Murakami: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Invitation to view

[John Bailey]

I'm loving Mr Thibodeau's realisations today. Don't swing too far the
other way, fella, and think Murakami is rolled gold, but there are a
few nuggets in there.

On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 11:42 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just shows you are akin to HM, whom you must stop dissing now because that
> would be self-hatred which only genius writers better'n Murakami Could pull
> off and you're only equal to him sometimes.
>
> Lol.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 10, 2015, at 8:36 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FUCK!!!
>
> I have an (unpublished, unfinished) novella/script (Fanfare at Zero) that
> begins with a pair of cousins in the middle of killing all the animals in a
> local zoo before an incoming asteroid collision!
>
> FUCK!!!
>
> J
>
> On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 8:31 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> The sentimental, "it's all good" angle on Murakami always seems to
>> take at face value what might elsewise be seen as a major deployment
>> of irony. His narrators are perhaps the most equivocating and
>> conditional in contemporary lit - cut out all the I guesses and
>> supposes and perhapses and you'll halve the book - but then it's hard
>> to marry the 'cute' to:
>>
>> The lengthy scene in which a man is slowly flayed alive
>> The demonic avatar of corporate America whose pastimes include
>> decapitating cats with pruning shears
>> The soldier tasked with executing all of the animals in a zoo before
>> an invading army arrives (an amazingly evocative premise for a short
>> story):
>> https://theeveningrednessinthewest.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/haruki-murakamis-another-way-to-die/
>>
>> This kind of stuff is maybe 1% of his total output, but it's hard to
>> forget.
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >               " the old questions, the old answers. Nothing like
>> > them"---Beckett
>> >
>> > Fate, fGreek sense--classics major he was--up against Existentialism are
>> > the
>> > wells ( allusion intended) from which he uses metaphysics. deep enough?
>> > Beyond my judgment yet.
>> >
>> > So, David, nothing Jungian about his archetypes? Genuinely asking, no
>> > real
>> > idea.
>> >
>> > Sent from my iPad
>> >
>> > On Oct 9, 2015, at 7:01 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > My main problem is the tangential throwaway metaphysics. They are either
>> > silly and shallow or lead nowhere.  I've wondered if maybe it's due to
>> > my
>> > lack of Japanese cultural background.  If so, his archetypes are
>> > extremely
>> > parochial.  And the stories without them aren't compelling.
>> >
>> > David
>> >
>> > On Friday, October 9, 2015, David Kilroy <thesaintgodard at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> My main argument against the Chronicle is the cast.  I find them all
>> >> very
>> >> difficult to engage with, unlike most other Murakmi I've read.  I
>> >> realize
>> >> this is more to do with the culture, set & setting, than anything else.
>> >> I
>> >> exist in a culture actively estranging itself so a story about coming
>> >> to
>> >> terms with alienation has to have some emotional texture, some rock in
>> >> the
>> >> stream with an irregular surface for me to cling to.
>> >>
>> >> Contrariwise, my favorite character in WUBC-- that is, the most clearly
>> >> embedded in my memory --is Noboru Wataya.  It's his cipherlike nature
>> >> as an
>> >> antagonist.  He's a cloudy diamond, of the same water as Brock Vond or
>> >> Windust.  Could be I'm just a sucker for ambivalent villainy.  Could be
>> >> that's why I haven't absquatulated from Amerika already...
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l