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A review by sebby_reads
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
3.0
I received this book as a gift since the beginning of November but I only started reading it last Sunday. It took me a good whole week to finish it as I could only read a handful of chapter during the weeknights. And it’s pretty big and heavy book with nearly 700 pages so I couldn’t hold the book for very long. Regardless, it was a phenomenal read.
A thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo was separated from his wife and left to a house in the mountain, owned by a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. He discovered a painting by the former artist kept in the attic and from that he unintentionally opened a door for series of mysterious circumstances. With each new events interlaced with one another—the enigmatic sound of a bell ringing in the middle of the night, a business man living across the valley ask to commission his portrait and a precocious teenage girls, a Nazi assassination attempt in Austria during World War II, a pit behind an ancient shrine at the back of the Artist house—he tried to comprehend about his own struggles and about the people and the place he’s been associated with recently.
For me, it was a little less Murakami-ish compared to his other books I have read. Even though the usual old vinyl records, solitude, explicit dreams, and some eerie or surreal events are still featured in this book, I feel different. It has become less painful and saddening to read. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading it. Uncovering the multi layer of mystery was very much intriguing with each page turned. I just wasn’t satisfied with the story, perhaps. I’ll give 3 stars for this one.
A thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo was separated from his wife and left to a house in the mountain, owned by a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. He discovered a painting by the former artist kept in the attic and from that he unintentionally opened a door for series of mysterious circumstances. With each new events interlaced with one another—the enigmatic sound of a bell ringing in the middle of the night, a business man living across the valley ask to commission his portrait and a precocious teenage girls, a Nazi assassination attempt in Austria during World War II, a pit behind an ancient shrine at the back of the Artist house—he tried to comprehend about his own struggles and about the people and the place he’s been associated with recently.
For me, it was a little less Murakami-ish compared to his other books I have read. Even though the usual old vinyl records, solitude, explicit dreams, and some eerie or surreal events are still featured in this book, I feel different. It has become less painful and saddening to read. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading it. Uncovering the multi layer of mystery was very much intriguing with each page turned. I just wasn’t satisfied with the story, perhaps. I’ll give 3 stars for this one.