Re: Hiraku Murakami

If you don't mind, Roy, I'm gonna go off like a wind-up bird on Murakami, one of the least known, most accomplished writers of the last thirty years. You can start anywhere you like (his work has become considerably more grounded in the last decade or so), but for those unfamiliar, I'd suggest 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World', an absolutely brilliant parallel-plot psychological potboiler with an existentialist through-line (as most of Murakami's work has); or 'A Wild Sheep Chase', similarly concerned with existence, with shadings of noir pulp and more than a little Carlos Fuentes or Garcia-Marquez.

He baffles some people, I'm sure. His work almost invariably contains a fair amount of modern Tokyo culture, (invariably jazz clubs, meticulous food preparation and an ongoing domestic crisis), but he uses it like Stephen King uses McDonald's references: a familiar door through which you pass on your way beyond anything like recognizable territory.

He's also done some classic reportage (the Kobe quake, the Aum Shinrikio subway gassing), as meticulous as any of his work, with his own idiosyncratic views. And he's put his more recent novels on an almost purely existential plane, 'Kafka at the Shore' being the best example.

Translators make a big difference with Murakami. I've seen a couple of abysmal ones, each of whose names I've forgotten, but Alfred Birnbaum (or, in a pinch, Jay Rubin) has been with Murakami's work from the beginning, he's colloquially familiar, and is clearly most comfortable with him.

I could go on and on (as if I hadn't already); there's a lot more work. 'Wind-Up Bird' I was reading the day my son was born, and the day after. Quite a memory. I apologize for all of this, Roy, but I so infrequently see anyone mention Murakami, and I think his work is uniformly brilliant, no matter where you start. But I'd highly recommend starting somewhere.

On Aug 26, 2010, at 9:56 AM, Roy Griffin <roygg9@yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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.*
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> 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...)
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> 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.
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> To call Murakami's book "magic realism" is probably a crude description but it gives you an idea...
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> 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.
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> I believe if I keep reading this sort of thing I will develop a certain capacity for natural human feeling. Oh, well.
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> R.
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> http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/
>