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Haruki Murakami


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I would give him another go but I am biased because I really enjoy his books,I like the quirkiness :haha:

 

You like what you like, is my motto :D xx

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I wouldn't give up yet. Norwegian wood storyline is different to others by him, you may prefer one of his others. Have you checked out the synopsis of others on Amazon such as his short stories. I am personally interested in his others more than Norwegian wood.

 

I like the fact he doesn't give everything away, as there will be more variety on peoples opinions and their ideas on the meaning of the plot. You don't have to get it, just let it wash over you and think about it afterwards when everything has come together.

 

I heard he wrote his books centered around romance until Japans gas attack plus other things and then switched his theme to ordinary people and the odd things that happen to them.

 

Nothing wrong if you don't like his writing though, each to their own!

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Like others, I'd start with South of the Border - which I've actually not read, but most Murukami fans that I know love. Often described as his best book.

 

I do like Dance, Dance, Dance, and it would work on its own, but it does sit better with Wild Sheep Chase.

 

Bookjumper, I'd probably suggest you'd struggle with other Murukami books, and it might be worth giving up. The lack of direction is pretty universal, as is the weird shallowness of characters. Although Norwegian Wood is a different (and slightly more mainstream) book to the others, the style of writing is similar. If you can't get past the writing style of Norwegian Wood, it's probably just not worth making the effort.

 

That said, I love Murukami, and I'd be delighted if you did try again and found somethng like Wild Sheep Chase or Wind-up Bird to be your cup of tea after all.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I enjoy the crazier Murakami from Hard-Boiled Wonderland more than the serious one from Norwegian Wood. Although these books are also really good.

 

Has anyone already read his latest Novel 'What i think about, when i think about running'? I haven't has time yet, but I'm very excited!

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I've waxed rhapsodic about this guy along with the rest of them, but I'll reiterate that his words are soporific to me. I find his imagery beautiful, his prose lyrical, his whole style melodic and harmonious.

 

Do give him another go. It seems a general consensus that Norwegian Wood is very different to his other books, but I still adored it. Check out my thoughts on it, if it helps, on the thread Mac Reads 2009.

 

Eee...Murakami - he's my hero!

:irked:

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Has anyone already read his latest Novel 'What i think about, when i think about running'? I haven't has time yet, but I'm very excited!

 

Yep. It's not a novel. It's a memoir, and quite weird, too. It partly describes his writing, but mostly it's about his obsession with marathon running and triathlons. Completely unlike anything else of his I've read, and not necessarily a book I'd recommend unless you were a runner, I think.

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I just finished reading 'Sputnik Sweetheart' which I really enjoyed and I bought 'Norwegian Wood' and 'What I talk about when I talk about running' by Haruki Murakami :lol:

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I've been talking to some friends and it struck me while this was occurring that Murakami is very much akin to Sushi.

 

Clean, fresh, fragrant, stimulating, crisp...

 

Murakami is Sushi for the mind!

 

:lol:

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I've been talking to some friends and it struck me while this was occurring that Murakami is very much akin to Sushi.

 

Clean, fresh, fragrant, stimulating, crisp...

 

Murakami is Sushi for the mind!

 

:lol:

 

Thats great way to look Mac and like sushi you either love it or hate it. :lol:

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've just borrowed Sputnik Sweetheart from the library and have just finished reading it. I was curious to know what I was missing. I really did enjoy the style of writing and found myself completely immersed and found the part with the ferris wheel to be very strange. I certainly would like to read more and I do fancy Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun.

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I really enjoyed 'Sputnik Sweetheart' :readingtwo: Haruki Murakami has such a lovely way with words, they just seem to flow and I always feel I am meeting an old friend when I start reading another one of his books :D

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I`ve just finished After Dark, I really enjoyed the writing style and the wonderfully descriptive language.:readingtwo: It`s the first book I`ve read by Haruki Murakami, but I`ll definately be reading more in the future. :D

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  • 1 month later...

I love Haruki Murakami books. My favorites are Wind Up Bird Chronicles, Dance Dance Dance and Norwegian Wood. Sometimes I feel like I'm reading a series but I guess it's just how Murakami keeps his works tied together while being inventive and creative.

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I am glad to hear you enjoyed 'After Dark' pipread, I loved the collection of characters in the story.

 

Alia Idaho, 'The Wind Up Bird Chronicle' is my favourite, I loved 'Dance Dance Dance' and still to read Norwegian Wood (but it is on my TBR pile). Have you read 'A Wild Sheep Chase'? :D

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I started reading 'Norwegian Wood' last night ;) (I have the vintage copy).

 

This is from amazon ~

 

The novel is split into two volumes and beautifully presented here in a "gold" box containing both the green book and the red book. Young Japanese fans became so obsessed with the work that they would dress entirely in one or other colour denoting which volume they most identified with.

 

Haruki Murakami's writing is very much open to interpretation, I admit the first book I read, 'Kafka on the shore', left me very perplexed but I enjoyed it, I love his style of writing, he has amazing gift of seeing beauty in the most random of things. It was 'The Wind Up Bird Chronicle' which was a turning point for me, so much went into the story, you shared Toru's journey and some of it was so familiar, if that makes sense?

 

:icon_eek:

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I've just borrowed Sputnik Sweetheart from the library and have just finished reading it. I was curious to know what I was missing. I really did enjoy the style of writing and found myself completely immersed and found the part with the ferris wheel to be very strange. I certainly would like to read more and I do fancy Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun.

 

I hear what you're saying Loopyloo, I was also curious to know if I was missing something because there's only 10 pages left and I didn't think Murakami could wrap it all up in that space, making 100% logical sense. I was talking about this in the Book Activity thread and Gyre and chrysalis_stage were kind enough to illuminate Murakami's style to me. It seems there's no actual point to it, you just take it as it is and make your own thoughts on it.

 

The Ferris Wheel trip was really creepy and yet totally captivating. It was something I've never come across with in a novel before.

 

After realising what Murakami's style is about (= he leaves things to the readers own interpretation), I appreciate the story much more because I don't now have to make my brain understand it logically, because it's impossible.

 

I hope this makes sense :icon_eek: I'm definitely going to read his other books as well. For some reason I'm really hoping to read Norwegian Wood, I heard someplace that it was a real hit in its' days.

 

Edit: I just checked the local library and uni library and there are only two novels by Murakami there, Sputnik Sweetheart and A Wild Sheep Chase, both of which I currently have at my possession. There's also Kafka on the Shore but it's in Finnish and I don't know if I want to read Murakami in Finnish. So I'm going to have to order Murakami's books online at some point if I want to read him ;)

Edited by frankie
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That's really the thing I love most about Murukami.

 

I love the descriptions, and the mundane lives of mundane people who have weird and wonderful things that happen to them. I love the repeated use of the same cyphers and places. The spaghetti and beer and food and TV and cats that always repeat - in a much more low-key and urban equivalent of Ballards broken sunglasses and empty swimming pools. I love the vaguely cyber-punk/matrix-y stuff that happens, where people get sucked into parallel worlds, but those parallel worlds don't bother with the high-tech stuff, and the attempts at explanation, that make cyberpunk feel astonshingly dated very quickly.

 

I love all that stuff. But really what grabs me is the lack of explanation, the lack of conclusion. The way it's left to the reader to think, and wonder. The way that narratives don't have clearly defined endings, the way they don't in real life.

 

I think it's fantastic stuff.

 

I really must read Hard-Boiled Wonderland.

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