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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
this book is too long and basically nothing happened. the main character has the personality of a wet paper towel.
Been a while. Not progressing. Not getting the traction I expected. I am a Murakami fan through and through, but I guess I have read enough of him at this point. Gonna give this up.
At least for now.
At least for now.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An exstremely complex and amazing book with an ending that makes you question everything that you have hitherto read: did he die at the bottom of the well (the last 3 chapters are definitely just him slowly dying and imagining some sort of alternative universe where he gets back everything that he has lost)? Was he actually an awful human being? Did we, the readers, get fooled by the MC’s conspiracies and thus experienced reality through his insanity?
Definitely a book that I would read again in a year so I could get a better understanding of the storyline and its hidden meanings.
Definitely a book that I would read again in a year so I could get a better understanding of the storyline and its hidden meanings.
Jeg er langsomt ved at bevæge mig ind i magisk realisme, og Murakami er altid et godt sted at starte. 4 stjerner :)
This’ll be a long one, strap in.
Murakami, in his way, is sort of kind of a genius. In his way. This is the third of his stories, and second full novel that I have read. And I think he always hits his target. The issue is, though, the target is really really weird, and pretty shitty.
The good things first. He has this way of weaving stories. How he writes, it’s like he knows how to give the words time to set it. He describes everything in details- the music, the weather, the style of clothes, and even the silence. He makes this perfect, almost tangible atmosphere that can engulf you, without making it seem slow or unnecessary. It can be a simple action of walking across an alley or sitting in silence, but he knows how to make it seem profound. There’s never any rush, the story goes at its own pace and we just have to experience it.
And that’s very much the feeling of reading this. I think it’s to be expected when reading any of Murakami’s works that the story won’t be explained to us. We are merely made to experience it as Murakami sees fit. The things that are kept hidden we have to work out for ourselves, if we want to.
There’s a thing in this and also in Kafka on the Shore, where characters are just chill. There are rarely any strong reactions, and whenever there is one, there is an important implication to it. Mostly, the characters can be talking about anything, no matter how absurd or out of the blue, but they will still treat it normally. There aren’t overreactions, just relaxed writing and conversations, and acceptance. Even the more intense scenes can be written in a relaxed manner, which is sort of refreshing.
Then there are the concepts that the book talks about. I’ve just read two books and a short story by Murakami. But still, I think there are some recurring themes. Murakami explores the distance between people. He talks about how strange and distant people can feel. The book is filled with strange characters and things. We don’t know the why or what behind them, we can only guess, the same way the protagonist can only guess. Murakami captures that feeling of being alone and isolated in a strange world, and of not really understanding others. But he also captures the acceptance that comes with it, the fact that we can be close to people without understanding everything about them, or that even in a bizarre world, we can find our place. It makes me think of Kafka, but less sad.
Another recurring concept is feeling like you are split into pieces. A lot of characters in all three stories of Murakami I have read have been ‘split in two’. It’s the feeling of not feeling like yourself, of being distant from your own being. The feeling of not truly feeling.
But now, to the bad things. Mainly, Murakami is a pervert. This is the most common criticism of his, and it’s well deserved. He writes women really badly, mostly what he chooses to focus on is pretty shitty. And there is a lot of perverted stuff. It was much worse in this than in Kafka on the Shore, bad enough to make me want to never read Murakami again. There are literally lines that seem as though they are out of cheap smuts. For some reason(we know the reason, he’s a pervert), women being in sexual situations is a big tool for him to represent things. And it’s just despicable. It’s really wild how different the good and bad are in this book. He could just not do all that and it’ll be a great book. What makes it bad is not his inability to do something good, but his inability to not do these shitty things.
And also, it gets hard to keep track of stuff. It’s a long book, and a lot is happening. It’s easy to forget points. And when it’s already so hard to understand, that’s pretty annoying. It’s pretty much meant to be read more than once to understand fully.
And in general, Murakami isn’t for everyone. We are given a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, and even when put together the picture is something abstract that we have to give meaning to. I don’t yet fully understand the story, and I might never do. But I really like the mystery of it, how so much is going on, and how different it is. He makes such original stories, like a completely new world. I like that originality, that boundless mind that you can imagine when reading this.
But in the end, the perverted shit is too disgusting. It knocked of potentially two stars from the book, and will make me question reading Murakami ever again.
Murakami, in his way, is sort of kind of a genius. In his way. This is the third of his stories, and second full novel that I have read. And I think he always hits his target. The issue is, though, the target is really really weird, and pretty shitty.
The good things first. He has this way of weaving stories. How he writes, it’s like he knows how to give the words time to set it. He describes everything in details- the music, the weather, the style of clothes, and even the silence. He makes this perfect, almost tangible atmosphere that can engulf you, without making it seem slow or unnecessary. It can be a simple action of walking across an alley or sitting in silence, but he knows how to make it seem profound. There’s never any rush, the story goes at its own pace and we just have to experience it.
And that’s very much the feeling of reading this. I think it’s to be expected when reading any of Murakami’s works that the story won’t be explained to us. We are merely made to experience it as Murakami sees fit. The things that are kept hidden we have to work out for ourselves, if we want to.
There’s a thing in this and also in Kafka on the Shore, where characters are just chill. There are rarely any strong reactions, and whenever there is one, there is an important implication to it. Mostly, the characters can be talking about anything, no matter how absurd or out of the blue, but they will still treat it normally. There aren’t overreactions, just relaxed writing and conversations, and acceptance. Even the more intense scenes can be written in a relaxed manner, which is sort of refreshing.
Then there are the concepts that the book talks about. I’ve just read two books and a short story by Murakami. But still, I think there are some recurring themes. Murakami explores the distance between people. He talks about how strange and distant people can feel. The book is filled with strange characters and things. We don’t know the why or what behind them, we can only guess, the same way the protagonist can only guess. Murakami captures that feeling of being alone and isolated in a strange world, and of not really understanding others. But he also captures the acceptance that comes with it, the fact that we can be close to people without understanding everything about them, or that even in a bizarre world, we can find our place. It makes me think of Kafka, but less sad.
Another recurring concept is feeling like you are split into pieces. A lot of characters in all three stories of Murakami I have read have been ‘split in two’. It’s the feeling of not feeling like yourself, of being distant from your own being. The feeling of not truly feeling.
But now, to the bad things. Mainly, Murakami is a pervert. This is the most common criticism of his, and it’s well deserved. He writes women really badly, mostly what he chooses to focus on is pretty shitty. And there is a lot of perverted stuff. It was much worse in this than in Kafka on the Shore, bad enough to make me want to never read Murakami again. There are literally lines that seem as though they are out of cheap smuts. For some reason(we know the reason, he’s a pervert), women being in sexual situations is a big tool for him to represent things. And it’s just despicable. It’s really wild how different the good and bad are in this book. He could just not do all that and it’ll be a great book. What makes it bad is not his inability to do something good, but his inability to not do these shitty things.
And also, it gets hard to keep track of stuff. It’s a long book, and a lot is happening. It’s easy to forget points. And when it’s already so hard to understand, that’s pretty annoying. It’s pretty much meant to be read more than once to understand fully.
And in general, Murakami isn’t for everyone. We are given a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, and even when put together the picture is something abstract that we have to give meaning to. I don’t yet fully understand the story, and I might never do. But I really like the mystery of it, how so much is going on, and how different it is. He makes such original stories, like a completely new world. I like that originality, that boundless mind that you can imagine when reading this.
But in the end, the perverted shit is too disgusting. It knocked of potentially two stars from the book, and will make me question reading Murakami ever again.
Post modern magical realism with too many plot lines and symbolic characters. Last third of the book becomes too fractured and tedious getting bogged down in allegory and metaphor.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes