Murukami

[rich]

I wouldn't discount his nonfiction book about the Sarin gas attacks in
Tokyo by Aum Shinryko.

fwiw, I liked the Wind Up Bird--the chapters that take place in
Manchuria are particularly good.

havent been so enthused by his later works but the new one I'll pbly
take a crack at eventually

rich

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:08 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Thanks for this, Mark.  It sums up my feelings about The Wind-up Bird
> Chronicle.  If it's an apt description of his other books, then I'm not
> interested in reading further.
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Kohut
>
> His weakness is sentimentality. Soft-headedness in his 'magical
> realism'...maybe....he might be guilty of his
> own Cute Correspondences without any fan-creators of same. I have groaned
> under some of the seeming whimsy
> but keep thinking about it. Some I can't ....believe in. His vision of
> things, of human nature, may not go deep enough.
>
> Like many.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> To: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
> Cc: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>; pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:41 PM
> Subject: Re: Murukami
>
> I'm a big fan but Murakami and Pynchon have very little in common -
> although M is interested in revisiting the unacknowledged horrors of
> his country's past, which might be a vague link.
>
> I think his popularity in the west sort of overshadows what makes him
> distinct in Japanese literature (and society) as what's sometimes
> celebrated as unusual in his work is often quite traditional in his
> country (eg writing a novel in which not one character is named), and
> the more transgressive elements of his style are pretty familiar in
> English.
>
> Personally I enjoy the way he writes spaces and objects; they're often
> indistinguishable from the psyche of those observing. Climbing down a
> well or even walking along a corridor always involves a subconscious
> journey as well, and the most material of everyday items have a
> talismanic quality that's very Lynchian. The fantastic stuff rises
> from a collective unconscious too, but I think a lot of it is probably
> lost in the cross-cultural translation.
>
> I'd guess that the outrageous levels of ambivalence and equivocation
> in his writing is exactly what makes people love or detest him.
>
> And yeah, he is obsessed with cats. He ran a jazz bar named after his
> own feline.
>
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm game.
>>
>> I'm a fan of Murakami. I liked "Kafka on the Shore" more than "Wind-Up
>> BIrd".  The similarity to Pynchon that I see is that I like Pynchon
>> and I like Murakami. That's about it. TRP's talking dog is a gag in
>> one novel. Haruki seems obsessed with cats, particularly talking ones.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>  Trying again. Is there a plan for group read  of IQ 84?
>>>
>>
>
>
>