fiction files redux discussion

I just saw this article about his new 1,000 page novel that is for now only in Japanese but I can't help but be intrigued and hope to see it in English soon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/...

I know quite a few of us have read something by him so it seems fitting to have a thread for him.

I say let's put it in the group reads the minute it comes out in English...

I will definitely be on board for that!

I will talk bad things about thim. I am needing something other than "Poor man Kawabata" to say about him....

I finished Norwegian Wood and I was again very disapointed. There is something very wrong with Murakami, he does not build characters, just cliches of the same character. Again there is an intelectual who claims to be bad with girls, but voilla, he gets several of them in a space of one year. All of them interesting, atractive, etc (which is not his fault, in all books of Murakami everyone is somewhat atractive, they do seem like little plastic dolls. In fact after the piano teacher story, I was like: It just looks like some anime cliche. Murakami no echi!). Again they are all talk, some idea (the lack of communication) but they do act not like this, in fact they all act equal. The only, in the 3 books I saw Murakami allowing to have a different voice were the cats and the crazy dude who talked with cats. They are too artificial, also the imense effort that Murakami puts to appeal to highbrown audience, with several book references is just out-placed. The characters do not seem to be aware of the same books they claim to be reading, in fact to so clumsy that sounds fake. Something like Isabel Allende trying to be Borges. The guy reads Magic Mountain! Ok, he repeats it 4646 times. But the first time the guy went out to pick girls to have sex, after all this he goes to movies and to a walking, and voillá, from a pocket dimension, he is wiht Magic Mountain. Oh, the guy is open minded, reading a difficult western author, but Magic Mountain is not pocket book. It is a huge brick, the kind that would be ridiculous to carry to a night off, to go to movies, to go strolling unless you carry a bag and this is one of most clumsy ideas ever. It is rather obvious that Murakami just picked a random book that Character should have, the wrong book, for the wrong character at the wrong time.
And the excess, the repetition (the incapacity to hide what would happen with the girl, it was rather obvious), the flashbacks for no reason... Poor man Kawabata, really.
He do have some nice imagenery, some good ideas, I almost good fooled by the opening lines about the pit, but he just does not develop it, he gave up the concepts for the characters... Really, I doubt I will read him again...Maybe short stores, where the constraints of genre will not allow him room for so many mistakes...

Jcamilo wrote: "but Magic Mountain is not pocket book. It is a huge brick, the kind that would be ridiculous to carry to a night off, to go to movies, to go strolling unless you carry a bag and this is one of most clumsy ideas ever."
Actually, I read The Magic Mountain in three volumes of relatively small format (they were about half of the current Penguin Classics format) that weren't all that heavy either and I could carry them in my bag.


Anyway, what I love about Murakami and what makes me push through his unnecessarily long novels is the way he portrays Japan and its religious confusion. For that matter, I don't think he's a magic realism author because that would imply that supernatural events are regarded as normal, in his novels the fantastic element is malicious, and the characters are unable to understand it (and my theory is that their struggle by the fact that they can't explain the supernatural -or in the case of Norwegian Wood, death and loss- through religion).

see, you have a 3 volumes Magic Mountain and a Bag. And it is not like I do not carry a bag with books so I can read anytime, anywhere, I do. But I do not go out to hunt girls at night in bars with one, It would not be confortable neither pratical. The actions of the main character do not belong to what he claims to be. (And I hear all the time : Why do you have a bag at all?) ...
but really, Norwegian Wood have nothing of supernatural. Kafka on the shore obviously have, they actually deal with the psychological problems in a rather logical approach: I am crazy, I go to a place to be cured. They never believe in what they "Hear"... It is not even Poesque psychological supernatural...

But, obviously, I carried only the volume I was reading at the moment, not all three of them. And I do carry a book with me everywhere, my life consists of a lot of waiting.

I read Kafka on the Shore last winter, so its plot is not all that vivid in my mind, who is admitted to a mental institution?

no, no, In Norwergian Wood, everyone who is psychologically sick, admits it.
See, the bag is necessary, what we do is relevant. You can read on a beach, but surfing and reading is a bit troublesome.

I hauled 1Q84 home from Washington. I don't know who dropped it there, or if they loved or hated it.

The first 100 pages have been definitely worth the time. I like the way that Murakami doesn't seem to feel pressured to create a mighty line. It's clear and confident.

Jcamilo wrote: "I finished Norwegian Wood and I was again very disapointed. There is something very wrong with Murakami, he does not build characters, just cliches of the same character. Again there is an intelect..."

I just finished 1Q84. It is disturbing how readily all of Jc's statements can be applied to this novel.

Having the distinct advantage of adjusting my expectations accordingly allowed me to enjoy the novel for its qualities.

I did find myself enamored with the way the characters were presented enough to make it through 900+ pages. The plot was well crafted and actually very entertaining despite some terribly long periods of hang time.

It was a very interesting idea to visit Japanese culture on the brink of the computing and device revolution. Modern thought and behavior without technology set up a nice backdrop for magic. Many elements of the story needed to be contained and limited in many ways in order to survive.

I heard from Micha that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is much better. Maybe someday, but not any time soon!

BTW, the heroine in 1Q84 reads In Search of Lost Time !!!