/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Japanese literature is a joke

>>12993684
This. If you want to read deep, thoughtful literature, and your native language isn't hip and edgy enough for you, try something like Latin or Greek. Weeb shits.

I read that book hoping it would be something deep and all I got was some chump who cant decide what girl to fug.

>>12993776
>deep
>latin
>greek
Choose one. Just because it's required reading in the lit101 classes you never took doesn't mean it's particularly deep. It's nice to have read the classics to better understand later literature, but most classical Greek and Roman texts are about as deep as 2hu.

OP: Sea of Fertility series. Also if Norwegian Wood is your only Murakami, you owe yourself to read some of his other books. I didn't care much for NW but I loved Hard-boiled Wonderland as well as South of the Border.

This topic made me think. Do you think their books are written from the top to bottom, left to right like the manga, or have Japanese writers adopted western ways of reading (ie left to right, like our text)

It sounds like it would be easy to figure out, but the runes make no sense to me.

>>12994114
Most books are written in the manga format.

>>12993574
Has any of Yamamoto's books been translated?

Why is it called Norwegian Wood if it takes place in Japan? Shouldn't it be called Japanese Wood?

>>12994185
It's referencing some gay Beatles song

>based
nice meme

>>12994507
I got to third base with you're mom last night lol

>>12994082
I think that comparing the books that are foundation of western culture with this mall crap only pop intellectuals like is insulting.

>>12993684
>>12993776
Tales of Genji shits all over your pretentious Western books.

>>12994561
Name some names.

Murakami a hipster shit.

Read the classics, then Saikaku, Yakumo, Akinari, then Oe, Mishima, Soseki, Dazai, Tanizaki, et cetera.

>>12994561
Seems like you'd have a better time on a certain board filled with pretentious faggots like you. Aesthesics and accomplishments apart, they are as deep as a kiddie pool.

>>12994082
>Hard-boiled Wonderland as well as South of the Border.

If you enjoyed those, you'll appreciate the far superior The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka On The Shore

Start with the latter.

And pour me a Cutty Sark

>>12994574
i'd say it's pretty hipster to not like Murakami now
also, you shouldn't care if it's hipster or not

also, he's okay.
Norwegian Wood and Hard-boiled are good, Colorless was such a waste of time and boy oh boy did he ruin 1Q84 in the last book.

Silence was heart breaking.
did anyone read that?
i'm not very religious, but the suffering is real.

Are we counting light novels as novels?

>>12994687
I've read both and I liked them. I thought Wind-Up Bird Chronicle lost some of its charm after I read Dance Dance Dance (think that's the one at least...) and found that Wind-Up Bird was pretty much just a rewrite of that. Also the fact that the English TL of Wind-Up Bird omits large portions of the original is a bit of turn off. Even so, I highly enjoyed my initial reading of it. Kafka On The Shore was just plain nice all around.

The ones I mentioned are still my favorite Murakamis however. Hard-boiled Wonderland was my first Murakami (10-15 years ago) so I suppose that might be tinting my megane somewhat, but I still consider it my all-time favorite (heck, I like it even in the context of ``proper'' literature, for faggots who care about the perceived status of what they read). I thought the narrative was cleverly done (hey, I was in middle/high school at the time -- then again, I liked the split narrative in Kafka On The Shore too, so maybe that's just my thing) and both protags appealed to me. South of the Border had some utterly soul crushing moments, which is why I liked it as much as I did (again, tenish years since I read it, so I suppose ymmv). The whole growing up and forgetting-thing really struck a chord with me.

I think it's a bit of shame that Murakami is getting such a bad rep with the pseudointellectual tumblr crowd -- they're kind of missing out. Sure, the literary merits of Murakami's books aren't at the level of Akutagawa and Mishima's, but he writes entertaining page-turners that imo are far better than much other recent pop literature (Brown, Collins, etc). Not everything has to be Joyce. If you can enjoy a light novel you can enjoy a Murakami.

>>12994565
LMAO

Essentials are

Murasaki Shikibu - Tale of Genji
Sei Shonagon - The Pillow Book
Matsuo Basho - Poems
Man'yoshu
Yasunari Kawabata - Snow Country
Yasunari Kawabata - Thousand Cranes
Jun'ichiro Tanizaki - The Makioka Sisters
Natsume Soseki - Kokoro
Haruki Murakami - IQ84
Some VN that weebs don't give a shit about because it's "2deep4u" or doesn't have a cool enough plot, probably Soshite Ashita no Sekai Yori.

>>12995637
>all translated shit
into le dustbin it goes

>>12995637
Osamu Dazai - Ningen Shikkaku?

>>12995637
>essentials
>1Q84
gtfo faggot. fucking weeb.

>>12995658
Good stuff generally gets translated. Soshite only translated into Chinese.
>>12995665
Yeah that one gets mentioned all the time along with Mishima. Dazai seems more sentimental than literary to me, but I feel the same way about Mishima and I go against the critical consensus on that one.
>>12995694
It's good, really really good. Read it.

>>12995724
good rebuttal fagwipe

Yukio Mishima is great.

I'm an ESL who doesn't read much, but I found Elephant Vanishes quite enjoyable.

>>12995724
>It's good, really really good. Read it.
Some people simply love to bitch about something because it's famous and a success. They believe it make sthem special.
1Q84 is a book with many flaws - I regard it as full of cliches and Murakami seemed to have lost interest towards the end - but ultimately, the good parts make up for it.
And no, I am no fan, I regard Murakami's short story collections as boring.

>>12995737
You sound like an experienced literature critic who reads a lot and is a master of the English language.

Temple of the Golden Pavilion

>>12994581
Aesthetics is the supreme aim of art, including literature.

I don't even know what you guys mean by "deep" since it's pretty much meaningless as a descriptor, but something like Homer isn't shallow at all unless you're a pleb.

>>12993684

>>12995724
>It's good, really really good. Read it.
Not even one of Murakami's best works.

>>12996466
I don't know either, I just thought he was stupid for implying his "western masterpieces" are better than touhou for external factors. I'm more in favor of not comparing works made in completely different circumstances and purposes.

>>12996466
>Aesthetics is the supreme aim of art
Why does postmodernism exist then?

>>12995637
>Takehaya
God. You could have at least mentioned Mareni or Romeo, but him of all scenario writers...

>>12994574
>Murakami hipster
>Dazai not hipster
Murakami takes a lot of influence from Dazai, y'know. If anything, Dazai is even more of an edgemaster than Murakami. Dazai was chuunibyou before the term even existed.

Murakami writes better novellas and short stories than he does novels.

If you've read his short stories, his novels read like extensions of his formula. Part of his charm is the translation. I wonder what he reads like in Japanese.

>>12999453
>Part of his charm is the translation. I wonder what he reads like in Japanese.
How do you know the translation is the "charm" when you've never even read the originals?