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Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content
Minor: Misogyny
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Animal death, Death of parent, Alcohol
I would have loved it if the description of women wouldn’t have been so weird and unnecessarily sexual.
I had the same problem with Norwegian wood. I will read other works of Murakami but if it’s the same objectified view on women I’ll wonder what’s wrong with him.
That’s why it’s hard for me to recommend this book but I think if you’re aware of this flaw it still can be a good read. I loved the metaphors and symbols and the language all in all. I think it connects the story with philosophical / deep aspects in a brilliant way. All in all it gave me a lot to think about.
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Animal death, Death
Graphic: Misogyny, Lesbophobia
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Stalking
Moderate: Infidelity, Death of parent, Alcohol
Minor: Animal death
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual assault
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment
Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual content
Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, Grief, Lesbophobia
Minor: Rape, Death of parent
Graphic: Sexual assault
Moderate: Misogyny, Lesbophobia
There was an excessive number of similes that, as evocative and poetic as they were, kept breaking the narrative flow. Take, as an example: "She put an olive in her mouth, with her fingers took out the pit, and threw it in the ashtray, with grace, like a poet that adds a comma to a poem" (rough translation from Italian): now, as poetic as this sounds, a simile helps to picture a scene, an action, a condition more accurately, or more profoundly, if you will; Murakami's figures of speech do none of this. Moreover, this stylistic choice is equally present in the speech and first person p.o.v. of all the protagonists, highlighting its artificiality.
It was impossible not to notice the repeated, obviously useless descriptions of Myu's legs, "taut and solid" body, and short skirt. But, after all, it's a pretty typical approach to... women, in late '90s productions. Much harder to ignore was Murakami's weird obsession with nipples and their consistency, which made me almost believe he doesn't have any of his own.
The sexual scene between the two female protagonists read awfully like a porn scene, and smelled of voyeurism on Murakami's part.
Nevertheless, this book also gave me a lot to reflect on. Many deep and complex concepts were present through the whole book, that was heavy on the philosophical side. Told as if they were being directly discussed with the reader, one would find themself giving thought to those ideas naturally.
This was my first work by Murakami, and despite all his flaws, I can't ignore just how good of a writer he is, when it comes to setting up gloomy, tense, dark, mysterious atmospheres – they'd always accompany me much after I'd put the book down.
The ending was, well, not an ending at all, and entirely up for interpretation. Murakami keeps leaping from dream to reality, from reality to hallucination, without a warning, until the boundaries between the two completely blur out and, at the end, they disappear.
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content
Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Infertility