NP: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

[Will Layman]

I just finished KAFKA ON THE SHORE.

I hate to see folks here putting down Murakami.  While I am particularly
partial to his short stories (THE ELEPHANT VANISHES, AFTER THE QUAKE, among
others), I also very much liked KAFKA.

Any comparisons to Pynchon are pretty far off-base, however.  Murakami is a
minimalist regarding language and a kind of fabulist.  In many of his
stories, the supernatural or impossible occurs, and quite matter-of-factly.
Animals talk.  Dreams morph into reality.  That kind of stuff.  While, like
Pynchon, he sometimes deals in Borgesian puzzles, his technique is totally
different.  He is more of a true surrealist, letting dream vision spring to
life and providing relatively few answers.  He's not encylopedic or
excessive like TRP.

KAFKA is slow, quite by design.  It has a deliberate quality, alternating
between two stories in every other chapter.  Of course they will converge --
knowing that doesn't make the story predictable, just more like a fable.
For me, the whole thing had the quality of being delivered in a series of
dreams, half-remembered.  And, oddly, I read it over many months, even
though it isn't that long.

For those who are curious, I would strongly urge you to start with his
wonderful -- terse and tart -- short stories.  I think they'll delight you
in a very unPynchonish way.

-- Will Layman

On 2/19/06 9:54 PM, "Bekah" <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Have you (or anyone) read Kafka on the Shore?
> 
> Bekah
> 
> At 9:24 PM +0000 2/19/06, richard baillie wrote:
>> Interesting point.
>> 
>> I guess the main similarity between Pynchon and Marukami is that the
>> quality of the writing is extremely variable.
>> 
>> In Pynchon's case from the outstanding (GR) to the merely very good.
>> 
>> Marukami is much more middle brow and accessible but his better novels
>> (South of the Border West of the Sun and Norwegian Wood) are worth
>> reading. The rest are fairly silly and predictable.
>> 
>> 
>> On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 16:07:26 -0500, "Joe Allonby" <joeallonby at gmail.com>
>> said:
>>>  I loved the minimalist language and the oddly magical story itself. I
>>>  liked
>>>  Mr Wind-up Bird and especially May Kasuhara.
>>> 
>>>  On 2/18/06, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Just finished reading "the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," by Haruki
>>>> Murakami.  When I was asking for reading suggestions a while
>>> back, a number
>>>> of people on this list recommended it.  Also, the blurb on the back of the
>>>> book compared it to Pynchon.  I have to say, I was really
>>>> disappointed.  Aside from some historical flashbacks (which were the best
>>>> part of the book) and a vague atmosphere of conspiracy, there was nothing
>>>> Pynchonesque about it.  The writing was minimalist and the characters and
>>>> conspiracy elements got way too close to being merely cute
>>> (ick).  The most
>>>> telling difference:  it's easy to imagine this as a flick; extremely
>>>> difficult for Pynchon's work.
>>>> 
>>>> Just curious to hear why people like this book so much.
>>>> 
>>>> Laura
>>>> 
>> --
>>   richard baillie
>>   richbaillie at fastmail.fm
>> 
>> --
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>