Can we have a this book discussion?
>inb4 Murakami is pleb epic memes
Yeah yeah. I know.
Anyone else read it? What did you think? Basically I enjoyed it. It was typical Murakami in that I became absorbed, couldn't put it down and contained some truly emotional and well done scenes. I expected loose ends and that's fine.
I didn't even care that:we never find out who rapes and then subsequently murders Shirothat the story about the pianist with the little bag is never truly explained/fleshed outthat we don't know if Sara will pick him or the old guy
The main thing I had a problem with was that at the end of it,Tsukuru just kind of ended up as more or less a victim, and I really really expected some kind of deeply repressed memory or bad instance or some kind of SOMETHING that happened between Tsukuru and Shiro that may have also led to her false rape accusation. Throughout the story they alluded to this darkness within Tsukuru. But that was never expanded upon beyond the usual speculation. This is a Murakami novel and I was fully expecting him to meet all 4 of his friends 16 years later, and that included Shiro (in another world, in a dream, etc.) So disappointed he did not have a face to face with her.
Of course I didn't enjoy:
-Murakami's/Gabriel's irritatingly unrealistic and expository dialogue (especially between Tsukuru and Sara--good God!!).
-Awful fucking similes (They clicking of her heels was like a reliable blacksmith in the morning--or some shit. Laughable).
But at the end of the day, Murakami's an absorbing storyteller and not much of a prose master. That's fine, not everyone can be Joyce.
>Murakami book that lefts mysteries unresolved
no shit sherlock, It's your first Murakami?
>>7529490
No, why don't you read what I wrote. I said, "I expected lose ends and that's fine". My main problem was not really with lose ends. Lose ends implies something has been established and not completely resolved. Rather my problem was with what was not established. Aspects of Tsukurus character and what he ended up being in the end.
>>7529457
>-Awful fucking similes (They clicking of her heels was like a reliable blacksmith in the morning--or some shit. Laughable).
thats an analogy you fucking normal faggot
>>7529543
Shitty writing by any other name...
>>7529543
It's literally not. An analogy is more of an extended logical argument. You are wrong. It is a simile.
>>7529457
>Murakami's an absorbing storyteller and not much of a prose master
I agree, he sets up scenes and plot well and reveals certain details in a timely manner. His ability for metaphor and similie, and just general description, is poor - rather basic and simple, with little abstracts or emotional originality. I'm about 300 pages into Kafka by the Shore and, while I like it, I feel that the whole book is a bit superficial, the philosophy doesn't feel to well developed - basically just random soundbites the guy's scattered around without much thematic consistency. However, I need to finish it.
I'd rate him about 7/10 now, although I've heard he tends to repeat himself. I can see why he'd be a fun, easy read but I don't think he's a "great" or even particularly "good" author.
>>7529543
haha what? why post
i only dimly remember this book as comfortable train reading. i read his sci-fi romp, Hard-Boiled Wonderland..., after this one, and found it considerably less comfortable. he has a good imagination, but his writing and sense of plot lets it down repeatedly—this to me is the principle problem with 1Q84. Nonetheless there is something about Murakami that keeps me reading him. to me he reads like walk through a gallery of monet paintings: a series of pleasant locations, visited for moments at a time as though in a dream, all outlined in soft colors, quickly passing from your memory as you shut the door behind you.
>>7529457
i feel like his strange/awful/weird similes/metaphors are something like stylistic choices, like he's being a little bit deliberately awkward or verbose or unaware for some reason. after reading a lot of his works and interviews that's just the sense i get, that he'd be the type of writer to incorporate that into his narration, but i don't know
>>7529565
na its an analogy go back to elementary english class
>>7529457
>irritatingly unrealistic and expository dialogue
this is for sure your first murakami
>>7530104
This is how illiterate /lit/ actually is, everyone.
Its not my first murakami. At any rate is anyone interested in actually discussing the book?
>>7530779
no
go back to reddit they actually think murakami is worthwhile there
>>7530784
eat shit
O.K. here's the thing -- in Spanish the novel is so much better than in English. More poignant and understated, less hammy and slight. I hate that this book is so maligned because if it had a decent translation it would have been superb
as for your questions they're unanswerable diegetically, tho i reckon the gay dude murdered her (idk about the sexual assault though)
>>7530797
Found the pleb
>>7530797
So that's why english speakers hates Murakami so much
They will never have the chance to read the glorius translation by Lourdes Porta
>>7530797
Its not that maligned.it has 4/5 avg on Amazon and received largely positive critical reviews. Actually whats weird is that 1Q84 seems a lot more praised now then when it first came out.
1Q84 needed to be shorter and Tsukuru Tazaki should have been longer.
>>7530812
i mean around this here parts, among people who have pretty discerning taste in literature
i mean lit rides the canon's dick an embarrassing amount but no-one can accuse it of being uncritical
altho iirc it received pretty lukewarm reviews from the major publications
>>7529457
>>7530779
The book had potential leading up to
halfway withthe pianist story.I thought every character that had a color in their name meant something about them, and tskuru not having a color meant something too.I thought that chapter would've driven the second half of the book but it went nowhere.The thing that bothered me the most was that it almost didn't seem to bother Tskuru that much that he got expelled from the group. When it turns out they blamed what happened to shiro on him without any evidence, and he just doesn't care.finland was an odd place for kuro to end up in
>I don't even want to talk about what a bad writer Murakami is
>BUT HERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT DEMONSTRATE HE'S A BAD WRITER
Neat.
Murakami is good and fun. Who cares what some elitists that read books with the sole purpose of trying to impress others on an anime image board have to say lol
>>7529971
Seems like everyone reads Kafka. Wind Up Bird is his magnum opus imho, everyone should start with that who's never read him.
He's definitely better than good. He's an absorbing storyteller who generally writes competent prose that's just sometimes distracting with bad similes and dialogue. Murakami's stories can be very powerful on a gut/emotional level. There were several instances during Tsukuru where my heart was pounding.
>>7530961Eh? Tsukuru not having color retained meaning until the end. In his own mind he was colorless, meaning that he was empty and had nothing to offer people. Kuro offered another take and explained that he maybe he's empty in the sense that he can easily take people in and learn to accept, love, forgive them etc., and is not filled up with problems and dependencies like Shiro, for example.I mean, 16 years after the fact and now a grown-ass man. What's he going to do, throw a temper tantrum? It seemed believable to me. The narrative outlined the process of him being destroyed over it and recovering (in a way) and moving on. He was past caring in that kind of sense. He merely needed answers and closure and given those things was ready to forgive. Would you have been all pissed off if you were him given how his meeting with Kuro went?[/quote]
The book should have been 100-150 or so pages longer.Tsukuru was hinted to have held some kind of darkness/coldness in him. I would have liked for this to have been expanded and perhaps connected to the overall breakup of the group, etc. Instead he was basically just a victim regardless of the allusions
Was the gay blowjob real?
>>7531501
I think it was a dream. Tsukuru was probably gay/bi and that's what he was repressing.
His friends probably picked up on this and that's why he was blamed for the rape.
His repressed sexuality was probably why he felt so out of touch with himself.
>>7531179
>other people don't read for the right reasons
>i'm the only person who enjoys literature the correct way
>other people are elitists
read a dictionary fuckpleb faggot
I liked it well enough. Definitely not one of his better novels, but the story is still engaging and, as usual, relies on a lot on the reader to fill in the blanks, which is fine by me.
I tend to have a hard time judging how good his prose is, as I understand that japanese is a very hard language to translate properly. Some parts may sound weird on our end, even with a skilled translator, but may have a deep poetic meaning on their end, but I can at least say that I've never had much trouble with the way they are written.
Also, I'm someone who considers After Dark his favorite Murakami novel. Opinions on that?