where they fragment once I wake up, leaving really vivid memories of one or two brief instances, and no recollection of the rest beyond some attached emotion.

It's not just you. This happens to me too with Murakami books-- all the more odd because I have an excellent memory for books. Seriously, I can read something and almost quote passages for the next three months. Longer than that, and I can still remember distinct scenes. I remember books that I read in the third grade-- admittedly not vividly, but I could probably find and recognize them today if I wanted to try.

Murakami books? No. Just... emotions, and mental images I had while reading them, with vague snippets of passages I found remarkable. I loved Hard Boiled Wonderland, and I honestly couldn't tell you what happened in that book.

I know this isn't an issue with reading Japanese books either, because I can remember most of the ones I've read vividly. I don't read much Japanese literature, it's not generally to my taste. Battle Royale and Murakami books are the exception to that rule. Still, I don't remember Murakami well at all, and it's exceeedingly odd for that to happen to me.

Valeli wrote:

Anyways, I'm glad to see this thread and (re)see the more general book thread. I'm going on a mini-vacation in November, and have a feeling that thread will be a great place to find an interesting read or two.

Just don't read that Orson Scott Card space worm sex book. Unless you want to WTF really hard.

Honey Bear wrote:

Yasha wrote:

I actually have read that one, and I really loved it. [And Haibane Renmei was actually based on parts of it, Yoshitoshi ABe said. I think Noktoartifice had mentioned the resemblance, so I wanted to confirm it.]

[ I watched Haibane Renmei before I read that one, so I spent the whole book thinking, 'this reminds me so much that show!'  .]

That was actually the reason I read the book despite my general distaste for Japanese literature (strangely, I don't like western poetry much, but I love Japanese poetry...). I'm really glad I decided to give it a shot.

Okay I'm back! Wonderland was an odd book to read, and not really due to the oddness of the storyline(s). I had a pretty good guess as to the relationship of the two stories, but in retrospect, I spent more time frustrated about irrelevant details that by the time I got to page 270 (the big, revelatory explanation that develops (of course, just my opinion) a far-too-complicated reason for everything that's happened up to that point), I didn't really care that much about the 130 pages I hadn't gotten to yet. The ending didn't matter to me anymore, all I wanted to do was pick apart every single correlation between the parallel worlds because EVERYTHING suddenly seemed way more important than [ going through all of the main character's last moments in his reality. ] Except possibly the INKlings. Seriously, for the love of god, can someone help me understand what they even are? All I ever really understood was that they were disgusting and terrifying and helping the Semiotecs in their illegal data-laundering...somehow. Did I miss something really important, or are they just another detail of the world the narrator lives in?

But that world with its unicorns and the Wall and all of its small details felt so much more interesting, so better constructed that I really needed to know what happened with it. And really, thinking about it that way, if the narrator had been aware of what this other world was like, would his choice have changed? Did he get to make a choice, or was his fate sealed [the moment the Professor selected him for the study]? I'm still in the musing phase of this particular book-hangover, and I'll probably think something completely different by the time I get back to this thread.

So most of what I take away from this book: Unicorns!!!
Things absent from Murakami bingo: Dried-up well, cats (as well as speaking to cats and vanishing cats), Chip Kidd cover, unusual name (unless you count no names at all and referring to one of the characters as "chubby girl")--Bingo down the fourth column if my argument for "faceless villain" stands.

I typically have a shit memory for books. I actually try to keep up a list of books I've read with little summaries because otherwise I can forget I read a book in the first place. I'm surprised to see people mentioning Murakami's forgetfulness potion writing style, because it hit me like a truck. I've read not so many of his novels, but I've read his short stories and Underground, the book about the Saran gas attack. (A great read in any event, but super great if you enjoyed Pengruindrum at all.) Underground stuck just fine because it's largely interviews and then a shockingly acidic commentary at the end. (I've learned that for such a strict society, when someone's outspoken in Japan they don't fuck around, it's like spewing battery acid.) After Dark stuck quite well also. But everything else sticks in thoughts and mindsets the book carried, like Yasha said. I suspect that's his intention with the way he writes.

Do others that read a lot of Japanese fiction experience this? Because I wouldn't pretend to be SUPAR WELL READ or anything, but the Japanese writing style does seem to focus more on creating a mood or impression than plot details and character development. Kobo Abe's Woman in the Dunes is a great example of this. I remember like nothing of the plot but I remember the oppressive and hopeless feel of the setting.

The way Murakami has bingo and pie charts reminds me a lot of another author, Samuel Delany. Writes some absolutely stunning sci-fi but god help him he can't avoid Greenwich Village hippie music references to save his life. No one seems to punish Murakami in Japan for these repeated themes, but it makes me wonder how well he'd be received on a larger scale here. He definitely has a huge following but whenever I see the signs of it its among hipsters. Is that his target audience in Japan, too, I wonder?

You know how some songs have a 'hartbeat rhythm', and are arguably more catchy than other songs? That's close to my experience of reading Murakami. His pacing is somehow organic and attuned to the speed with which I process things I read. There's no rushing the plot towards a climax, no holdups. I could say that reading Murakami in English is perhaps the most natural reading experience I've ever had ( I tried reading in Croatian and the feel is completely different ).
And there's this ever present atmosphere of awkwardness that I find very endearing and relatable.

I'd say his appeal is the opposite of hipsterish. He's easy to read and differs from other authors in ways that are not edgy and avant-garde, but much more subtle. Not someone you'd get a smug sense of superiority for reading, anyway, at least with the realism part of his magical realism opus.

edit: I got: Talking Animal Who Tells Strangers That Their Mothers Don’t Love Them

Last edited by Snow (03-21-2015 06:36:47 AM)

mistspinner wrote:

Samuel Delaney - oh boy. I started with Dhalgren, and if I made a pie chart of that book, a third would be dedicated to "orgies." Really long, not that hot descriptions of orgies. That's how much I remember of it, though the prose was really nice and I KNOW he's a brilliant writer and all. I just...am a little too intimidated to start another book of his D:

Ah holy shit talk about starting on the wrong foot. Try and work up the courage!! I strongly recommend Empire Star/Babel-17. They're two novellas that I think are almost always sold as a single volume, and both are absolutely amazing books. Babel-17 is the more 'normal' one, about a language developed as a weapon (essentially a story about theSapir–Whorf hypothesis.) The other, which I love more, is a recursive story. If you survived Dhalgren this should be easy for you, though, and a component of the book is how people's thoughts and behaviors can be broken into simplex, complex, and multiplex. It's really great stuff.

He is pretty into his orgies and weird sex though.

satyreyes wrote:

I got Foxy Older Mentor Living In A Decrepit Country Inn.  I think they nailed it. 

I got this, too. I didn't think it fit at first but the more I think about it, the more that's definitely the right one for me. I realized it the moment I equated it with the older wiser figure in every Woody Allen movie. And the more I think of it, the more Woody Allen and Murakami have in common as artists. A lot of thematic repetition in their works, and a certain array of characters that tend to appear often despite being almost unbelievably eccentric.

Snow, it's funny you say that! I've always been accused of like master level hipsterism whenever I mention Murakami.