Why is it that Veeky Forums hates Murakami so much, but he consistently shows up on greatest writer lists all the time...

Why is it that Veeky Forums hates Murakami so much, but he consistently shows up on greatest writer lists all the time? What are they seeing that you aren't? And vice versa?

99% of his fanbase is white women between the ages of 18-28
all of his books have the same plot
reflective and quirky main character who listens to american jazz, drinks coffee, and eats spaghetti every day loses contact with a lover and sets out on a quest to find them, encountering manic pixie dreamfucks along the way
if you want great japanese surrealism read kobo abe
if you want great japanese realism read mishima
there is no space for haruki
ryu murakami is pretty good though

>if you want great japanese surrealism read kobo abe
>if you want great japanese realism read mishima
I'm glad all of Japanese realism and surrealism literature can be boiled down to this.

>ryu murakami
Is he related to Haruki?

no relation
his most well known works are "In the Miso Soup" and "Coin Locker Babies"

After the Quake wasn't that bad imo

you're welcome

>IP count increased with this post
?

It's a mystery to me!

>he consistently shows up on greatest writer lists all the time
which lists?

Japanese literature sucks desu

Veeky Forums hates him because his popularity has gotten out of hand. The simplicity of his prose only exacerbates it, probably. People at least acknowledged that he was great at imagery in the past, but you only see the same recycled arguments against him nowadays.

Have you read him closely? Murakami's commentary on contemporary Japan is just as good as Mishima's commentary of the post-war Japan of his time. He's easily the best current Japanese writer along with Oe.
>ryu murakami
Better filmmaker than author imo. He's fun tho.

no longer human red pill desu

How DID he get so popular?

His popularity seems to have exploded with 1Q84. Of course, his popularity had been increasing before that, but that seema to me like the point in which he became a really popular name.

Aside from that, he has the whole foreign, exotic author thing going on, just like guys like Knausgaard do, and his style is not only accesible but also trendy on a surface level.

The warm reception and good reviews he got at The New Yorker by guys like Updike also helped, I guess.

Manic pixie is a term invented by some butthurt film critic who is a virgin but thinks he understands women better than everyone else.

he's alright. i've read 5 of his books and the only one i actually disliked was sputnik sweetheart.
after reading that many though they really tend to blend together, especially the shorter ones, which is a bad thing.

it was okay

He also wrote Audition. The movie adaptation I think widened his name a bit more than anything else he did.

Not genius enough to satisfy high-brow tastes. Not entertainer enough to satisfy middle-brow tastes. He's alright, occasionally quite good, but that's it.

The same could be said of Joyce or Faulkner.

What? You confuse Dubliners with Finnegans Wake? Autumn Light with Sound and Fury? Pht.

UGHHHHHHHH THE SOUTH IS TERRIBLE ALSO I'M GOING TO WRITE A SINGLE SENTENCE THAT GOES ON FOR ABOUT TWENTY PAGES

- Every Faulkner novel

A SINGLE LUGUBRIOUS SENTENCE OF LUGUBRIOSITY

Fucking pseud, do you even Faulkner?

I see your red door, I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

- Joyce