I've been reading his book, THE WINDUP BIRD CHRONICLES. It's not my usual escapist fare, but a work of real litrachoor--like Michael Caine sez in the movie, *Educating Rita.*
For an ex-English teacher, I have a pretty bad track record for a lot of the classics I'm supposed to have read. It's not that I don't recognize their greatness. I was well into MOBY DICK & was thinking *great stuff*--then I lost the fire, and stopped reading. I don't know why. I wasn't bored exactly, but it just didn't sing to me any more. And I do intend to finish it some day (yeah, yeah, the paving to the Bad Place & all that...)
And frankly, I was worried the same thing would happen with Murakami. But it didn't. And it hasn't. And, somehow, I can tell it won't.
To call Murakami's book "magic realism" is probably a crude description but it gives you an idea...
He's full of quotable remarks that seem to embody a kind of wisdom that straddles the categories of worldly, transcendental and psychological. I'm not sure they have any real application for anyone other than Murakami or his characters. but their spirit is eminently humanist and unobtrusively edifying...somehow.
I believe if I keep reading this sort of thing I will develop a certain capacity for natural human feeling. Oh, well.
R.
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