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Magic Man posted:Izumi Kyoka Sounds kind of like Akutagawa, at least style-wise. Have you read both? creamyhorror posted:Oh hey this thread. I started reading Akira Higashiyama's "Johnny the Rabbit", a sort of crime noir novel involving a rabbit protagonist and other animals. I didn't get very far, because it was only somewhat interesting. I'm reading it in Chinese (title is 兔子强尼 - picked it up at a book sale randomly) but I imagine the content is about the same. The book doesn't seem to be known by the anglo-Internet, and the author doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Hmm. Sooo you read a mediocre novel you picked up randomly and are surprised when the author isn't well-known?
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Oct 10, 2011 03:20
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z0331 posted:Sooo you read a mediocre novel you picked up randomly and are surprised when the author isn't well-known? creamyhorror fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Oct 10, 2011 |
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Oct 10, 2011 05:52
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quote:Sounds kind of like Akutagawa, at least style-wise. Have you read both? Yeah, I love Akutagawa too, especially Hell Screen. I think the two are fairly different both in style and content, however. I think Akutagawa tends to favor minimalism in his language a lot, and most of his focus is given to the psychology of his characters rather than the places they inhabit. Kyoka's writing is more similar to Blake or Keats, he places a lot of focus on natural scenes using extremely vivid and flowery prose. Kyoka also usually doesn't place too much emphasis on character development as he basically rewrites the same characters for all of his stories. What he felt was most important was the language itself rather than world building. A writer you might try if you like Akutagawa is Naoya Shiga, his stories also employed very minimalist and sharp language on issues of the human condition. He was also a contemporary of Akutagawa and also one of his favorite writers. He differs from Akutagawa in that most of his work is taken from his own personal experiences (Shiga is credited as one of the pioneers of the "I-Novel" style in Japan) but it's still very interesting stuff. At Kinosaki is probably my favorite story of his, it's about a man who travels to the countryside for reasons of his health and ponders death as it's presented to him in nature. Han's Crime is also good, I think it's very similar to Akutagawa's In a Bamboo Grove both in style and content.
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Oct 15, 2011 13:23
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Hello Titty posted:I've said it before in this thread but yes A Personal Matter by Oe is a really beautiful book that's worth a shot Agreed, it's an excellent book. I need to finish Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids sometime eventually.
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Oct 19, 2011 07:04
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I have half a mind to email John Nathan asking why Kyoko no Ie by Mishima has yet to be translated into English. I kind of feel like I'm a fanatic for his oeuvre. Runaway Horses gives me a hard-on, but my constant reread is Death and Midsummer and other stories, mostly because it includes one of his 'Modern Noh plays'. His best theatrical example, however, has to be Madame de Sade ... I would kill to time travel back to 1995 to see Ingmar Bergman stage it at the Brooklyn Academy of Music!! I've yet to read Silk and Insight, but it might get read soon as in these fanatical times I'm curious to see Mishima's take on labor relations. Other than that, next on my list to read is the Heian period, genderqueer Torikaebaya Monogatari. wiki posted:The story tells about a Sadaijin (high-ranking courtier) who has two similar-looking children by different mothers, a boy called Wakagimi and a girl called Himegimi, but their mannerisms are those of the opposite sex. (The title, "Torikaebaya", literally means "If only I could exchange them!", an exasperated cry by the father.) The Sadaijin plans to have them join religious orders, but the news of the talents of the "son" spreads to the court. The children go through the coming of age ceremonies for the opposite sex, and the Sadaijin presents his daughter as a man to the court, and his son as a woman.
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Oct 26, 2011 07:51
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z0331 posted:If they passed up Abe Kobo for so many years until it was too late there's no reason they should choose Murakami. One thing I feel we've gotta give the guy is that he is one of those authors that makes books culturally cool but is producing work that isn't totally vapid. Like, I think I read that 1Q84 sold a million copies in its first month. When I think of authors that might swing that kind of fervor in the States, I'm imagining JK Rowling, John Grisham, etc -- mostly airport fiction. Not to bash those guys, but if a society is going to devour a book and talk about it constantly, it's probably good that it's at least a little thought-provoking and attempts emotional complexity.
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Oct 27, 2011 07:03
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I'm so glad I found this thread; I studied Japanese in college and really love Japanese lit. Since I went back to school for chemistry I'm struggling to keep my skills up. But I still really enjoy Japanese books, mostly in English but sometimes in Japanese too. I even have a cat named Natsume.  I was pretty upset when I found out that in I Am A Cat the cat dies in the end.Has anyone started reading 1Q84 yet? I'm only on Chapter 7 but so far it's really engaging. It flips back and forth between two different stories and I feel like the overall mood, at least so far, is a bit different than in Murakami's other books. The pacing is different, there's a greater sense of unease and urgency. I'm interested to see how it progresses.
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Oct 28, 2011 18:20
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Ekplixi posted:Has anyone started reading 1Q84 yet? I'm only on Chapter 7 but so far it's really engaging. It flips back and forth between two different stories and I feel like the overall mood, at least so far, is a bit different than in Murakami's other books. The pacing is different, there's a greater sense of unease and urgency. I'm interested to see how it progresses. I read the first two chapters last night. As expected, I do not love the writing and find some things awkward, but with the others I've inevitably gotten sucked in anyways. I feel like he recycles a lot, and I have a checklist of things that I expect to show up, several of which are already present: 1) A protagonist with a writing-related occupation. (Check.) 2) A bizarre friendship with an underage girl that does not turn sexual but has lots of sexual overtones. 3) A central character with a preoccupation with classical or jazz music. (Check.) 4) Prostitute with a heart of gold. 5) Male central character likely quits his job but somehow has no money-related problems as a result; cooks spaghetti and drinks beer while listening to music.
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Oct 28, 2011 21:10
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asylum years posted:5) Male central character likely quits his job but somehow has no money-related problems as a result; cooks spaghetti and drinks beer while listening to music. Goddamn, this is like every Murakami novel in a nutshell. At least one of the main protagonists is a woman this time. Murakami is pop-lit for me: fun to read, fun to chug through, not exactly The Tale of Genji or Kokoro, but who cares?
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Oct 29, 2011 05:01
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Yeah I also feel like Murakami recycles a lot of elements from his previous work, but there's something more refreshing and engaging with this one to me for some reason. Chapter 6 or 7 in and I'm liking it quite a bit already. (check 2 and 4 on that list!) For the record, Kafka on the Shore is my favorite of his.
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Oct 29, 2011 05:08
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I'm taking an East Asian Novel course this semester and we read A Wild Sheep Chase. It basically re-affirmed for me that I do, in fact, like Haruki Murakami, I just really need to stay on his novels since his short stories, with a few exceptions, turn me off. It was also nice to go through his novel with a professor who likes him and does a lot of work on him. I gained an appreciation for his work as having aspects beyond just pop-fiction. Also we just finished Tale of Genji (abridged) and gently caress that guy. I understand the importance of the work, I understand at least some of the complexities, I understand the level of psychological depth that's going, and I can appreciate the aesthetic ideals that were being achieved and expressed. But I couldn't take much more of reading about prissy aristocrats. I like the Akashi chapter the best since it showed glimpses of common people. I wanted to read more about them, not another one of Genji's affairs. z0331 fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Oct 29, 2011 |
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Oct 29, 2011 05:44
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Pfirti86 posted:Goddamn, this is like every Murakami novel in a nutshell. At least one of the main protagonists is a woman this time. Yeah, I mean, I know I'm making fun of him, but like I said, I've read and liked them all. I'm not sure what it is exactly. The thing I always think about is Dance Dance Dance; after reading Kafka and enjoying it on the advice of a friend, I picked it up for a long train ride from Nagasaki to Tokyo for some rather lonely business. I had something like a week of vacation time and had planned to come back from Tokyo right after my business there was concluded, but that book struck me just so, and I ended up burning a vacation day to hole up in my lovely hotel for an extra day and just devour that book. There's something about that melancholy and magic that will get into your system if you're the type to respond to it.
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Oct 29, 2011 08:13
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asylum years posted:1) A protagonist with a writing-related occupation. (Check.) Goddamnit, the protagonist even prefers swimming as a method of exercise (not really much of a spoiler, but can't be too careful). What's with that? I thought Murakami was obsessed with running. Edit: (slight 1Q84 spoiler, not anything specific but a general observation after 220 pages in) Also, is it just me or is 1Q84 quite a bit more pornographic than anything else he's written? Not that I'm a prude or anything, but it's almost distracting. Edit 2: It's funny how nearly every comment on this video is related to 1Q84: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3RKqvknVYc Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Oct 31, 2011 |
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Oct 29, 2011 17:38
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omgmofohomolol posted:Other than that, next on my list to read is the Heian period, genderqueer Torikaebaya Monogatari. I'm having flashbacks to a seminar I had in classical Japanese literature, when we read that bad mo-fo. Very strange book.
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Oct 29, 2011 20:29
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Ekplixi posted:I even have a cat named Natsume. That's my cat's name, too! Goddammit, I thought I was being so clever. Anyway, hi, I'm here because I was sperging about Japanese literature in an unrelated thread and someone pointed out this thread as the appropriate place to do that. There's been a lot of discussion of Mishima here, but I haven't seen any mentions of The Sound of Waves yet. I don't especially like book in and of itself -- I found it pretty boring, honestly -- but I find it kind of fascinating how out of place it seems with the rest of Mishima's work. Most of his stuff is, well... I don't know if "disturbing" is the right word, but when you close the book you're left going "wow, this guy had issues". The Sound of Waves, on the other hand, is a slow-paced, gentle book about salt-of-the-earth country folk whose good old-fashioned rural way of life is being slowly encroached upon by soulless urban modernity. The nostalgia for pre-WWII times is pretty normal for Mishima, I suppose, but the way it's developed in this book is surprisingly lacking in violence. I admit, though, that I haven't actually read very much of Mishima's other work, and I read The Sound of Waves long before I was even really aware of anything else he'd done, so I'm curious whether anyone else has thoughts on how The Sound of Waves fits in. Regarding Natsume, it's interesting to hear that some people here have found him easier to read in the original Japanese than Murakami is. I've only read I Am A Cat in translation, and what I've heard from native speakers of Japanese has been that Natsume's language is so old-fashioned as to make his books prohibitively difficult to get through. I suppose it might be that what I interpreted as "these books are so hard to read that I, as a native speaker, wouldn't bother" was in fact "these books are too hard for you, you dumb gaijin". I have trouble telling, sometimes. e: Oh, oops, sorry for necroposting. I didn't realize that the last comment on this thing was over a month old until it was too late. Ghost Car fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Dec 3, 2011 |
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Dec 3, 2011 07:33
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Ghost Car posted:Regarding Natsume, it's interesting to hear that some people here have found him easier to read in the original Japanese than Murakami is. Also if you wanted to make a pretense of being clever you should have named your cat Nora or something. mystes fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Dec 3, 2011 |
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Dec 3, 2011 20:05
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Has anyone else read the translation of Ryu Murakami's Popular Hits of the Showa Era that came out this year? I gave it a try, but I didn't like it very much and didn't make it past the second chapter or so. I liked Coin Locker Babies and Sixtynine a lot, but his shorter works are very hit-or-miss. I couldn't get through Almost Transparent Blue, either. His work always goes with a "how can I shock the reader next" approach, and I think it falls flat when the characters aren't interesting. IMHO, it worked in Piercing and In the Miso Soup quite well. I would really wish that they would translate his longer works, like The Fascism of Love and Fantasy, instead of his novellas.
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Dec 4, 2011 05:10
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Ghost Car posted:There's been a lot of discussion of Mishima here, but I haven't seen any mentions of The Sound of Waves yet. I don't especially like book in and of itself -- I found it pretty boring, honestly -- but I find it kind of fascinating how out of place it seems with the rest of Mishima's work. Most of his stuff is, well... I don't know if "disturbing" is the right word, but when you close the book you're left going "wow, this guy had issues". The Sound of Waves, on the other hand, is a slow-paced, gentle book about salt-of-the-earth country folk whose good old-fashioned rural way of life is being slowly encroached upon by soulless urban modernity. The nostalgia for pre-WWII times is pretty normal for Mishima, I suppose, but the way it's developed in this book is surprisingly lacking in violence. I admit, though, that I haven't actually read very much of Mishima's other work, and I read The Sound of Waves long before I was even really aware of anything else he'd done, so I'm curious whether anyone else has thoughts on how The Sound of Waves fits in. Mishima is the kind of guy you can spend a lifetime studying and never really 'get' him. The dude was, as my professor described him, a tortured soul. I would recommend watching the film Mishima: A Life in 4 Chapters for an idea of the conflicts that he was constantly working with. Also, a thing to keep in mind when reading him, he is never 100% serious in anything he writes. He was so paradoxical that practically all his works are part serious and part ironic so it can be very difficult to grasp what it is he seems to be trying to communicate quote:Regarding Natsume, it's interesting to hear that some people here have found him easier to read in the original Japanese than Murakami is. I've only read I Am A Cat in translation, and what I've heard from native speakers of Japanese has been that Natsume's language is so old-fashioned as to make his books prohibitively difficult to get through. I suppose it might be that what I interpreted as "these books are so hard to read that I, as a native speaker, wouldn't bother" was in fact "these books are too hard for you, you dumb gaijin". I have trouble telling, sometimes. Anachronistic vocabulary and kanji use aside, Soseki is easier in the sense that his grammar is more straightforward. Murakami's writing isn't necessarily tough, but his metaphors and imagery can be so bizarre that it's tough to know whether I'm understanding something correctly or I've made a mistake. Also keep in mind that what an average person thinks is going to be different than what someone who likes reading literature thinks, regardless of the language. quote:e: Oh, oops, sorry for necroposting. I didn't realize that the last comment on this thing was over a month old until it was too late. I'm glad you did! I'm in the process of trying to write a paper about Woman in the Dunes and am totally unsure of what to write about. I'm thinking of looking at it through some of Guattari's theories but his stuff is so impenetrable to read that I'm not sure I can learn enough to write the paper in time. To Chi Ka posted:Has anyone else read the translation of Ryu Murakami's Popular Hits of the Showa Era that came out this year? I gave it a try, but I didn't like it very much and didn't make it past the second chapter or so. I liked Coin Locker Babies and Sixtynine a lot, but his shorter works are very hit-or-miss. I couldn't get through Almost Transparent Blue, either. His work always goes with a "how can I shock the reader next" approach, and I think it falls flat when the characters aren't interesting. IMHO, it worked in Piercing and In the Miso Soup quite well. I would really wish that they would translate his longer works, like The Fascism of Love and Fantasy, instead of his novellas. I really think English translations of his stuff are hit-or-miss as you said. Coin Locker Babies is one of my favorite novels and I think the translation is excellent (gonna read the original soon) but Audition felt really flat and simplistic. About Almost Transparent Blue, keep in mind that it's his first work, but I don't think it's so much shocking for the sake of shock-value, but more to express the situation a lot of Japanese youth had fallen into at that time. Murakami Ryu has been very emphatic that he feels Japan's modernization and Westernization (in ATB partially represented by the American military base and characters) have left young people in a place where there doesn't appear to be much purpose or meaning in their life so they, in this case, drown themselves in passionless sex and drugs. The main character says several times that he simply feels 'empty'. Also keep in mind it's at least somewhat auto-biographical. It's not his best work, but it's an important one.
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Dec 4, 2011 16:10
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Ghost Car posted:There's been a lot of discussion of Mishima here, but I haven't seen any mentions of The Sound of Waves yet. I don't especially like book in and of itself -- I found it pretty boring, honestly -- but I find it kind of fascinating how out of place it seems with the rest of Mishima's work. Most of his stuff is, well... I don't know if "disturbing" is the right word, but when you close the book you're left going "wow, this guy had issues". The Sound of Waves, on the other hand, is a slow-paced, gentle book about salt-of-the-earth country folk whose good old-fashioned rural way of life is being slowly encroached upon by soulless urban modernity. The nostalgia for pre-WWII times is pretty normal for Mishima, I suppose, but the way it's developed in this book is surprisingly lacking in violence. I admit, though, that I haven't actually read very much of Mishima's other work, and I read The Sound of Waves long before I was even really aware of anything else he'd done, so I'm curious whether anyone else has thoughts on how The Sound of Waves fits in. Hi. Thanks for recommending The Sound of Waves - I really enjoyed it and, as you said, it's a mostly sweet and pleasant novel, a pastoral really, which I found surprising, as a newcomer to Mishima but someone who knows about him. Almost too pleasant, really; I felt that Shinji's ordeal near the end was pretty underdeveloped for a climactic moment. On the other hand, there are definitely some disturbingly reactionary themes below the surface - the water rota, the wasp that interrupts Yasuo's attempted rape of Hatsue reminded me straight away of a kami - but then he does acknowledge the difficulties of their way of life, such as the female divers' feet. And again, the idea that Mishima is preaching conservatism is very much at odds with Chiyoko and Yasuo's characters... Oddly the book it most reminded me of was Emma, partly because of its restricted scope and partly because you said found this boring. PS You were totally right with the "adoption into the family" thing.
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Dec 23, 2011 00:08
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Ghost Car posted:That's my cat's name, too! Goddammit, I thought I was being so clever. Feh. If you were being clever, you'd name your cat "Lady Myôbu" like I am going to do. 
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Dec 23, 2011 02:42
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Pfirti86 posted:
I am about 16 chapters in. It seems like this is related to the obvious gender reversal thing the two protagonists have going on, and making that more obvious/relevant. For example how: Aomame is a killer, is into martial arts and is more sexually aggressive, therefor having more "masculine" traits; while Tengo is more artistic and sensitive despite his large size, a little more sexually reserved, and more "feminine". The sexual stuff is just another way to reinforce this, although I am not sure to what extant it will pay off.
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Dec 25, 2011 02:03
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asylum years posted:I read the first two chapters last night. As expected, I do not love the writing and find some things awkward, but with the others I've inevitably gotten sucked in anyways. I feel like he recycles a lot, and I have a checklist of things that I expect to show up, several of which are already present: I never really thought of it as re-using things but rather his motif. Every protagonist is essentially the same character, a mild-mannered writer who finds great pleasure in cooking and the day-to-day monotony of life - his world is introduced to something out-of-the-ordinary by way of his more fun-loving and charismatic friend. Usually this something has to do with another world. The nuts-and-bolts of what's actually going on in the story are never quite revealed, in part because of the protagonist's tendency toward inaction. Female characters will die or leave the story unexpectedly, sometimes without explanation. It's not just that all of his protagonists are similar; for all intents and purposes they are the same person (probably how Murakami sees himself) and each story takes place in its own, independent universe(s). It's mostly the same story over and over as well. It's like he's trying to express some larger idea that can only be viewed from multiple angles. edit: Saw the film of Norwegian Wood the other night. I actually wasn't that impressed. The story is a lot more sparse and depressing when you don't know what the protagonist is thinking. It left me wondering why I ever thought of it as a great book in the first place. Be Depressive fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Dec 26, 2011 |
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Dec 26, 2011 11:19
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I have read Grotesque and Real World by Natsuo Kirino. I liked Grotesque, but this was also a book I started reading at the very beginning of my reading renaissance. I read it at a time where I had very little to compare it with so I thought it was very interesting. It was the first book I read with an unreliable narrator and I really enjoyed it. I loved seeing the opinions of the protagonist, most of them were incredibly bitter but very readable. I heard recently that I may have read the censored version though :/
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Dec 26, 2011 20:32
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Can anyone recommend a place to start with Kobo Abe? I picked up a used copy of The Woman in the Dunes the other day, but it's a pretty old copy and I'm not sure if there's a better translation out there (or even a better book of his to start with).
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Dec 27, 2011 00:52
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barkingclam posted:Can anyone recommend a place to start with Kobo Abe? I picked up a used copy of The Woman in the Dunes the other day, but it's a pretty old copy and I'm not sure if there's a better translation out there (or even a better book of his to start with). As far as I know there is only one translation so you should be ok. That's his most famous and widely-known novel so I would say it's a good start. If you like it and want to continue, I would recommend sticking with his earlier stuff to start before moving on to things like Box Man or Secret Rendezvous. His works get progressively more postmodern and dense.
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Dec 27, 2011 02:45
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RebBrownies posted:I have read Grotesque and Real World by Natsuo Kirino. I quite enjoyed Grotesque - enough to follow it up with Out, which felt much more cohesive - but similar to you, it was one of the first pieces of Japanese fiction I read. I was really intrigued by the blurb for What Remains but it seems that the translation has been canceled.
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Dec 28, 2011 22:38
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I am just diving into 1Q84, book 3 (Christmas present!), and I'm still not sure if this is an awesome book of writerly foibles, or a terrible novel full of digressions that dearly needs some sub-editing. I just know I like it, and want to know what the hell happens / is happening. And maybe that's enough.
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Jan 3, 2012 12:46
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asylum years posted:1) A protagonist with a writing-related occupation. (Check.) Tack on "Protagonist is offered absurdly easy job for good pay in the second or third third of the book" and you've got pretty much all of them covered.
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Jan 5, 2012 23:51
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Also in the last third of the book he spends a significant amount of time doing absolutely nothing and somehow solves his problems this way.
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Jan 6, 2012 04:57
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RebBrownies posted:I have read Grotesque and Real World by Natsuo Kirino. I really enjoyed Out and felt disappointed when I read Real World afterwards. Grotesque was one I bought recently so am hoping I like it more.
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Jan 8, 2012 05:00
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Be Depressive posted:Also in the last third of the book he spends a significant amount of time doing absolutely nothing and somehow solves his problems this way. Imagine if books got TV adverts. Oh, wait. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORegIFrz6VU&feature=related
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Jan 9, 2012 20:54
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Regarding Murakami - I'm just about done with Kafka on the Shore and I feel like asking, what do you guys suggest going with next if I want the same vibe Sputnik Sweetheart gave? Not necessarily just recommendations from Murakami either. I have After Dark and 1Q84 on hand. I'm pretty enamored with how to-the-point and concise Sputnik was though and I'd really enjoy something similar right now.
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Apr 9, 2012 16:22
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number9dream, by David Mitchell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number9dream It's what you're looking for. Otherwise, if you haven't read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Hard Boiled Wonderland & The End of The World, those are considered by many to be the best two Murakami books. Be Depressive fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Apr 9, 2012 |
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Apr 9, 2012 16:42
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I've been burning through Japanese literature recently. A few of the books I've just read are: Forbidden Colors - Yukio Mishima A Personal Matter - Kenzaburō Ōe No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai Still reading No Longer Human. After that, I think I'd like to read Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki and then return to two old favorites: Spring Snow and Runaway Horses, both by the incredible Mishima.
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Apr 9, 2012 16:44
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Carver posted:Regarding Murakami - I'm just about done with Kafka on the Shore and I feel like asking, what do you guys suggest going with next if I want the same vibe Sputnik Sweetheart gave? Not necessarily just recommendations from Murakami either. I have After Dark and 1Q84 on hand. I like Murakami, but I couldn't finish 1Q84. I just honestly didn't like it. Conversely, while a lot of people disagree, I enjoy his short stories. Check those out - there's at least two volumes of them out.
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Apr 9, 2012 20:40
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Carver posted:Regarding Murakami - I'm just about done with Kafka on the Shore and I feel like asking, what do you guys suggest going with next if I want the same vibe Sputnik Sweetheart gave? Not necessarily just recommendations from Murakami either. I have After Dark and 1Q84 on hand. Neither 1Q84 nor Wind-Up Bird Chronicle are to-the-point or concise. Murakami writes until he feels he's written everything he needs to (then often adds stuff later after the initial stuff was published) and pretty much doesn't receive any editing for better or worse. His short stories are generally quite short but they're the kind of thing that really need a lot of thinking to tease out what it is he's getting at. At first glance most of them make no sense and don't seem to be about anything. I'm working my way through Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in Japanese for school and it's been rough going. Not because it's difficult linguistically but because it's really affecting me emotionally.
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Apr 10, 2012 00:01
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Can anyone recommend an edition of Matsuo Bashō's poetry? I'm leaning towards this Penguin edition, but I'm willing to be persuaded.
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Apr 10, 2012 00:37
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Pfirti86 posted:Goddamnit, the protagonist even prefers swimming as a method of exercise (not really much of a spoiler, but can't be too careful). I first read Hard Boiled Wonderland & The End of The World after being recommended it from a friend and absolutely loved it. Its really well paced, engaging, original and wonderfully written. His characters are memorable and Murakami odd take on reality is so fascinating. You can tell he really loves to write with his detail and depth. I did not feel the same about 1Q84. I read all of it this summer and labored through large parts of it. I had the same problem as Pfirti86 to the point where I stopped reading it for a while. Its also much more complicated and grand in scale. If you have not read Murakami do not start with this. The ending is also very Murakami, surprise I know, which I found disappointing for the effort I put into finishing this. Ample fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Apr 10, 2012 |
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Apr 10, 2012 21:47
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Thanks guys, Wind-up and Hard Boiled look right up my alley, and I'll keep number9 in the back of my head as well.
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Apr 11, 2012 05:52
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I just wanted to drop in and let you guys know about an absolutely fantastic and profoundly moving book I just finished. I haven't seen it mentioned in here yet. A Man with No Talents: Memoirs of a Tokyo Day Laborer - Oyama Shiro If you liked No Longer Human by Dazai, I think it'd definitely be up your alley.
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Apr 11, 2012 17:28
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