ONE OF FIVE NEW VINTAGE FUTURE CLASSIC READING GUIDE EDITIONS
In 1978, Haruki Murakami was 29 and running a jazz bar in downtown
Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him
suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the
Wind Sing, won a new writers' award and was published the following
year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood,
published in 1987, which turned Murakami from a writer into a
phenomenon. His books became bestsellers, were translated into many
languages, including English, and the door was thrown wide open to
Murakami's unique and addictive fictional universe.
Murakami writes with admirable discipline, producing ten pages a
day, after which he runs ten kilometres (he began long-distance
running in 1982 and has participated in numerous marathons and
races), works on translations, and then reads, listens to records
and cooks. His passions colour his non-fiction output, from What I
Talk About When I Talk About Running to Absolutely On Music, and
they also seep into his novels and short stories, providing
quotidian moments in his otherwise freewheeling flights of
imaginative inquiry. In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,
1Q84 and Men Without Women, his distinctive blend of the mysterious
and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant
readers, ensuring Murakami's place as one of the world's most
acclaimed and well-loved writers.
Murakami writes of contemporary Japan, urban alienation and
journeys of self-discovery, and in this book he combines
recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and
hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work
*Independent*
Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to
put down
*Daily Telegraph*
Murakami weaves these textured layers of reality into a shot-silk
garment of deceptive beauty
*Independent on Sunday*
Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond
Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret
Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to
suggest Murakami is in fact an original
*New York Times*
Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true
original
*The Times*
Kumiko Okada has a satisfying career and comes from a wealthy family. Toru, her husband, is a lawyer. Little mars this young Tokyo couple's life other than the disappearance of their cat. From that minor event, however, their life together devolves into a confusing web of intrigue. Kumiko disappears, telling Toru not to look for her. Then a collection of mystics, clairvoyants, and healers enter Toru's life. Reeling, he begins to spend hours in meditation at the bottom of a dry well, becoming a healer of sorts, until his work brings him into conflict with Kumiko's powerful brother-in-law‘a conflict cast in moral terms, with Kumiko's soul in the balance. This very long journey is much less magical than simply strained. There are detours into the history of Japan's occupation of Manchuria and accounts of Japanese prisoners' lives in Siberian coal mines. Though interesting in parts, taken as a whole, this latest from Murakami (Dance, Dance, Dance, LJ 1/94) labors diligently toward some larger message but fails in the attempt.‘Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Murakami writes of contemporary Japan, urban alienation and
journeys of self-discovery, and in this book he combines
recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and
hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work *
Independent *
Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to
put down * Daily Telegraph *
Murakami weaves these textured layers of reality into a shot-silk
garment of deceptive beauty * Independent on Sunday *
Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond
Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret
Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to
suggest Murakami is in fact an original * New York Times *
Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original *
The Times *
Ask a Question About this Product More... |