/lit/ - Literature

>>15902599
Read it a while go. Pretty great, though I prefer The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle from Murakami. And yeah, I think he’s a good writer, certainly the author I’ve read the most from.

>>15902599
It's one of the few books I have given up reading in disgust, and I'm a fan of magical realism. I have never read a more pretentious, empty and soulless drivel that is so praised. Compared to it, Monogatari series, which has the same flaws and absurdity but presented in an actually entertaining manner, is a masterpiece.

>>15902629
Same, I agree 100% with you. I've read them all except 1Q84. Bird, Dancex3 and Tsukuru are my favourite ones.
Kafka is aight, not my favourite (didn't like the woods part) but it's ok.
Maybe he's not the best author of all time but I like his confy novels, you either love him or hate him since all of his books are pretty the same (loner MC, 2 girl fighting for MC love, cats, jazz, supernatural or not)
I'll leave the Murakami chart here.

>>15902759
>Trilogy of the Rat
>Four books listed
>Length not indicated for a number of the titles
My unread copy of Kafka on the Shore is two volumes and almost 1000 pages in Japanese. It's a relatively small paperback edition, like most novels over here, but that's still pretty long. Are Wind-Up Bird and 1Q84 even longer?

>>15902687
Fully agree. Absolute drivel. I enjoyed Norwegian Wood as a teen but I couldn't hack this. Contrived surrealism and embarrassingly misogynist

>>15902795
Yeah it's pretty thick. The bird is 800 something pages.

>>15902805
>and embarrassingly misogynist
You had me up until this point.

>>15902810
>Three volumes in German translation
I don't get it. Why does he write so much? Confessions of a Mask is maybe 230 pages in the original, and Naomi is slightly longer. Snow Country doesn't even break 200 pages. What's the deal?

gonna repost what I literally just posted in the other murakami thread

>Kafka on the Shore was my first and still only Murakami I've read
>it was extremely cringe
>Kafka was an author avatar / male power fantasy who got a handjob from a random older woman almost immediately
>characters speak to each other like they are redditors who have just discovered Plato
>20% of the book is dedicated to Kafka describing his daily regime of going to the gym and then the library like this is some "the daily life of a millenial millionaire" youtube video
>Nakata's chapters started off kino and even some of Kafka's chapters when the book becomes more magical realism were good but everything comes to an unsatisfying abrupt end
>I'll read 1Q84 eventually but man did Kafka on the Shore fucking suck

I'll add that Murakami had the audacity to suggest that you'll only "get" Kafka after reading it multiple times.

>>15902805
>embarrassingly misogynist
Oh man, I'm just now reminded of that one chapter where the transgender librarian "shits" on those feminists. Came out of fucking nowhere and the way the feminists were written was fallacious, bordered on parody. Felt like some guy on /pol/ larping about how he defeated feminazis at the store the other day.

>>15902815
>I'll add that Murakami had the audacity to suggest that you'll only "get" Kafka after reading it multiple times.
If his work sucks, why do you follow him? Why not spend your time reading Mishima, or Soseki, or Tanizaki, or literally any other decent Japanese literary figure?

>>15902814
>Confessions of a Mask
>Murakami

>>15902815
>feminists were written was fallacious
>b-b-but it wasn't R e A l F e M i N i S m

>>15902823
Confessions is Mishima, Naomi is Tanizaki, and Snow Country is Kawabata. The point was to contrast him with the greats of the transwar period.

>>15902821
>why do you follow him?

I only read one book by him, the one I described. I don't see how that is "following him." For all I know, Kafka could be the outlier and the rest of his books are good. I've read Mishima and Soseki as well.

>>15902833
Sorry, no Japanese are really /lit/ besides maybe Tale of Genji, so I wouldn't know. HAIL EVROPA.

>>15902837
But you know what he himself has said about his book and plan to read more of his work. I got the impression that you're committed to him, despite your immensely unfavorable experiences.
>>15902848
Ook

>>15902832
>b-b-but it wasn't R e A l F e M i N i S m

why are you surprised that an old japanese man misinterpreted modern feminism? Don't get me wrong, I believe anyone is capable of understanding anything. The feminists portrayed in Kafka are literally exaggerated strawmen stereotypes.

>>15902857
>experiences
>s

Once again, one book. Also, even if I hated a book, I will still do research on it afterwards. Maybe in my research I will have a change of heart or realize I've missed something?

>>15902866
That sounds like a lot of work to me, man. You're more committed to literature than I am.

>Be me
>Huge weeb
>Never read Murakami but wonder why /a/ shits on him
>Read Wild Sheep Chase
>Begin keeping room clean
>Read Norwegian Wood, Wind-up Bird Chronicle
>Begin respecting women, develop appreciation for the Western Canon
>Read Kafka
>Further develop appreciation for Western Canon, start working out
>tfw I am no longer a weeb, have friends, clean house, and self-respect
He's the ultimate cure to a disease.

SORRY BUT NAKATA IS NOT THAT SMART

>>15902917

>>15902599
Murakami is the halfwit's SCA-JI.

>>15902599
1, Yes
2, No
3, Maybe. I don't know. (Never met him.)

>>15902917
>Jordan Peterson likes this

>>15902930
JEEZ, GRAMPS... WELL, FOR THE TIME BEING

it's comfy but all his books (and protagonists) are essentially the same desu

>>15902917
As someone who just finished A Wild Sheep Chase and needs to get his shit together, this gives me hope

Kafka on the Shore is honestly one of his better books. The part when he lives in that forest and reads books is pretty much peak comfy.

>>15902599
I read Hard-Boiled Wonderland, A Wild Sheep Chase, and After Dark when I was a teenager and thought they were pretty good. I probably wouldn't like them as much now, they're all too apathetic and the meme about his books all being the same is 100% true. He's a writer for midwits (weeaboos, New Yorker subscribers, young people), but I can't say I dislike him.

>>15902599
Yeah it was pretty good

>>15902599

I keep hearing about this so I just downloaded it and read the first 50 pages or so. It's not just bad, it's embarrassingly bad. Hard to say how much of that is due to the translation, but it reads like fan-fiction.

Maybe I just don't appreciate modern books, but for me there was no depth ther; no emotional food at all. If it's supposed to be a puzzle, I would rather do a good chess study or crossword. If it's supposed to be an exciting story, it isn't. If it's supposed to be saying something about the world, forget it.

>>15904045
He's a pretty comfy author

>>15902629
It's been a long time since I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, yet I still can't get out of my head all the Lieutenant Mamiya's story.
Great book, my favorite of Murakami too.

bump

>>15904045
I’ve read a lot of Murakami and Kafka is by far the worst. No idea why it consistently makes /lit/‘s top 100 chart. It reads like a parody of his good books.

>>15906338
I heard that it's the book that made the Japanese literary establishment take him seriously.

>>15902810
>>15902759
I got halfway through the first book of 1Q84 before I dropped it. The prose made me sick, but it may just have been a bad translation. Dunno. I read Kafka on the Shore completely and didn't mind it, but this is like a decade ago when I still enjoyed Stephen King, so it might be actually be shit.

What does the wind-up bird symbolize?

Murakami is essentially YA for horney 20 year olds, and the translations read like absolute shit.

I can't even describe how hilarious it is that people think he is a nobel contender. Even if you were to look past the quality of his books, every woman he writes exists only to get fucked by the protagonist.

>read first short story
>dude gets cucked
>read second short story
>dude gets cucked
>read third short story
>dude gets cucked
fuck this shit. completely disregarding the fact that every character (except one) and every story was bland as fuck: i'm done with this hack

>>15902599
Only book of his I read is "Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world", that shit was insanely boring.

>>15902599
my friend lent me it in grade 10 and i read it only family vacation, i read it on an airplane, my first introduction to hegel, even edited the wikipedia page, i really loved this book

>>15909360
>every woman he writes exists only to get fucked by the protagonist.
>every woman exists only to get fucked
ftfy. faggot

i'm was gonna get a girl i know a copy of Norwegian Wood for her 20th birthday but i don't want her to think i'm weird cause of all the fucking

am i overthinking it? girls like these books right

>>15910451
>am i overthinking it?
yeah dude, i dated a retarded cokebaby bitch and even she loved norwegian wood, i can't believe she could read because she seemed retarded and illiterate but murakami really appeals to fucking morons because, hey, it's liberal g8 ideology

>>15908143
I'll give it a try, can't be that bad tho. South of the border is his worst book imho.

>>15910457
Dude what the fuck

>>15910758
everybody thought she was cool because hey! being a stupid retard is cool!

>>15910451
Most girls do which is surprising considering how blatantly sexist some of his portrayals of women are. I don't remember Norwegian Wood having any suspicious portrayals of underage girls though so it's a decent bet.

>>15910780
You should stop keeping philistines for company.

>>15910985
i'm a canadian and we're all barbaric philistines here

>>15902599
Dropped it after 30 pages. Maybe it was the translation but it just felt too childish for me

>>15911101
Childish? I'd say that's odd. I read it un English and It didn't come across as childish

>>15902759
This is one of the worst charts I have ever seen.

>>15902599
haha flipflops

>>15902868
what board do you think you’re on? idiot

>>15902599
Nakata's chapters were peak comfy, Hoshino's POV and Kafka's stay in the cabin are strong seconds. Most of Kafka's chapters including the ending were disappointing.

Recently finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and while the story was better it lacked those comfy parts.