Murakami

You haven't read Ryū and it shows, you are also unfamiliar with the watakushi shōsetsu (I Novel) genre
Start with Almost Transparent Blue

I see where you are coming from, but what you view as negative traits of him are actually the reason I like him so much. I like that melancholic feeling when I put down a book. And the 1960/70s Japan scene attracts me from an aesthetic viewpoint.

I do hope to read Kokoro though. I have to order it online, no bookstores near me have it:/

Read Kokoro three times

I actually have Books 1&2 of 1Q84, but I was unsure whether or not I should read it since the plot is really vague.

Gibs me the plot pls.

I've seen some of his books and I'm not sure they appeal to me. I get a real Trainspotting vibe from them. Which is fine with me for movies, but not literature.

I've heard of that book, but never looked into it. I might be wrong on this, but isn't that the one which delves into drugs and addiction?

Why? The first 500 pages or so were excellent, but it really started dragging after the massage scene

Also,
>it's a Ushikawa chapter

This is objectively wrong and I've read Almost Transparent Blue. It was as if someone described drug culture too an 18 year old neet and they wrote 100 pages on what they imagined that kind of life would be like.

Imagine being this much of a poorly read brainlet that your main criticism of a book is: 'it comes off as fake', 'it's like he is writing for a neet' and uses expressions only a petulant 18yo (highly influenced by this site's culture) would use, such as 'objectively wrong'.

It's a slightly existentialist book, written in retrospect, about drugs, sexual freedom and broken youth (partly corrupted by American blacks), searching for meaning.

imagine thinking prolonged interracial gay sex orgies in drug dens is just too deep to be understood by the layman and requires immense intelligence to really absorb and not just edgy counterculture bullshit

See, I only addressed the utter shallowness of your critique and hinted at the probable causes. Your poor interpretation of my quite simple post further shows that, maybe, you are indeed a brainlet with shitty reading comprehension.
It's not even about the depth of the book or having an 'immense intelligence'. Your laughable take on the its premise (drug addled gay sex orgies) implies that you were too shocked (or too much of an uneducated dumbass) to take on the other aspects of the book, namely the state of mind and outlook on life of its protagonist.

Then let's hear your analysis. Why is Almost Transparent Blue worth reading as anything other than an antithesis to the introspective post-war period.

I'm honestly curious to know why you'd describe it as an antithesis to post war literature. Introspective literature is at the root of Japan's modern literary tradition (as early as late Meiji, Taisho eras), so I don't understand why you'd include it in the same sentence with 'antithesis' and post war.

At any rate, why would anyone need a specific reason to read anything, you huge faggot. You try it and if it's not to your liking you put the book down and switch to the next book.

I'm not even saying it's the best book ever. It's a short depiction (emphasis on short) of the suicidal sex-crazed decadence of young antisocials during the 70s, particularly of a flavor different to the West. During the 60s, Japan's youth was all about protests and finding freedom and meaning through social acts against the establishment (much like hippies in America or the French). That fight was lost in Japan. Coincidentally, the MC (along with most of the other native characters) is helpless to find a reason to live for. He is trying to find his own essence while searching for meaning, like any other 18yo with existential sensibilities, but being young in that period obviously implies a different quest to the youth of the 30s, 1945, 2000. He is interested in Western culture. He likes the guitar (a Western instrument) but had studied how to play an Oriental instrument. He lets himself be corrupted by the blacks of the Occupation force (again, the Western influence). He is passive (he is bisexual and a twink, but no pun intended) yet he still offers himself to others. So here, his search for meaning employs a foreign influence.

He has to endure all the shit you describe as 'edgy' to discover his essence in a silly object: a piece of broken glass of a blue hue which beautifully reflects the light (of others), ironically the same object he tried to stab his arm with (btw, you may attempt a symbolic interpretation of the colors, blue = cold, white light = purity, synthesis because white light can be refracted into other colors, etc.)
That meaning, which can be understood as ephemeral, is pure and potentially self destructive.

Sounds like teenage angsty shit desu

Yeah I got all that. His identity crisis was self destructive but in a different way than the other postwar writers in their search for meaning. That doesn't change the fact that half the book is "we shot up and then puked everywhere" and "then the big nigger busted a nut in my face."

Angst is universal and comes in many shapes and colors. It's also a common theme in modern literature, yes.

Is introspective angsty literature 'shit' by definition? There is no 'objective truth' like that retard implied, it depends on the reader.

This man, in my country he is nothing.

Seriously, dude. I don't care whre the fuck you live, these books are in your library.

Why do you assholes all hate the library so much? You're all like, ugh I can't afford books. Go to the fucking library. You can even check this shit out over the internet.

Cunts. All of you.

Have you ever actually been to a library? Homeless people and the smell of mothballs everywhere

>request books online
>get an email or text when it arrives
>go to front desk to pick it up
>wa la
Barely had to interact with the library

You only need your basic 3:

>Norwegian Wood
>1Q84
>Sputnik Sweetheart

>I can see Murakami's appeal. I just know better.

Clearly you don't