Haruki Murakami

it is essential that people stop calling this rubbish book "IQ84"

reading it right now, I did think it was called IQ84 before I began it :(

his or his translator's?

― spextor vs bextor (contenderizer)

the translation seems the same as ever i guess, but the scene-setting, the characterization, the dialogue, the plot construction - ugh. i think 'thought processes' is a good term upthread. the characters speak, and are narrated as thinking, really repetitively through stuff that's not more effective or informative for being gone through again. in past books it might have generated some effect of disaffected perplexity, aimlessness (like when the 'wind-up bird' narrator is sitting around cooking spaghetti, doing chores, wondering about the weird phone calls he's received), but here it just fills up the space without generating an effect or substantively driving the story forward.

the talk about rape and abuse and retribution for them in part 1 seems weird and stilted to me, too. as if someone sat murakami down after the abuse plot of 'bird' and the caricatures of 'feminist' characters in 'kafka' and tried to school him and now he's trying to show that he understands. 'rape, really? you mean with penetration and everything? that would certainly be wrong.'

i think throughout we're meant to have the impression that everything's being consciously filtered through a male-centric ... consciousness; i really want to read it as us being in tengo's novel throughout. i don't know if that's quite supportable in the text though.

i haven't been able to go back to this to try to finish it / give it some benefit of the doubt.

not sure i care to.

I'm maybe 50 pages in, taking 10 pages or so at a sitting. Don't hate it but it isn't a page turner.

After Dark is my favorite HM, with Elephant and Kafka right behind.

I've read four books by Murakami and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is far and away my favorite. I thought Norwegian Wood was actually bad, not just disappointing.

find iq84 hard to dislike that much in retrospect

I'm sort of like that despite spending most of the time reading it hating it

still reads like it was translated into english by a twelve year old

I'm reading Norwegian Wood at the moment. Or, I started it months ago and stalled halfway through, to be more accurate, because I wasn't really enjoying it. The main character just seems like a dick.

Which is the old one about a dude who was cheating on his wife? That felt pointless

pointlessness and dickish characters are two of my favourite things about murakami !

I like the pointlessness and the dickishness too. My issue with Norwegian Wood was with the female characters, who are just fantasy objects or plot devices for the main character. Naoki's (sp?) death was like a right of passage for the narrator, allowing him to bury his childhood, and that seemed like a poor (not beautiful) destiny for a human being.

This is an issue with his work in general but it was more glaring and off putting in NW for me.

Ah, so that was NW. I guess I should read it again, but despite some nice moments it felt like a...waste of time.

at moments i could almost see how people would think it is a classic bildungsroman, but it is just such a vulgar example of that genre -- pulling out all the stops -- that i just couldn't like it.

I finally finished 1Q84 and it was a fun read, no where near the greatness of the wind up bird, but I'm happy to have finished it. It was more apparent and sort of tidy while still being weird. Better than Kafka on the Shore, which really bothered me for reasons I can't remember.

that's heartening. i think he works better in large doses than small ones. hardboiled wonderland or whatever it's called was too short... you didn't really *feel* the protagonist's ordeal the way you do in wind up bird. both are cool though because they are journeys to the heart of the psyche in which not much is discovered but something is learned.

What I enjoyed the most about 1Q84 was the length, I love long forays into minute detail, and Murakami does it very well. I can get lost in his stories. I think I keep hoping to find the enjoyment I found in reading Moby Dick.

what I enjoyed the least about 1q84 was its unstylistic and unstructural repetitiveness I don't mind long forays into minute detail if that's what they are

I like Murakami but IQ84 is basically drivel.

Sorry, 1Q84.

it may as well have been called iq84

"HO HO," said the keeper of the beat.

i'm in the book where the twitchy investigator gets his own entries

Urgh just finished 1q84. Wanted to get to the end but parts were so bad (mostly the aomame pep talks and breast fixation) that I felt embarrassed reading it

dammit

http://www.harukimurakami.com/author

the desk of murakami
what a cool room

how are those early ones that just got (re)published in usa

interesting, we share a mug with haruki murakami.

unsanitary

how are those early ones that just got (re)published in usa

― johnny crunch, Friday, August 14, 2015 10:07 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wouldn't count on them being very good at all. But I would gladly be proven wrong by someone who has read them...

they are okay, worth checking out now that it's easier to do so if you are a big fan in general. a chance to see some of the idiosyncrasies crystallize might be pretty refreshing now that they have ossified somewhat.

first new novel in 7 years 'Killing Commendatore'
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170110/p2g/00m/0et/071000c

first new novel in 7 years

Just finished Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and oh my god what an incredible book; exactly the kind of surrealist mindfuck that I wished it would be. I know it's a lazy and trite comparison, but I loved how it was complex like how Twin Peaks is complex: things happen without explanation, there's multiple plot threads, and you're not gonna get every answer that you want -- but that's okay, because its fun to revel in the mystery and try to connect the dots yourself. And the Hotel Room is a well-executed rip-off of the Red Room. I was surprised to see some critics' reviews of it wishing it were more linear, but to each their own I guess. Also some user reviews called it boring, and like I could understand if someone was bored its endless prose but goddamn i could not stop reading it

it was the perfect length too. I haven't read 1Q84 (or any other book by him) but it looks like overambitious gobshite.

i hated every moment i spent with that book but i either don't get murakami or i hate his translators

really? I really loved that book

looking forward to 1Q84

honestly given the way other people talk about him i just really hate his style i think

j.'s reference upthread to murakami's "clunky" prose in 1Q84 seems otm to me just with a different book

I listened to Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as an audiobook. I really think an audio experience makes almost any book more enjoyable, but I get your point

I think the “clunkiness” is a deliberate effect. There is a real clinica detachment and awkwardness to his style that lends it a kind of weird naivete/documentary quality... i don’t think it’s a translation thing

That’s why i like him though. I feel his books are of variable quality. Norwegian Wood struck me as trite and bad whereas Wind Up Bird Chronicle was an incredible experience

I am halfway through reading Windup Bird... it just seems very Japanese modernist/introvert. It could be a weird translation but I can see why people are so gaaah over him.

note: i never really wanted to read him before because every indie boy ever in brooklyn was over the moon about him so I wanted to stay away. Now that I just hit 40, I figure it's time.

Brooklyn indie boys are good though

Oh and I guess I saw the Norwegian Wood movie with Virginia plain? when it came out ages ago. I only remember there being too much slo-mo to depict ANGST!

I am not into Canterbury Tales types of books so I am going to be pissed if there are tons of shorts stories the remainder of this book.