Haruki Murakami

What's your opinion on this guy, Veeky Forums? Is he a hack? Personally I enjoy him.

Other urls found in this thread:

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japanesestudies.org.uk/discussionpapers/2006/Nakanishi2.html
postmodernmystery.com/kafka_on_the_shore.html
google.hn/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/01/24/subconscious-tunnels/amp
jstor.org/stable/40149070?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
google.hn/amp/s/bluelabyrinths.com/2015/05/19/borges-and-murakami-philosophy-in-fiction/amp/
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It doesn't really matter what we think. If you enjoy him that's all that really matters.

I am the Japan
I have seen Murakami in maid cafe serving beer in frilly dress in Akiba
Very much the disgusting appearances
His book read like cheeseburger

I read 19Q4 and couldn't stand it. Like a lot of modern Japanese authors he's more style than substance. If you like him that's great, at least you're enjoying one more thing than I am.

I read halfway through 1Q84 and then dropped it because I'm a lazy faggot but I liked the scene with Aomame talking to the police woman in bed. That one stuck with me I guess.

In my country, this man he is nothing.

Read 1Q84 and enjoyed it a lot.
Read Kafka On the Shore, was a little disappointed.
Started to read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and found the translation to be horrible, much worse than 1Q84. I'm not sure I'm a fan.

Op here, I actually couldn't finish 1q84 myself, it seemed to drag on and also I was lazy.

I actually enjoyed his shorter, less "magical" books more, such as Norwegian wood and south of the border, west of the sun a lot more. Tsukuru tazaki was decent, too. He really does remind me of Soseki in some of these.

After Dark is his best work

Extremely misread Jap; genuinely good. Wind-Up Bird is his best, although most of his stuff is on the comfy side.

Could you elaborate on how he is misread? I think I know very well what you mean, but would like to know your opinion.

Most people, both his detractors and readers alike, seem to think that his work is a denial of the Japanese literary tradition and that the guy is a globalized whore who only knows how to write comfy books.

In reality, though, Murakami is one of the most original and significant writers of contemporary literature not only because of his commentary regarding the current state of the globalized Japan, but because of his writing on the concept of the Japanese identity and just how much it has been westernized and changed.

This post-modern take on certain aspects of Japanese literature and traditions is especially apparent in stuff like Wind-Up Bird and Hardboiled, books in which Japanese values and traditions and a person's own individual identity and problems (particularly a Japanese man's indovidual identity) conflict with each other. Toru from Wind-Up Bird is very much an emasculated parasite, which is very anti-Japanese, especially in 90's Japan. He explores this in many other ways, too.

That's only one of the many substantial depths, though. Murakami's fusion of traditional Japanese writing and prose aesthetics with a Western "style" is another interesting thing, one that is very apparent in Hardboiled Wonderland, and moreso in the original Japanese. This carries some commentary on its own, obviously, and actually succeeds at doing the same thing that Soseki tried, although Soseki's approach wasn't as strong or intentional as Murakami's.

I could go on, but that should be enough. I'm not being eloquent or articulate at all, though. But my point is that people just shrug him off as an exotic and comfy writer with no depth.

And as a brief addendum, you can realize how the idea of the collective Japanese psyche vs. and individual identity concerns him in Underground. He also sort of reaches the conclusion that contemporary Japanese society is for the most part very fragile both on a micro and macro level in that book.

Chink magic realism is even worse than original magic realism.

This was fantastic

i think he isnt revolutionary

but as someone who reads emotionally, he is worth the effort half of the time. kafka on the shore and wild sheep chase are the two to read if you want to dip your feet in his work.

he certainly is fun and easy to read.

I wouldn't read him, he's too popular for there to be any cachet in it, and cachet's the only reason to read an Asian writer.

I tried two books by him before I even knew Veeky Forums exists, didn't enjoy.

Came here to post this.

1Q84 is a meme; do not read.

Murakami's work depicts the post-modern reality of the globalization of Empire shorn from the frame of the national mythology. The inner worlds that his characters inhabit go underneath the cultural imagination of the Japanese identity.

Valid defense, but if you ask Japanese readers about him they shrug him off like he's their John Green: a populist whose "examination" of Japanese culture is vapid and tailored to Western sensibilities

I'd argue Mishima was the one who had more to say about the 'softening' of Japan post-war. And Best Murakami is at least honest about the degeneracy he's so obsessed with. Haruki comes across as a happy street peddler ... plus he rehashes the same concepts

If you ask serious American readers who really has the pulse of the country, you're gonna get the same names: Pinecone, McCarthy, Roth, DeLillo. And NONE of those individuals is remotely pandering. You gotta work to understand them

Murakami's work is fundamentally post-modern, and his worldwide popularity reflects that. His work creates a new narrative form which reflects the change in the order of representation in the post-National world. It is a Global literature. Japan is only the symbolic locus of this erosion of the national framework.

any recommendations for books like norwegian wood?

By Murakami? Hear the Wind Sing/Pinball 1973. You could also try Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto but she isn't as good as Murakami, though still cozy. If you're interested in movies then Love Letter by Shunji Iwai is a good film that was inspired by Norwegian Wood.

you're a pseud

Define "Global Literature"

t. looks at the present through a rear-view mirror

>Popularity=he's post modern
How exactly has he established a new narrative form? How does his work "errode the national framework"? You may have a point but these sound like umbrella statements created to cause confusion so that you can protect an author you're emotionally partial to.

Murakami is widely-read throughout the entire world. His international literary reception exemplifies the post-modern condition of his work, his work is written for a new form of sovereignty, a new form of power relations, a global market, which is why he creates new narrative forms. Contrary to popular belief, his work does not depict American cultural colonization of Japan, but it is post-Colonial. Murakami invents a new type of narratology for the biopolitical world we live in and rearticulates the very nature of our ontology and psychogeographic space.

Not all Japanese readers. Most Japanese people have only read a book or two by him, and that's it. Again, the lack of interesting commentary on his work is because of his mainstream popularity. Some high-brow critics and essayists have indeed written interesting pieces on Murakami's work, though.

Mishima is great. I love the guy's work, but he's just as monothematic as Haruki in regards to post-war Japan, and, at the end of the day, not as ambitious. Although granted, Haruki has the great advantage of being younger than Mishima.
Murakami is not a happy street peddler or optimistic about modern Japanese society; he's ambivalent about it. What he celebrates is individuality. In his best novels, the ending usually centers on the protagonist gaining independence and being freed from something, and that something is usually allegorical. Kafka and Toru Okada are the biggest examples of this. The protag from Hardboiled actually has a somewhat depressing ending depending on your POV.

Ryu's okay, but that's it. Tokyo Decadence is genuinely great.

Murakami is just as good as DeLillo and Roth, but not on the same level as Pinecone.

>how does his work erode the national framework
If you couldn't pick that up it sounds like you need to do a close reading of his work. You need to read from a critical literary mindset, not for entertainment. Start with his earliest work and don't neglect his short stories which often show him experimenting with new techniques that he'll use in his novels. You should be able to see the changes in the thematic concerns he dwells on throughout the phases of his career. "Hard-Boiled Wonderland" is the apotheosis of what I'm talking about though.

To add to what this user said, I recommend reading Underground, which is more explicit about what Murakami usually explores in his fiction.

Yes "Underground" is part of the next phase of his career like "Wind up Bird" in which he starts dealing with representations of history and how these things intertwine with the national mythology.

The fact that he is widely read does not make him postmodern. His sociopolitical commentary, sure, but not his popularity.

Hooray for Murakami and his insight on post colonialism, it would be more interesting if his prose wasn't trash. Dropped Norwegian Wood quickly because of it and it's going to take a lot of persuation to convince me to go back, regardless of his social awareness and his ability to integrate it into a narrative.

hurr durr muh globalism muh postmodern

just keep throwing around buzzwords without reading anything. it seems to be what's in vogue these days

I get it after reading this I put him down because I found him boring

If you're not interested in literary and comparative analysis, then what are you doing here? And yes, Murakami is fundamentally post-modern compared to Kenzaburo Oe who is still writing in the tradition of late-modernism. The point I was trying to make about Murakami's global readership is that nationality doesnt matter at all when reading his work -- because as I have previously said, Murakami's work is about depicting the new world we live in today and everything that comes with that, due to the globalization of Empire, a world where all previous signs, symbols, and mythologies have lost their meaning. Murakami is dealing with that loss, and creates new literary forms to deal with it, which is what makes him the only true Contemporary author working today.

john green also depicts the world we live in today, that's why murakami's book reads like cheeseburger and why no one actually respects him outside of middlebrow pseuds like yourself

If you can't handle that Murakami is so far ahead of the game and are still stuck looking through the present through a rear-view mirror, then don't read him. He's already widely beloved, critically acclaimed, and won all of Japan's top literary prizes.

epicburn my man upboats 4 u

No intelligent response to my analysis. Just what I expected. Do you even understand what the point of Comparative Literature is?

"murakami is global and modern therefore he's not beholder to the same judgments of quality that everyone else is"

absolutely ebin

Not that guy, but I get what you're stating. We just don't agree with you. I've read FOUR of his books (because they're always being shilled) and while they're certainly fine, he's honestly not that far from John Green.

At least, he's closer to Green than Philip Roth if we're comparing current greats

You are the one coming across as ignorant here. You offer no analysis and when questioned just resort to some arbitrary judgement of being a "middlebrow pseud". Like I said before, do you know what the point of Comparative Literature is? This isn't the 1950's anymore, we're not working within New Criticism. And Murakami is highly critically acclaimed, by both critics in Japan and out. It seems to me like YOU are the pseud here, just doing shameless shitposting without an intelligent thought behind it.

No, Murakami is better than Roth. And I doubt you've ever read a full John Green novel in your life, I have and they are not remotely alike. The only American author on Murakami's level is DeLillo.

he's good. problem is that his most books are super long and take forever to read. the shorter books are often not represenattive of his style, but also good reads.

Murakami, to give you an idea, is essentially Japan's DeLillo. Wind-Up Bird is in many ways the Japanese equivalent to Underworld, in terms of how ambitious they are.

You only dislike him because collegefags read him because he's trendy and exotic. In other words, you're a contrarian pleb who's either baiting or has incredibly shit reading comprehension.
As much as I like Murakami, I think Pinecone is better. He *is* on par with DeLillo, though.
I'll bite. Considering that the likes of Updike and Svetlana Alexievich, among others, consider Murakami's work top-tier, I'd say that comparing him to Green is pretty retarded.

I'm here to say his prose fucking sucks, which is apparently what many people are hinting at in this thread but are afraid to say so outright. My problem with Murakami was never with his social commentary and its being explained in this thread has made his work more attractive to me. That being said I'm not gonna read his work because his plots generally suck and is prose is even worse.

If you're reading for the prose and experimentation in language just go read William Gass. Murakami's prose is like Fitzgerald's or Carver's, evocative and clearly lays out the story, with a nice metaphor every now and then. This prose style is essential to contrasting with the much deeper semiotics and subtext of his novels.

after the quake is one of my favorite collections of his, favorite short being landscape with flatiron

>Murakami is better than Roth

I'm sorry, user, this is simply insane.

>American Pastoral
>Sabbath's Theater
>The Plot Against America
>The Counterlife

Hell, even Goodbye Columbus is better than anything Worst Murakami has ever written. And I hate jumping on the "his prose sucks" meme ... he doesn't read that well (at least in translation). And if you want that good ol' neurotic sexual shit, there's always Portnoy's Complaint (cunts! for fucking!)

>I doubt you've ever read a full John Green novel

I've TAUGHT John Green user (not my choice). I never said he was good but >dem kids like him.

That one is good, it's a shame not all of his short stories have been translated into English, not to mention all his travel essays and reviews and everything else. There's a great Japanese collection of his that opens with a literary frame story, Murakami pretending to be a Journalist and the following stories being what he's recorded down. Though of course all the stories are fictional, though when they were first published readers believed they were real. Murakami was really experimenting with his realist style in that period leading up to Norwegian Wood.

Why do you call him "Worst Murakami" Do you seriously believe that Ryu is better? I find him much more pulpy and his works do not have as much subtext and deep meaning as Haruki's do. If you're actually an English teacher, I feel bad for your students, you come across as being not very knowledgeable. I find other American authors like DeLillo and Pynchon to be leagues above Roth prose-wise, if that's your standard of judgement. I think Murakami reads fine in translation.

The only thing Murakami's prose evokes for me is boredom. Many authors address deep themes and are able to write with originality and beauty as well. Guess I'll just keep reading older works until I find a pomo writer who is capable of achieving both.

He means (Haruki) Murakami at his worst.

William Gass, John Hawkes, William Gaddis, Joseph McElroy, do you not enjoy these writers? They're definitely pushing the English language forward as far as prose. Try Steve Erickson.

>I feel bad for your students, you come across as being not very knowledgeable

It's all true, I'm an idiot who doesn't know anything. I have a nursing assistant wiping the spittle from my chin as we speak

Enjoy your middlebrow drivel that will be forgotten in twenty years

the other guy is just shitposting for a lark and dropping the phrase "comp lit" "globalization" "post modernism" etc. to troll anons cause no one on this board has any real academic knowledge. it's sad how many people have fallen for it though

>middlebrow drivel that will be forgotten in twenty years
Not him, but that's very, very unlikely. Guys like McCarthy are more prone to being left in the dust than Murakami. His readership will surely shrink, since people, and especially people with literary tendencies, tend to start disliking whatever becomes popular, regardless of its quality (just look at Cortázar), but more people will start to appreciate his work by then, perhaps by the time he's dead.

No, just the way you piece together words you come across as ESL. And I find it very amusing that the first insult that people resort to in this thread is "middle-brow". Do you read "high-brow" books? What barometer do you measure your taste by?

we get it, you usually read YA fiction, burgerpomo, and then came across memeakami and feel threatened cause people more well read than youd ont like him. stop embarassing yourself

If you're incapable of composing a rebuttal then don't respond. Everything I said is based off of a close reading of Murakami's work. Do you disagree that Murakami's work on an exoteric level is about the post-modern globalization of the world, the dissolution of nation states into one global empire, and the subsequent effects thereof? Though he does obviously address many other themes in each individual work, I'm looking at his corpus as a whole.

What authors do you consider to be "high-brow"? Why do you use this distinction in the first place? Are you capable of responding with anything that doesn't use meme words or a shitpost? What are your actual thoughts on contemporary literature?

murakami is just about being young and bored and angsty in a city m8, stop reading som uch into him

Actually, don't bother responding to my questions. By your usage of the word "burgerpomo" and your atrocious writing you're clearly some sort of ESL who feels threatened that someone more knowledgeable than him thinks Murakami is good, so you resort to baseless claims about taste and are incapable of addressing the actual analysis of Murakami's work because you lack the critical faculties.

absolutely ebin

Hola Pedro. Por que no puede habla ingles?

*hablar, *puedes
I love Murakami and agree with you, but there's no need to be a cunt, m8.

Don't care, shitposting ESL's need to leave. Anyway, has anyone read Killing Commendatore yet? I'm only half-way through Book 1 but it seems promising so far. It's completely unlike anything he's ever written so far, though as always he returns to the same symbols such as the faceless men. I wonder who is going to do the English translation, I hear Rubin's retired? Gabriel's translations are little too tepid for me and don't capture the feeling of Murakami's writing properly.

I have only read After the Quake and I thought he was a solid writer. Not mind-blowing but pretty solid.
His short story "Honey Pie" it's pretty comfy

Underground and Wind Up Bird Chronicle are great imo

This man

He is readable, but none of his stuff is all that deep. He is like a light Paul Auster, and Paul Auster is like the lightest of literary fiction. So, basically, he is a light as an author can be without specifically insulting one's intelligence. In addition, he peaked about 20 years ago. I still read him, though.

Haven't read it yet, might order it sometime soon. I only hope that Rubin does the translation, as I think that he's easily the best Murakami translator. Shame if he's retired. Any sauce on that?

Hopefully Birnbaum will take care if Rubin cannot.

I borrowed Kafka on the Shore from my school library and never returned or finished it. He seems kinda boring and perverted but also comfy at times. I have a thing for FLCL style unresolved tension between teenage guys and women in their twenties due to all of my own relationships being with older women.

So he's perfect for pseuds like yourself?

stfu, Iain

Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World was good, although a bit dragging. I don't like that he tends to namedrop/evoke famous individuals at moments and they have absolutely nothing to do with whats going on. "Do you like Charlie Parker?" "Yes" thats it.

After Dark was a pile of shit

McCarthy has popular and literary appeal though, and his books became two really well received movies. That helps longevity.

The thread didn’t need to continue after this remark.

His early stuff up to and including Dance Dance Dance is better, but his later stuff is okay too, particularly Sputnik Sweetheart..

People start the wrong way. Norwegian wood is basically female YA and 1Q84 is too big for an intro.
He wrote a lot of short stories, so that's a good start, and some of his older works like "Pinball 1974" and "Dance Dance Dance" are completely overlooked.

I've only read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, but I like it quite a lot

Kek

If I was a fan I would have finished the book.

>Some high-brow critics and essayists have indeed written interesting pieces on Murakami's work, though.

Where can I find this?

I've never read him in English, but his Japanese prose was too boring and effeminate for me to finish any of his books. I read 50-100 pages of Kafka by the Shore, Norwegian Wood, and Wind-Up, but just could not get into them.

literally doesn't exist he's asspulling

Where would you find them, generally speaking? I need help understanding The Man Who Was Thursday

One of my favourite authors despite his evident shortcomings as a writer. I don't really think he's that deep, but he's enjoyable to read. Most of the time at least.

Personally I find Murakami's writings to be entertaining but also generally intelligent. Some of the characters make comments that almost sound like philosophical insights or zen koans, but they are always place in whimsical "arcady" situations.

Still I don't think reading him is at all life changing.

Literary Texts by H. Murakami in Terms of Intercultural Communication (google.hn/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/13LyubovAKurylevaSvetlanaABoeva.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjJtNfm-6fWAhWDyyYKHWBUBFsQFghGMAM&usg=AFQjCNHytebXJsP3lxiUeXWJtDpRWYQjIg) [The sources are worth checking out, too.]

japanesestudies.org.uk/discussionpapers/2006/Nakanishi2.html
postmodernmystery.com/kafka_on_the_shore.html
google.hn/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/01/24/subconscious-tunnels/amp
jstor.org/stable/40149070?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
google.hn/amp/s/bluelabyrinths.com/2015/05/19/borges-and-murakami-philosophy-in-fiction/amp/

You can easily find the most in-depth, critical essays in Japanese. Particularly in respected Japanese magazines.

He's great at times, good most of the time, absolute shit a bit of the time.

For example:

>Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World = Great
>South of the Border, West of the Sun = Good
>Norwegian Wood = Shit

>shitposting ESL's

Lovely ad hominem attacks when you realize your precious little pony isn't being worshiped by anyone else but you.

Ah yes, all those critics who have given Murakami the country's top literary prizes aren't praising him at all. You are objectively WRONG. Try again.

Pretty much this.

After Dark is interesting because Murakami uses third person present tense in it instead of his usual first-person. It's a very cinematic work, it often feels as if you are a camera floating around. Anyone else feel it would make a good movie?

Do you have access to academic scholar or literary journal stuff? If you're in college you should be able to in your library database. If not, maybe try your local library, or you may have to pay to access. There's been lots of stuff written on Murakami in English in academic papers.

Can someone make a bot to automatically post this when the OP contains "what is your opinion on" or any variant?