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jelundberg 's review for:
Killing Commendatore
by Haruki Murakami
I love Murakami and would follow him almost anywhere, but this novel was a disappointment. Even more repetitive than his previous works, this could have easily been cut in half word-count-wise and still retained the entire narrative; it is that guilty of bloat. There are some genuinely creepy moments throughout, but dispelled into mundanity too quickly. In the end, I just don’t know what it all adds up to, nor do I really care.
But most egregiously of all, Murakami only sees his female characters as locomotive machines for their breasts. Even the 13-year-old girl who poses (chastely) for the narrator to paint her portrait is overwhelmingly obsessed with her developing bosoms, which of course the narrator must also comment on. I like boobs as much as any cisgender heterosexual male (as in, a lot), but I could not stop rolling my eyes when they’re mentioned over and over and over again, to the extent that they become the defining trait of every female character in the book. Come on, Murakami, do better.
But most egregiously of all, Murakami only sees his female characters as locomotive machines for their breasts. Even the 13-year-old girl who poses (chastely) for the narrator to paint her portrait is overwhelmingly obsessed with her developing bosoms, which of course the narrator must also comment on. I like boobs as much as any cisgender heterosexual male (as in, a lot), but I could not stop rolling my eyes when they’re mentioned over and over and over again, to the extent that they become the defining trait of every female character in the book. Come on, Murakami, do better.