/lit/ - Literature

>>5705228
Murakami a shit
is the coehlo of japan

Wind Up Bird Chronicle

It was a good novel though I question its literary value. Immensely interesting and thrilling, it felt like more of a twisted, magical realist King meets Grisham fusion (though admitedly more realistic and less dumb) rather than a work significant to any canon.

I don't mean that condescendingly though, I loved it and will probably pick up more murakami in the future.

>>5705237
nothing close to coehlo you ignorant manchild

>>5705251
what was it about? was it sex/teen related?

>>5705257
There are "sex scenes" and a teenager (an awesome one at that), but it mostly revolves around a 30-year old man who just has a lot of weird shit happen to him. There are loose ends by the ending, though it's almost certainly intended.

A lot of surrealism/dream sequences.

>>5705271
what is discussed in it? theme of relationship, or what?

I cannot ever take that faggotfaced murakami seriously. His works are just glorified sex novels like 50 shades of grey.

>>5705286
That's my problem with it. The main themes are those regarding horrors of war or truly knowing others (and relationships), and those aren't exactly explored to the fullest depth, except in the bullheaded way that only Japanese can do.

"What's it matter if I don't know my wife? Or if our relationship has been a fraud? Or she doesn't want me? I want her and that is that" kind of stuff.

Murakami is truly a second rate novelist.

His work reeks of hyperbolic fantasy, no wonder weeaboos love it.

>>5705319
I'm glad I'm not alone with this notion. Do non-murakami dickriders commonly exist?

>>5705319
were just young people, chill out, no wonder you browse r9k, its better to live the shit out of life while youre young, its natural, rather than placing yourself on top of other people jsut because you dwell in your room while other people are living life

>>5705329
Yes, they are people with brains that are not caught up in marketing hoopla.
>>5705352
What does this even mean? Read below average novels because you're young? I'll choose to ignore the ad hominem this time.

>>5705228
i like them for the surreal undertones, i think the prose is quite bad at times but choose to accept it because i easily identify with the main character (it's pretty much the same guy over and over, right?) and enjoy diving into this abstract world

>>5705319
Kafka is truly a second rate writer.

His work reeks of hyperbolic fantasy, no wonder weeaboos love it.

>>5705369
What is this shitpost trying to prove?

>>5705363
>actually noticing ad hominem in a conversation with some anon on japanese manga imageboard
why dont you like his novels? is it because it doesent show the dwelling lifestyle of a psycho individual, rather than true perspective on love from intelligent young persons view, something-that-can-be-related-to?

>>5705374
>>actually noticing ad hominem in a conversation with some anon on japanese manga imageboard

>he thinks people have as bad reading comprehension as he does

His novels are bad because he relies on easy platitudes and faux-spiritual and surreal techniques to make the average reader think they're reading something deep and meaningful.

His romances are complete cringe and almost perfectly mirror nerdy weeaboo comic strips.

He is anime without pictures.

>>5705387
mmhmm thats actually interesting

which novels are your favourite?
which books are your favourite?

Kafka on the Shore - decent novel, first of his that I read. Didn't see what he was overly going for, but it laid the Murakami blueprints that appear in every novel. Some beautiful lines here and there, some nonsense.

Norwegian Wood - Read it straight after and enjoyed it a lot more since it followed a more realistic narrative and was less concerned with shoehorning in different cultural references in some cryptic way. The last paragraph annoys some people, but I enjoyed the feeling I came away with.

Colourless Tokoru or whatever.
Again, mirror image of Murakami, in that it had a lonely lead male who had his pick of women and had lost something in his path in which he needed to journey to get it back. There is a metaphor about 75% of the way through about animals going through a forest and the entire book is worth that metaphor, staggeringly beautiful. The entire book is badly written, like all Murakami, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've heard his translators say that it feels like the japanese he writes has already been translated from American.

Overall Murakami is decent storyteller with one main idealised problem that he has spent his entire life working out. It isnt totally original, and I hate his musical influences mainly, but there are moments of brilliance.

If you miss out on him, you aren't missing much.

>>5705392
Completely irrelevant to any point I made.

>>5705400
i know, im just interested in you as a person
i wont be trying to argue with you anymore since my english is too bad to express what i mean.. the phase when an individual loves something such as Murakami novels is something that every healthy young person will and should go through. there is nothing "superior" to this, its just a life phase.
its the same as if you were laughing at children for reading children books

pls respond to my reply, what books do you enjoy?

>>5705408

>“One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.”


I'm not going to give you a list of names, because it will only cheapen my comments but also my taste is not interesting enough to be singled out.

A lot of the names you will see on this board frequently, some from time to time. Others hardly, if ever. That is all I will say.

>>5705415
>having a mindset of an animal - always striving to be the best, to get the best, to READ the best.. What is "best" is just a subjective opinion of someone, that is completely unrelated to your taste. Its all about how a book influences you, how a book changes your character, how a book makes you feel, which emotions it brings up, which thoughts it brings up, which feeling it brings up and whether you can relate to it

>>5705427
Who wrote that?

Basically what it is saying is to live in ignorance.

>What is "best" is just a subjective opinion of someone
>that is completely unrelated to your taste

>subjective
>completely unrelated to your taste

>>5705439
So youre advising to live your life as an animal that strives for perfection? You surely must accept the fact the perfection doesent exist and you will never be content.

Subjective opinion of someone is nothing that you should set your standards and values upon, unless youre VERY related to the person (you were born with predisposition to the same values as that person has), but identifiing with someones opinion on books such as the citate by Schopenhauer (i suppose its from him) is something that will only worsen your psychical illness, since it will never achieve piece in your mind (cliche as fuck)

i wrote that btw

>>5705457
>You surely must accept the fact the perfection doesent exist and you will never be content.

Of course I do. However that doesn't mean I should waste my time reading populist fiction when I have hundreds of great works to choose from.

>Subjective opinion of someone is nothing that you should set your standards and values upon, unless youre VERY related to the person (you were born with predisposition to the same values as that person has), but identifiing with someones opinion on books such as the citate by Schopenhauer (i suppose its from him) is something that will only worsen your psychical illness, since it will never achieve piece in your mind (cliche as fuck)

Are you mentally ill?

>>5705462
No, I think you are

Murakami is just something that I relate to at this very moment, I went through my first heartbreak and it is very relaxing for me to read his novels at this current phase of my life

i have read Nietzche, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Machiavelli but i never enjoyed reading a book as much as i did with Murakami.
You may say that I didnt understand those books, but I cant prove that I fully understood them just by telling it to you through internet so its pointless.

Just live life and do what makes you happy, dont prejudice other people based on what books they currentely enjoy reading

>>5705474
>Marcus Aurelius, Machiavelli but i never enjoyed reading a book as much as i did with Murakami.
pleb

it's not you personally but it's his fans who constantly shoves murakami's dick on everyone's faces. fanbase is always staggeringly annoying like with subhuman shit like twilight, homestuck, mlp, etc.

>>5705474
>Just live life and do what makes you happy, dont prejudice other people based on what books they currentely enjoy reading
i wish more people were like you though but that isnt the case. a lot of our youngsters today thinks he is the voice of our generation, and it's exceedingly annoying and revolting.

i bet you all liked oyasumi punpun and thinks it's life-changing shit. smfh.

>>5705228
i read maybe 4 of his books. i only enjoyed kafka on the shore. it seemed ambitious and even if i didnt get it entirely, it still seemed like something i could at least take seriously as a work of art

>>5705228
Kafka - okay
DDD - good
AWSC - good
After Dark - mediocre
Sputnik Sweetheart - mediocre
The Elephant Vanishes - okay

I'm short on time right now, so I'm not going to give explanations but my ranking goes this way.

1 (TIE). The Wind-Up Chronicle / Norwegian Wood
2. Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World
3. Kafka on the Shore
4. Sputnik Sweetheart
5. South of the Border, West of the Sun

Pretty common way to rank those, as far as I know.

>>5706068
Wind-Up Bird*

>>5705228
>1Q84

dragged on a lot at some parts, book 3 in particular. if he was trying to create a sense of ennui, which admittedly would be fitting, he could have done it in 400 fewer pages. enjoyed it though, managed to be pretty emotional in a lot of places

>Colorless Tsukuru and his Years of Pilgrimage

entertaining read. enjoyed the ambiguities left open in the plot. that's about all I have to say about it.

>>5705373
lol

>wind up bird chronicle
3/10
>kafka on the shore
2/10
>1Q84
0/10
>norwegian wood
2/10
>hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world
1/10
>wild sheep chase
1/10

>Dance Dance Dance
He has no way of topping this, fantastic on all angles.
>Wild Sheep Chase
My introduction to him and a great one at that, compelling and full of humor.
>Norwegian Wood
Surprisingly good for his dry style. Emotionally resonant though eventually forgettable.
>Wind Up Bird Chronicle
This is where his rehashing of previous ideas comes into glaring focus. Page turner and mildly interesting but the 600 plus pagecount is excessive when you consider how little he's saying here, and it suffers from abrupt deus ex machina-esque shit happening just cause "hey look guys the plot's over here, come this way."
>Colorless Tsukuru
More like nobody cares and his years of who gives a shit. How he could turn a mildly decent concept into such incredible pointless mechanical banality I'll have no clue. The dry prose this time isn't doing him any favors. Themes are recycled from his prior work and the one interesting thing is a gay blowjob that isn't touched on for the rest of the book. If the rest of the book was about the gay blowjob I might recommend it but with its current lack of gay blowjob I certainly cannot.

>Audition
Different Murakami but it's mediocre at best. Don't let someone tell you this guy is the better Murakami.

>Hear the Wind Sing
2/10. A slightly snarky, boring book about being bored though there are glimmers of future Murakami staples, and his talent.

>Pinball, 1973
3/10. More of the same, but getting intriguing.

>A Wild Sheep Chase
5/10. It's a messy, very uneven book, but it's starting to look like the Murakami we know.

>Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
7/10. The Murakami we know. Probably his most wackiest, surreal novel yet, and the one that probably is most inspired by genre fiction. For the first time what is to be the main conflict of his work becomes explicit. Do I run from a complex, incomprehensible society full of problems,or do I take responsibility? In this novel Murakami ends up running.

>Norwegian Wood
10/10. Murakami's greatest novel. It's like a literary pop song in that it's unclear and mysterious enough to be relateable to everyone, but poetic enough to not be even the slightest shallow. The ultimate romance book.

>Dance, Dance, Dance
8/10. Murakami's return to explicit wackiness. A supernatural detective story that barely feels like one. Being a continuation of the first three books, he finally gets the lostness in the modern world of the main character right.

>The Elephant Vanishes
6/10. Fine short story collection, but few that really hit you in the stomach, and too many that are just lol random surreal. Highpoints: "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning" and "Sleep".

>South of the Border, West of the Sun
9/10. This one is short, but stings like a bitch. I think of this as his mid-life crisis book.

>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles
10/10. Murakami has come out from his crisis, and he believes, that no matter how complex society is, we must beat bad politicians to death with baseball bats if that's what it takes to make the people we love safe.

>Sputnik Sweetheart
7/10. Arguably a deconstruction of his previous modus operandi. The shy male character who gets all the ladies is now an awkward school teacher who fails to make a stand for what he believes in, until he is changed by a mystery.

>Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
5/10. More of a statement than compelling non-fiction really. He just meticulously interviews the victims, and he doesn't really strike much gold. It's actually repetitive.

>after the quake
6/10. Shows a refreshingly high variety in subject matter and main characters, but despite some nice emotional moments, and "Honey Pie", it's a bit unremarkable.

>Kafka on the Shore
8/10. A kind of spiritual rewrite of Hard-Boiled Wonderland, but this time the main character decides not to run. I think it's kind of a pity this one is read so much, as most people, if this is their first Murakami book, are likely to just get, "That sure was random and exotic," out of it.

>>5706285

>After Dark
8/10. Moody, little novel about society.

>Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
8/10. Easily his best short story collection. Highpoint: "Tony Takitani".

>What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
5/10. Nice, little book-length blog post for the fans.

>1Q84
7/10. If you love Murakami, no matter what it's about, this is a feast, but it's a very slow book, and you can tell he's trying to be more commercial. In his defence: To be heard.

>Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
4/10. It's like he tried to write a Paulo Coehlo novel. The ending seriously has these clichés about how fast time moves and shit. Wtf, man?

>mfw i dropped out of literature studies for philosophy and will never be a murakami scholar

>Coin-Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
4/10. Japanese Chuck Palahniuk.

I haven't read any Murakami but I would like to give him a shot. Looking for something short-ish, don't mind if it's difficult, just don't want to commit myself to 600+ pages if it ends up not being my thing.

I feel like from this thread I think Norwegian Wood or A Wild Sheep Chase are my best bets?

Guys thanks a lot for all the rates! I didnt expect this thread to go so far!

>>5706290
i can advise Norwegian Wood to you if you have experienced some kind of romance/love
If not then dont bother reading Murakami.

>>5705563
who the fuck thinks Murakami is the voice of our generation? Its just the way how he writes about love and relationship, he can get so specific and go into VERY deep details in what happen when two very odd people get together, and frankly, I can relate to a lot of things that happen inbetween people such as those in his novels, so reading his books is amazing experience for me.

>>5706285
>>5706290
just go off this. these seem pretty solid as long as you arent obsessed with classical literature. then you might want this shit >>5706176

>>5706291
my first reply was directed at you

>>5706320
>i can advise Norwegian Wood to you if you have experienced some kind of romance/love
>If not then dont bother reading Murakami.
why not? we're all humans. i never killed a grandma with an axe successfully

>>5706345
it wont hit you as much as it would if you have loved someone
it wont make that much of a sense to you

>>5705228

The only book from Murakami I've read is Norwegian Wood. I'd rate it 7/10, maybe 8/10.
Defintely it's a good book. You probably are going to learn something with it. The story is good and captivating until the final pages, and Murakami certainly has the the capacity of a well made, profound, empathetic description, and knows how to introduce the reader in his calmly mysterious world.
But along the read you see it has some flaws. Maybe Murakami is too self-assured about his writing style, because many times in the book he starts talking about some things that aren't absolutely, in any way, narrative or aesthetically, significant, and i don't mean the pop references. Magic realism? Description of the day a day life? Maybe, but I don't know how the description of a spanish tortilla helps to that among another 50 food plates. I don't know other people but dropping insignificant elements in the story makes me a bit angry.

So yep, in general the novel is very good but there are things in it that are much more like of a normal author than of a nobel author.
Excuse me for my english, it's not my favorite language.

>>5705237
Le bait

>>5706338
I figured that out but thanks!

>>5705398
good post

Official Murakami Power Ranking

1. WUBC (read 3 times)
2. Kafka on the Shore (read 3 times)
3. Dance, Dance, Dance (read 2 times)
4. A Wild Sheep Chase
5. Hard Boiled Wonderland
6. After the Quake
~~~ POWER GAP ~~~
7. South of the Border, West of the Sun (read 2 times)
8. Norwegian Wood (read 3 times)
9. Sputnik Sweetheart
10. The Elephant Vanishes
11. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
12. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
13. Underground
~~~ POWER GAP ~~~
14. Colorless Tsukuru
15. After Dark
16. 1Q84

I love that wallpaper

kafka 1/10
wind up bird 4/10
hard boiled 5.5/10
1q84 0/10