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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I liked it until about a third of the way through when I realised I was supposed to be rooting for the femicide-committing incels. Then it was a slog.
One of my favourite writers sets a socio-political thriller in my beloved hometown of six years? Another novel seemingly written for me in particular – what a shame that the promise was miles better than the book this time. The start was exciting because some of the 2005 fiction felt prophetic: the economic crash, the revival of the threat of war with North Korea, it’s all here! Then it went downhill.
At its worst it’s like reading Wikipedia articles thinly wrapped in lifeless characters. Everyone eventually takes on the same dry unnatural tone about whatever their interest happens to be (bomb-making, East Asian economies, guns, wool-spinning, etc), spouting paragraphs of specialist knowledge mid-conversation that Murakami clearly spent a long time researching – three years, he says in the Afterword, and boy, do you feel those three years! It’s these or his political musings that are assigned to seemingly haphazard character names. For a book that starts with a six-page list of “Prominent Characters”, the lack of polyphony is unforgivable.
Since there’s such a focus on dry details, as though one is reading a report, it felt equally satisfying and disappointing when I spotted a mistake (I think three in total) about Fukuoka, though they’re probably intentional things to help the story, like having four main elevators in the Sea Hawk hotel instead of six for the soldiers to come out of. Still, it seemed to me almost hypocritical to employ a relentlessly realist style and then bend the facts to suit a story-line which already requires us to suspend disbelief at key moments (why do we keep hearing how competent the North Korean occupiers are when their actions often scream otherwise?).
This book is like a beached whale: its immense mass may have all functioned swimmingly in the ocean of Murakami’s imagination, but as a text it’s crushed by the weight of its own organs. Its themes collapse on themselves (the realism is unrealistic), and it’s page-count smothers the interesting ideas and sudden bursts of good writing.
It picked up at the halfway point, which is unfortunately about 300 pages in. Or maybe, since I’d left it alone for a while, I just figured out what he was trying to do around then. I had been waiting for the chapter called “In Ohori Park” since that’s more or less where I live; maybe that chapter title alone stopped me from giving up the wordy boring stuff that preceded it, and when I got there strangely it clicked – oh, here is a character who I understand, even though he thinks entirely differently from how I do. Oh, here is some of Murakami’s trademark otherworldly violence that seems to transform a realistic world into something magical. Oh, here are real buildings I know and dislike because they are exclusive to the wealthy being blown up. Suddenly, a change of heart: this book is worth my time.
Then I read this chapter about a doctor called “The Execution”, which was really good: a character study, the intrusion of madness and violence into everyday life, and a big advancement of the main plot happening incidentally in the background. It all came together like a short story with its own themes and ideas, just set in the world of the book. (That said it really bothered me that while the Japanese characters are so disturbed about executions of criminals taking place in Japan, and adamant that they’re horrific remnants of a bygone time, the book seems to go along with these views without mention of the obvious fact that Japan does execute criminals regularly, just in a normalized and discrete way rather than the brash display of the North Koreans. This kind of hypocrisy is jarring and seems a perfect theme for the story, but since it goes unchallenged one can only assume it’s the author’s own hypocrisy making its way into – and marring – the story.)
Unless I’m wrong every chapter is from a different and often new character’s perspective, which means you’re still getting new characters introduced at the very end of the novel. Once I got into the hang of this (again, really late in the day) it was actually pretty interesting. Maybe if he’d gone more in this direction it would have worked: short stories set in a world where Fukuoka is occupied by North Korea and Kyushu blockaded by Japan. Yes, not a novel. It could’ve been great.
The last few chapters were breathlessly thrilling or kind of stressful. I realised that I still don’t like that thing where one chapter builds up to a cliff-hanger and then the next one throws you into a totally different slow-paced situation, tricking you into reading through the slow bits with the pace of the fast ones, desperate to get to a promised story pay-off. I don’t like being rushed! Let me read the slow bits slowly. If you want it all to be fast, then write fast. I’m glad at least that I learned this about myself. I didn’t like it when I was a kid and found myself wrenched from imperilled Sam and Frodo to unrelated places like Rohan or Gondor, and apparently I never grew out of that dislike.
…Do I need to care about characters to enjoy a book? I’m not sure. No, that can’t be right, because I don’t care particularly for any of the characters in some of my all-time favourite books – but in those it’s ok because the prose is intoxicatingly magnificent, or because the ideas are clever and strange. I’m glad I read this if only for the fact that it was nice to snoop around pretending to be a rich guest at the opulent Sea Hawk hotel while still inhabiting the dangerous fictional version of the novel. Did you know a couple of years ago they turned away a Cuban diplomat because they thought hosting him might anger the USA? Seriously, fuck that hotel.
At its worst it’s like reading Wikipedia articles thinly wrapped in lifeless characters. Everyone eventually takes on the same dry unnatural tone about whatever their interest happens to be (bomb-making, East Asian economies, guns, wool-spinning, etc), spouting paragraphs of specialist knowledge mid-conversation that Murakami clearly spent a long time researching – three years, he says in the Afterword, and boy, do you feel those three years! It’s these or his political musings that are assigned to seemingly haphazard character names. For a book that starts with a six-page list of “Prominent Characters”, the lack of polyphony is unforgivable.
Since there’s such a focus on dry details, as though one is reading a report, it felt equally satisfying and disappointing when I spotted a mistake (I think three in total) about Fukuoka, though they’re probably intentional things to help the story, like having four main elevators in the Sea Hawk hotel instead of six for the soldiers to come out of. Still, it seemed to me almost hypocritical to employ a relentlessly realist style and then bend the facts to suit a story-line which already requires us to suspend disbelief at key moments (why do we keep hearing how competent the North Korean occupiers are when their actions often scream otherwise?).
This book is like a beached whale: its immense mass may have all functioned swimmingly in the ocean of Murakami’s imagination, but as a text it’s crushed by the weight of its own organs. Its themes collapse on themselves (the realism is unrealistic), and it’s page-count smothers the interesting ideas and sudden bursts of good writing.
It picked up at the halfway point, which is unfortunately about 300 pages in. Or maybe, since I’d left it alone for a while, I just figured out what he was trying to do around then. I had been waiting for the chapter called “In Ohori Park” since that’s more or less where I live; maybe that chapter title alone stopped me from giving up the wordy boring stuff that preceded it, and when I got there strangely it clicked – oh, here is a character who I understand, even though he thinks entirely differently from how I do. Oh, here is some of Murakami’s trademark otherworldly violence that seems to transform a realistic world into something magical. Oh, here are real buildings I know and dislike because they are exclusive to the wealthy being blown up. Suddenly, a change of heart: this book is worth my time.
Then I read this chapter about a doctor called “The Execution”, which was really good: a character study, the intrusion of madness and violence into everyday life, and a big advancement of the main plot happening incidentally in the background. It all came together like a short story with its own themes and ideas, just set in the world of the book. (That said it really bothered me that while the Japanese characters are so disturbed about executions of criminals taking place in Japan, and adamant that they’re horrific remnants of a bygone time, the book seems to go along with these views without mention of the obvious fact that Japan does execute criminals regularly, just in a normalized and discrete way rather than the brash display of the North Koreans. This kind of hypocrisy is jarring and seems a perfect theme for the story, but since it goes unchallenged one can only assume it’s the author’s own hypocrisy making its way into – and marring – the story.)
Unless I’m wrong every chapter is from a different and often new character’s perspective, which means you’re still getting new characters introduced at the very end of the novel. Once I got into the hang of this (again, really late in the day) it was actually pretty interesting. Maybe if he’d gone more in this direction it would have worked: short stories set in a world where Fukuoka is occupied by North Korea and Kyushu blockaded by Japan. Yes, not a novel. It could’ve been great.
The last few chapters were breathlessly thrilling or kind of stressful. I realised that I still don’t like that thing where one chapter builds up to a cliff-hanger and then the next one throws you into a totally different slow-paced situation, tricking you into reading through the slow bits with the pace of the fast ones, desperate to get to a promised story pay-off. I don’t like being rushed! Let me read the slow bits slowly. If you want it all to be fast, then write fast. I’m glad at least that I learned this about myself. I didn’t like it when I was a kid and found myself wrenched from imperilled Sam and Frodo to unrelated places like Rohan or Gondor, and apparently I never grew out of that dislike.
…Do I need to care about characters to enjoy a book? I’m not sure. No, that can’t be right, because I don’t care particularly for any of the characters in some of my all-time favourite books – but in those it’s ok because the prose is intoxicatingly magnificent, or because the ideas are clever and strange. I’m glad I read this if only for the fact that it was nice to snoop around pretending to be a rich guest at the opulent Sea Hawk hotel while still inhabiting the dangerous fictional version of the novel. Did you know a couple of years ago they turned away a Cuban diplomat because they thought hosting him might anger the USA? Seriously, fuck that hotel.
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Read my review on my blog:
http://www.50ayear.com/2013/08/30/30-fatherland-love-ryu-murakami/
http://www.50ayear.com/2013/08/30/30-fatherland-love-ryu-murakami/