For Murakami in small doses, I highly recommend After the Quake. It's a collection of short stories dealing with the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake.
I'm also particularly fond of Kafka on the Shore but it's so unique and bizarre. I also like After Dark because it's a pretty quick read. Enjoy. Murakami is one of my favorite authors and I do have to say, he is definitely an acquired taste but After the Quake is a good one to start with.
I finished reading that book last week. It was on my Japanese Lit syllabus.
I agree with you, in that it's a story about what's happenning now and not about what will happen later. Japanese lit is a lot about the present, about little moments and random sensations, but not so much about a plot with a satisfying ending. Or so I have seem to discover during the semester.
My favourite character was Midori, with all her issues. Naoko seemed to be more of a sort of ghostly presence haunting Watanabe, than a real person. Which worked very much fine, for me.
Translations are often shitty and quite difficult from the original japanese- I confess I have no idea how the English translation is, but my professor insists that Spanish translates better from Japanese than English. He also said that a translation made by a native Japanese will often try to capture the spirit of the book more than a learned Japanese translator, who'll try to be as literal as possible, thus loosing much of the symbolism.
I never read Murakami, but that hushed tone and emphasis on insignificance you describe seems to me typical of a whole string of Japanese writers and moviemakers, including the moviemaker Ozu and the novelist Kawabata. I have read the latter's The Master of Go and was very impressed. Incidentally, for a little-known modern writer who has made a great impression on me, try the Norwegian Tarjej Vesaas.
The greatest twentieth-century writers I have read are Thomas Mann and Andre' Gide. The latter's The Pastoral Symphony pretty much broke my heart, and the former's Doktor Faustus and short stories are things I go back to over and over again, for inspiration and to learn from them. Doktor Faustus also might interest you as a fantasy writer, since it is a textbook instance of how to suggest the supernatural without ever making a certain statement that it either exists or does not. And it contains a haunting, terrifying conversation with the Devil that goes on for dozens of pages without ever losing interest.
Interesting that you mention Thomas Mann, since the protagonist, Toru, is studying Western literature, and during part of the novel he's carrying Mann's Magic Mountain around to read. According to some reviewers, Murakami deliberately imitated one of the themes in that book since Norwegian Wood also features characters withdrawing into their own world within a sanitorium.
I may check out Doktor Faustus, and the Master of Go also sounds interesting, thanks.
Do. Mann's Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain are also great stuff - Buddenbrooks was my teenage-angst text way back when - but I cannot underline his short stories too much. One of them you have certainly heard of - Death In Venice - but they are all full of power and interest.
It's probably proof of my own orneriness that my favourite Mann is his unfinished Felix Krull. It's as if, at the end of Mann's life, writing had suddenly become light and spontaneous - and I love how he weaves elements of his own life - waiting for a ship at Lisbon - with the picaresque of Krull's irrepressible career; revisiting a scene of sadness with comic buoyancy.
Kazuo Ishiguro, in spite of the name, is more English than Japanese. His novel Remains of the Day is so English you could practically stamp the flag of St.George on it.
I've read most of Murakami's novels. I think probably the most "important" one thus far is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which is brutal in parts but mostly just surreal and amazing. I recommend it highly. I also really liked Kafka on the Shore. I think that was the first of his books that I read.
Weirdly, I'm looking at Amazon now and I think all my favorites were the ones with 4 stars and my least favorites were the ones with 4 and a half stars. Hmph.
I agree with anon above that Kazuo Ishiguro is great.
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I'm also particularly fond of Kafka on the Shore but it's so unique and bizarre. I also like After Dark because it's a pretty quick read. Enjoy. Murakami is one of my favorite authors and I do have to say, he is definitely an acquired taste but After the Quake is a good one to start with.
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I agree with you, in that it's a story about what's happenning now and not about what will happen later. Japanese lit is a lot about the present, about little moments and random sensations, but not so much about a plot with a satisfying ending. Or so I have seem to discover during the semester.
My favourite character was Midori, with all her issues. Naoko seemed to be more of a sort of ghostly presence haunting Watanabe, than a real person. Which worked very much fine, for me.
Translations are often shitty and quite difficult from the original japanese- I confess I have no idea how the English translation is, but my professor insists that Spanish translates better from Japanese than English. He also said that a translation made by a native Japanese will often try to capture the spirit of the book more than a learned Japanese translator, who'll try to be as literal as possible, thus loosing much of the symbolism.
I just begun After Dark, and I'm enjoying ( ... )
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The greatest twentieth-century writers I have read are Thomas Mann and Andre' Gide. The latter's The Pastoral Symphony pretty much broke my heart, and the former's Doktor Faustus and short stories are things I go back to over and over again, for inspiration and to learn from them. Doktor Faustus also might interest you as a fantasy writer, since it is a textbook instance of how to suggest the supernatural without ever making a certain statement that it either exists or does not. And it contains a haunting, terrifying conversation with the Devil that goes on for dozens of pages without ever losing interest.
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I may check out Doktor Faustus, and the Master of Go also sounds interesting, thanks.
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So this is real life...
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Weirdly, I'm looking at Amazon now and I think all my favorites were the ones with 4 stars and my least favorites were the ones with 4 and a half stars. Hmph.
I agree with anon above that Kazuo Ishiguro is great.
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