Haruki Murakami

thanks dyao this sounds spot on!

Thanks, dyao, my colleague is a runner and I was just wondering whether its way too obvious, but I guess if it reads well..

Have any runners read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running?

Yeah, I have. If your colleague is a runner, just get it for them. Runners love to read anything about running, and it's good anyway.

just finished kafka on the shore a few days ago (right after reading kafka's 'metamorphosis'). it was a pretty good read, but after reading windup bird chronicles (the only two i've read), it just didn't hold up. i definitely feel that murakami is trying to reference kafka in his writings. people running around doing weird things, not knowing exactly why they're doing them.

someone compared Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco to murakami. i'm gonna check it out. also interested in filipino history/culture
http://www.amazon.com/Ilustrado-Novel-Miguel-Syjuco/dp/0374174784

Also might suggest a novel by Karen Yamashita called Through the Arc of the Rainforest. There's a similarity in the way that fantastic events are narrated very calmly. Looking it up on Wikipedia will make it sound stupid, though.

the way that fantastic events are narrated very calmly

was just talking to a friend about kobo abe and this very tactic. it is a good thing to do, imo.

Have any runners read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running?
yeah, toward the end it just sounds like he's making shit up
so i have a colleague i need to buy a present for. hes into "fantasy" books and once told me he was a big fan of murakami and lent me 'hard-boiled wonderland'. can anyone recommend another author a murakami fan might enjoy?
felix gilman - thunderer
kj bishop - the etched city

Yeah, as I said yesterday in the running thread I would only recommend WITAWITAR to someone who's both a runner and a Murakami fan - it's not exceptional as a running book or a Murakami book, but it's kind of unique in its literary running niche, and it's a pleasant read.

Yasutaka Tsutsui - Salmonella Men on Planet Porno
really odd short story collection, fantastical modern folk tales with a strange sense of humour.
Richard Brautigan - In Watermelon Sugar
read somewhere that this was a big influence on Murakami, has some definite similarities with Hard-Boiled Wonderland. might be too hippy dippy though.

Getting a shot at a signed 1Ed of 1Q84 tonight at a raffle...

<3 this guy, although, I have to admit that even though I enjoyed his recent New Yorker thing, it was borderline "let's make up our own Murakami short!".

Got it, at a price of $33.80 (unsigned $30.50 list, ~$20ish on Amazon), but mine came with 2 cans of Sapporo and 1 Lengua Taco.

Apparently 200 copies of signed 1Q84 1st Eds made it to the USA and were raffled off tonight. SF got 40.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/the-fierce-imagination-of-haruki-murakami.html?_r=2&smid=fb-share&pagewanted=all

i'm both excited for and apprehensive about this book. got a feeling it's either gonna be the ULTIMATE MURAKAMI NOVEL or a run-on mess.

i think wind-up bird was the ULTIMATE and now i dont feel the need to read anything else by him tbh

Telegraph seemed to think the uncoupling of Murakami's universe from even nominal realism was a mistake.

I'll obviously read this, kinda annoyed it's only available in two volumes rather than one gigantic tome.

i love it when they do that! obviously it should have been three but oh well

that's kind of interesting actually -- did japan ever do the terrible self-defeating slide to STUPID GIANT FORMAT hardbacks?

Yeah in fairness after Against The Day I'm never reading/carrying around another 800 page-plus hardback ever again but I'd quite like the paperback in one volume.

its just one volume here in the us

we like our books extra large like our hamburgers and pizzas

holding out til 3rd volume comes out, at which point i'm pretty sure an omnibus version will appear.

17 holds on first copy returned of 8 copies

dammit.

Wiki sez the third volume was published yesterday, is that true? Are all three out here now?

confusing wording

In English translation, Knopf will publish the novel in the United States in a single volume on October 25, 2011. In the United Kingdom the novel is published by Harvill Secker in two volumes. The first volume, containing Books 1 and 2, was published on October 18th, 2011,[9] with the second, containing Book 3, due for publication on October 25th, 2011.

jon, here in the US, theres a single volume comprising the three "books" published elsewhere, it was released yesterday

Thanks max! I did misread that wiki thing.

np, its a good looking book too, its just crazy big, definitely not for the subway

Probably just get it on my Nook in that case.

this one then?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0307593312/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds

yikes

i meant this one:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mGxL5j-CL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

yup

"it's easily the grandest work of world literature since Roberto Bolaño's 2666 and represents a monstrous literary event"

monstrous!

Does that actually mean anything than "guys! It's really long and is in translation".

all the magical little people are horribly killed during the third part of the book, each death dryly but meticulously described.

sorry should have ****SPOILERS**** there.

got a feeling it's either gonna be the ULTIMATE MURAKAMI NOVEL or a run-on mess.

there's a difference?

i'm guessing the mess would involve no less than 1/3 of the book's total length being devoted to cooking scenes and mentions of old records

:D

That still leaves 1/3 available for icky sex stuff with younger women.

i forget where i read it (maybe in that nyt profile?) (or maybe upthread?) but whoever said murakami's books after hardboiled wonderland read like him trying to tinker with and hopefully perfect a formula was otm. i still kinda love him though.

thats okay with me, i like the formula!

as far as I'm concerned, he never topped 'Dance, Dance, Dance'

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is the best for me, but Dance Dance Dance is my favourite of the rest. I was pleasantly surprised when I read Wonderland as well, because people seem to be so down on it, although that was after about 5yrs of not reading any Murakami so anything was welcome by that point.

wind-up is probably still the one to put in the canon but wonderland is my fave because it's an easy trick (contrasting the kafka-esque sections in the mysterious city with the typically wacky-in-modern-japan stuff) but a good one.

i actually remembered i had wind-up on my phone kindle last night and started reading it again since i wont be able to read the new one for a long while, despite having many paper books i need to read.

http://i.imgur.com/FGAbl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3Bylw.jpg

the dust jacket is impossibly thin, like tracing paper. it's about the same size as Wind Up Bird tbh, it's not as massive as people are making it out to be.