I don’t understand everything that happens in Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland (1985), but I love this novel. I love it because it puts into a tangible art form the way I feel in my guts about our confusing and beautiful existence on earth. A sample, about a guy chilling in the park, watching a family feed birds, and getting hit with the profundity of living: Wide shot: Pigeons, fountain, mother and child. I didn’t want to leave this scene…I closed my eyes, I felt a ripple run through my […]
We need to talk about Haruki
My other possible title for this review was “Now I know how to quit you”. You see, I have a long, complicated relationship with Murakami. I read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle something like thirteen years ago. I devoured that book. It was weird and fun and compelling. And deeply unsatisfying. Much like his other books, the whole is far less than the sum of its parts. And yet, I keep reading more. I’m honestly not sure why, when there are so many books to read in this way-too-short […]
Airport fiction, a great read, and a new favorite.
69. Die Trying by Lee Child (3 stars) I’m not entirely sure why I keep returning to these kinds of books. I don’t know what “kind” of book it is, other than “airport fiction”. You know the kind; the mass market vaguely defined fiction that goes down easy without leaving much of an aftertaste. Easily digested and forgettable, these books cover the literary landscape without leaving any kind of quantifiable mark. They exist to sell books, and they sell books because they exist. I don’t […]
I sometimes really like Murakami and sometimes stop reading before I get too far.
So there’s an interesting way in which novel gets revisited in the more recent Murakami novel: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. That book is about a man in his thirties reflecting back on his high school/early college years and trying to decide what happened that made his friends leave him. It also involves the power of shame and memory and mental health. This novel is about a man in his thirties reflecting back on his late school and early college relationships with […]
I’m All for the Whimsical and Weird but… What to Heck?
How many books do you try out from an author before deciding whether you like them or not? This is my third book by Murakami, and before this I just wasn’t 100% sure how I felt about his work. After this one, I’m thinking he might just not be for me. For a few reasons that this book really highlighted for me, and I will of course lay that down later in this review. But in the meantime: Kafka on the Shore incorporates two stories in alternating […]
The World Moves Differently in the Middle of the Night
A quick little foray into the world at night, when people exist in almost a different realm. After Dark takes place in Tokyo, over the course of one night, and centers around a small selection of people whose activities all end up interconnected somehow. But it’s not quite so simple, as there seems to be some other kind of… I don’t want to say supernatural, but fantastical elements at play as well. It’s a simple and quick read, that comes across as very gentle and […]
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