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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Toru, our protagonist, meets a series of curious people: May Kasahara, a troubled teenager who feels responsible for her boyfriend’s death in a motorcycle accident; Malta Kano, a psychic who makes prophecies about Toru’s missing cat; Malta’s sister, Creta, who claims that she was raped by Kumiko’s brother, Noboru Wataya; Lieutenant Mamiya, a soldier who says he witnessed a man being skinned alive in Manchuria; Nutmeg Akasaka, a mysterious healer whose husband was violently murdered; and Nutmeg’s son, Cinnamon, a sharp dressed young man who stopped talking he was a boy.
May Kasahara is wise beyond her years, she works in a wig-making factory and observes: “…all I do here is work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tel me to do it. I don’t have to think at all. It’s like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it up on my way home.” How many of us have had similarly mind-numbing jobs?
This book reminds me of others, in “Kafka on the Shore” the protagonist is also hunting for a missing cat, which leads him to a whole series of adventures. One of the most memorable parts of the book is with the protagonist at the bottom of a well, which feels very Kafkaesque as he is gripped by an inertia and can’t do anything to save himself. In Pamuk’s “My Name is Red” the action begins at the bottom of a well with a murder victim recounting his story.
“One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all. (p 282)”
Murakami’s novels are all rather strange with elements of magic realism. There are also a few scenes of graphic violence, a man is skinned alive in Manchuria and soldiers are taught how to kill someone with a bayonet. The story begins as a hunt for a cat but then goes to some strange places in space and time. Lieutenant Mamiya’s tale of an operation behind enemy lines in Manchuria during WW2, which goes dreadfully wrong and the lieutenant’s incarceration in the Soviet gulag, saved from almost certain death by his ability to speak Russian are particularly memorable. There are a couple of Georgian connections, Beria, Stalin’s infamous henchman sets the quotas for the Siberian coal mines where many POWs are driven to death. There is also the time the carnivorous animals in the zoo are shot as the Japanese retreat, this reminds me of the shooting of the wolves, lions and tigers, who escaped from Tbilisi Zoo in 2013 (Tbilisi Zoo floods and shooting).
The petrolhead in me takes issue with a factual mistake in the narrative. Creta Kano tells us of her suicide attempt “I went to my brother’s room and asked to borrow his car. It was a shiny new Toyota MR2,”. (p95)
“That was six years ago, in May of 1978.” (p97)
Interestingly the Toyota MR2 wasn’t produced until 1984…
The scenes at the bottom of the well were for me the highlights.
May Kasahara is wise beyond her years, she works in a wig-making factory and observes: “…all I do here is work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tel me to do it. I don’t have to think at all. It’s like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it up on my way home.” How many of us have had similarly mind-numbing jobs?
This book reminds me of others, in “Kafka on the Shore” the protagonist is also hunting for a missing cat, which leads him to a whole series of adventures. One of the most memorable parts of the book is with the protagonist at the bottom of a well, which feels very Kafkaesque as he is gripped by an inertia and can’t do anything to save himself. In Pamuk’s “My Name is Red” the action begins at the bottom of a well with a murder victim recounting his story.
“One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all. (p 282)”
Murakami’s novels are all rather strange with elements of magic realism. There are also a few scenes of graphic violence, a man is skinned alive in Manchuria and soldiers are taught how to kill someone with a bayonet. The story begins as a hunt for a cat but then goes to some strange places in space and time. Lieutenant Mamiya’s tale of an operation behind enemy lines in Manchuria during WW2, which goes dreadfully wrong and the lieutenant’s incarceration in the Soviet gulag, saved from almost certain death by his ability to speak Russian are particularly memorable. There are a couple of Georgian connections, Beria, Stalin’s infamous henchman sets the quotas for the Siberian coal mines where many POWs are driven to death. There is also the time the carnivorous animals in the zoo are shot as the Japanese retreat, this reminds me of the shooting of the wolves, lions and tigers, who escaped from Tbilisi Zoo in 2013 (Tbilisi Zoo floods and shooting).
The petrolhead in me takes issue with a factual mistake in the narrative. Creta Kano tells us of her suicide attempt “I went to my brother’s room and asked to borrow his car. It was a shiny new Toyota MR2,”. (p95)
“That was six years ago, in May of 1978.” (p97)
Interestingly the Toyota MR2 wasn’t produced until 1984…
The scenes at the bottom of the well were for me the highlights.
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Murakami has some trouble with women.
It's an interesting book but I like Kafka on the shore better.
It's an interesting book but I like Kafka on the shore better.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It took me like three months, but I finally finished this book. Not that I didn't like it, it was just super long and I only read a few pages every night before bed... takes time.
Anyway. I'm not sure exactly what to make of this book, it was weird. But in an interesting way. My favourite parts would have to be Lt Mamiya's accounts of the war...super gruesome and tense. My least favourite parts? Hmm maybe everything to do with May Kasahara, I didn't really get her role in the story.
Not sure why we needed so many details about what Toru was eating all the time. I feel like there were way to many mundane details about his life.
I'm just not deep enough to comment on this book more than that. It was weird, and definitely unlike anything else I've read. I did like it a lot more than that other Murakami book I read, Norwegian Wood. A lot more weird shit happened in this one. And it was somehow less melancholy, even though the ending was a bit of a downer.
Anyway. I'm not sure exactly what to make of this book, it was weird. But in an interesting way. My favourite parts would have to be Lt Mamiya's accounts of the war...super gruesome and tense. My least favourite parts? Hmm maybe everything to do with May Kasahara, I didn't really get her role in the story.
Not sure why we needed so many details about what Toru was eating all the time. I feel like there were way to many mundane details about his life.
I'm just not deep enough to comment on this book more than that. It was weird, and definitely unlike anything else I've read. I did like it a lot more than that other Murakami book I read, Norwegian Wood. A lot more weird shit happened in this one. And it was somehow less melancholy, even though the ending was a bit of a downer.
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Well, I understand why it’s a classic.
A deeply rewarding and fantastical meander around the mundane through the supernatural, uncovering shattered psyches recovering from the traumas of war and empire, this novel was an adventure I won’t soon forget. At times humorous, violent, fantastical, observational, and experimental, this novel kept me pulling at the next pages while in an almost flow state of deep reflection.
I’m left with many remaining questions, but also deep appreciation for the road that brought those questions around.
This one certainly will warrant a re-read
A deeply rewarding and fantastical meander around the mundane through the supernatural, uncovering shattered psyches recovering from the traumas of war and empire, this novel was an adventure I won’t soon forget. At times humorous, violent, fantastical, observational, and experimental, this novel kept me pulling at the next pages while in an almost flow state of deep reflection.
I’m left with many remaining questions, but also deep appreciation for the road that brought those questions around.
This one certainly will warrant a re-read
This was unsettling from the first few pages — honestly I’m still not totally sure what happened, but that’s kind of the point. You feel just as lost and unmoored as the narrator does.
There’s a surreal quality to the writing that I really enjoyed, but there are some brutal scenes in here. The skinning chapter? Absolutely horrifying.
It’s one of those books that feels more like an experience than a story. You don’t read it to get answers; you read it to sit in the discomfort and let the weirdness sink in. And it does sink in. It stays with you.
Not always an easy read and not something I would be inclined to read again or recommend too freely, it is definitely not for everyone, but I’m glad I read it. Unsettling in the best and worst ways.
If you were to ask me "whats this book about?" there isn't a conclusive answer I could give. We follow a journey that has no exact destination, not much of a conclusion, and a whole lot of side stories along the way. It's surreal, it's unusual, and yet somehow also very ordinary. The writing is wonderful, the images are vivid, and the characters, well they're unique to say the least. Some side stories dragged a little (war/combat details aren't something I generally go for) but I enjoyed every bonkers moment of it. 5/5.