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/lit/ - Literature

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2834462 No.2834462[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Okay, So I've read Kafka on the Shore, not by free choice but becasue my gf promised to read the real Kafka if I read it.

wtf is going on? the more i think of this book the more I start to hate it. Why are so many faggots on amazon so impressed by it? The style was so so - with to many references to the protaganist washing his balls and listening to shitty music.

Who killed the cats and why? Why was anything in that book important, and wtf was that thing in the end?

help

>> No.2834518

You're thinking way too much for a Murakami book. What you see is what you get with him. If you didn't like it, move on to another author.

>> No.2834522

If you're expecting skill or talent, then that's your problem. Murakami is little better than that Japanese Stephen King who shies away from horror.

It ain't no thinkin' thing.

>> No.2834576

So the gist of it is that a teenage angst pretentious faggot with some kind of animal spirit friend runs away from home so he can learn how to take respontibility for his own actions and life, all the while he gets to fuck him mom and mentally rapes his sister - while his father gets killed by a guy who can talk to cats because he was abducted by aliens who were attracted to a young woman who just gut her period - who then goes on a trip to turn a stone, while his travelbuddy get a blowjob from a girl who cites Hegel for fuck all reason (she was working for a spirit who had taken the form of the cournell and spend his day pimpin and helping people finding stones) - while the teenager travels to the woods were he finds the portal to another world were they live by communist ideas and forever, but his mom/fuckbuddy dies and he goes home, while the cat guy dies as well and his travelbuddy, that suddenly is able to talk to cats, have to close the portalstone and fight of some white evil monster that is the wouldbe destroyer of the world....

it sound even worse when i try to summarise it, than it felt when i read it.

>> No.2834590

so painfully summerpleb in here

>> No.2834608
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2834608

>>2834576
>mfw when people try to defend it's still an allegory of maturation

>> No.2834616

>>2834590
no it isn't, asshat. /lit/ has never liked murakami

>> No.2834629

>>2834462
>Who killed the cats and why? Why was anything in that book important, and wtf was that thing in the end?
That's the point. Unexplained shit happens and people go along with it. It's like a dream. You either like it or you don't.

>> No.2834634

>>2834616
Yes, but /lit/ generally dislikes Murakami for better reasons that "hurr durr dont understand? why am i not spoonfed all the answers wtf do i do?". And while /lit/ dislikes him in general, Kafka on the Shore gets praised fairly regularly as being one of his best works.

Lurk more, faggot.

>> No.2834644

the only work of his that I've read as norwegian wood, it was a bit monotone and simple, but in a calming.
anysort of way. not too sure whether I liked it or not, though
anyway op I hear his stuff are supposed do be quite bizzare

>> No.2834645

Murakami will be totally forgotten in 50 years. It will be quite grand, but there will be a whole host of other scribbling idiots to take his place.

>> No.2834670

>>2834644
learn english please

>> No.2834695
File: 182 KB, 1606x1102, murakami.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2834695

>>2834634
Once upon a time /lit/ almost creamed itself over Murakami, with a few dissenters pointing out that he was more middle-of-the-road than acknowledged and had most of his popularity derive from his non-Western yet Western-embracing background.


But ever since 1Q84 came out, people here seem to be shitting on him with more frequency.

>> No.2834708

>>2834695
This is easily explained.

Once upon a time a few people on /lit/ had read Murakami and touted his garbage as treasure. There were "few dissenters" at this time because few people had even read the hackwork.

Since then, many have read Murakami, and now they voice their strong opinions that he's little better than pulp trash. I myself never read Murakami until someone posted a bunch of .mobi files of his work here.

Now I know definitively that he isn't worth any more effort.

>> No.2834723

>>2834708

I would buy that. I read KotS on the advice of /lit/, and while I tried to like it... I just couldn't. Maybe it's better in the original Japanese, but I sort of doubt it. It's like Catcher in the Rye on acid. I don't intend to read any other works by him.

>> No.2834744

People seem to assume that there's some kind of mean value below which a book shouldn't fall, and if it does, it should not be read.
I love- love!- Murakami's style and tone and atmosphere, and I think a writer would do well to learn from these aspects of his writing. As for anything else about his writing? Meh.

>> No.2834745

>>2834723
I'd give Sputnik Satellite a chance, it's short enough. A Wild Sheep Chase is his best, in my opinion.

I'm that guy that made >>2834695 's guide

>> No.2834756

>>2834744
>People seem to assume that there's some kind of mean value below which a book shouldn't fall, and if it does, it should not be read.
Are you getting that just from the fact that a lot of people don't like Murakami?

>> No.2834763

>>2834756
Yes.

>> No.2834811

>>2834744
Nice to see /lit/ not trying to back up it's bullshit, for once.

>> No.2834821
File: 44 KB, 500x750, murakamitier.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2834821

Kafka is shit tier.

>> No.2834825

>>2834821
and that list is retarded.

>> No.2834828

I thought Kafka on the Shore was an ok novel. It was interesting and I am a fan of bizzar / surrealistic stuff.
The thing I liked the most in the book were the parts of the old guy that could talk to cats. I liked how 'dumb' he was and how Murakami wrote him and the actions of the character.

Other than that. It was a rather entertaining book, but nothing special. Tryed to read 1Q84 a while ago, but I had to stop after book 2, cause I just couldn't take it anymore. I think the lenght of Kafka on the Shore was good, 1Q84 was just too damn long and to damn boring / tedious at times. Also it was the first book in years, that I didn't finish. Probably will get back to it, just to have it finished, but to be honest I am not sure.

>> No.2834904

>>2834723
>Implying that the fact it's like Catcher on acid isn't a good thing