I think Murakami is my favorite author.
I love his stoicism and cold approach to complicated life situations

I'm searching for something similar. Any recommendations?

I read A Floating LIfe by Tad Crawford a while ago. It had the magic realism elements that Murakami fans love but also has its own odd wit. would recommend

Convience store woman is equally about slice of life Japan.

Murikami has so many books, if you enjoy him you've got more than enough to get through

Umberto Ecco Catalogue

Italo Calvino Catalogue

Try Jose Saramago, they kind of differ in the writting style but with the same cold psycho-thriller vibe not to mention the casual humor.

What book of his would you recommend first for someone getting into his work?

Kobo Abe is another celebrated absurdist Japanese author.

Saramago is great. Seconding this.

I think it's a matter of just picking one and committing

For people that are reading his books for the first time it might seem hard and slow so I'd recommend going with one of the shorter ones b4 going into books like Killing Commendatore (~1000pages)

My first book was Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and I think it's a great starting point. It's not very long and the story is actually faster than his usual writing.

But as I said earlier if you're sure you want to get into Murakami. and you know that if you pick up a book you'll finish it - You can pick whatever.

Thanks everyone for your picks!
Will check them out later on

I started with Norwegian wood, I always thought that was more accessible because once I read wind up bird chronicle I realised his normal style is usually surreal and that didn’t appeal to me. My fault for expecting al his books to be like NW I guess.
Norwegian wood is still my top 10 ever tho.

bro I really wanted to like murakami, but after finish reading the wind up bird chronicle I was disappointed. I had so many questions and i thought the last chapter was going to tie everything together, but no, rather it introduced the "duck people" and didn't answer any of my questions. But I guess this body of work is about the subconscious so a lot of things are for interpretations and everything is deep. Also a bummer that he doesn't explains his work. Low key what it felt like was this mans drop hella acid but wrote everything nicely.

I've read like 6 Murakamis now and Wind Up Birdy is next on my shelf

Looks like it's going to be a ride

And yeah... His books can have the best and most interesting and crazy story but he will end the book without any closure

I think that might be the reason why I like Murakami so much. Those endings make me feel like life is never ending. And it's not like one story can define our whole life I guess.
Most f***ed up s*** can happen but time doesn't stop and you gotta close one chapter and move on

All the books I've read feel like the story just stops and the books end
But I guess that's Murkami - love it or hate it

Most books endings feel like the characters have nothing else going on in life after the story ends. Murkami lets you just take a look into PART of the history of someones life.

I havent read his other books but I can see how thats the case. Yea I guess you dont have that empty feeling after finish reading a book cause you end up with more questions lol. Although i gotta say that how he explored the mass Japanese subconscious and personal subconscious was really well done, since that book was written during the "lost decade" the Japanese finical market crash. Using the well and dreams as metaphore. The thing that annoyed me is that in the begining it was very realistic and non fiction but as the book progressed it just became more and more weird.

when you say you like "his stoicism and cold approach to complicated life situations" I think you'd might like Kurt Vonnegut?

He was really inventive with using playful sci-fi elements to illuminate things like WWII PTSD (Slaughterhouse-Five) or religion (Cat's Cradle), always with a trademark dry humor. Both classics, highly recommended. And like Murakami he got lots more if you dig him

I have Slaughterhouse 5 on my list!

Someone said it's also a similar style to Paragraph 22 so if it really is a combination between Murkami and P22 than I'm IN!

u mean Catch-22? I need to read that one soon as well but yea they are somewhat similar with the non-linear structure and cynically humorous approach to talking about the madness and inhumanness of war. I think Slaughterhouse-Five is prolly a bit more ambitious though with the sci-fi part woven into it. One of my fav books (so far) for sure

It's probably a stretch to call it straight up Murakami-esque, it's more that there's similar elements I think. But looking on goodreads apparently Vonnegut was indeed an influence on him.

Named first on there is Kafka who is def a v big influence (I mean he named one of his protagonists after him lol), if you want more of that v surreal vibe he's a must for sure. And you don't even have to read the novelfragments, he was a master of the short to very short form - stuff like "The Judgement" or even the half-page "Message of the Emperor" already achieve great effect in a very short time

Oh s*** haha "Paragraph 22" is a direct translation from my language
I forgot it's originally a "Catch 22"

And you're right! Kafka is up there. Might need to try it later

Thanks for recommendations!!

lol I was wondering where u got that § from lol what's yo language?

Polish...
but keep it on the low man I don't want KTT to know
I'm not identifying with my country. On here I'm from EUROPEAN UNION

fellow EU fam over here German :D
greetings neighbor

Kinda dumb question to ask if you say you don't identify with Poland but I'm currently guest auditing this uni seminar on Polish cinema of the post-war communist era Kieslowski, Has, Wajda, all that jazz. R u into cinema and got some favorites there? :)

Haha man I'm sure you already know more than I do about that topic

Sorry I can't help you. Not only am I not really a big fan of Polish cinema but also way too young to have on opinion on cinema from that period :\

But ngl I'm impressed

Funny how we meet on a page called KanyeToThe where 6ix9ine is the hottest topic rn and we are talking about "post-war communist era Polish cinema"

Also a bit of a random question. How is your media portraying Poland?
I know you're probably not really paying attention to things like that but I was wondering how other EU countries are seeing us with all that s*** happening here

if you're not familiar with him def check out Kieslowski at some point, one of the goat directors imo. Important during that time but he actually made his most famous films post-communism and in French. As an introduction I'd recommend the first of those which is half-Polish, half-French: "La double vie de Véronique". As a Murakami fan you'd def appreciate the dreamy style

but yes kind of random topic lol but that's what forums are great for

in terms of media portraying poland I gotta admit that growing up it was just mostly a blank page. I don't think Poland is much covered in the media, generally. But because Poland is "east" (and maybe bc I'm living in former west germany) I think it overall just kinda gets lumped in with all of the other Slavic-language states and feels kinda culturally distant (/alien). You really have to do some "work" (research, watching films, etc) to bridge that gap. Though I already feel like those relations are getting a bit better atm, very slowly.

Assuming this is Haruki?

Love him but he does churn them out a bit, there's a bingo for his tropes for a reason. There's a few Japanese authors that are similar:

Banana Yoshimoto reads similarly in how she writes the mundane surreally. Kitchen is a great place to start.

Yukio Mishima has a very different style of prose but a lot of his works have endings that are very similar to Haruki's in tone. Confessions of a Mask is the easy recommendation - it's his semi-autobiography a la Norwegian Wood.

Ryu Murakami is a really different author but he's one of my favourites so I'd regret not mentioning him. He's more obviously postmodern and his subject matter tends to be incredibly dark. But his works are pretty short and share some themes with some of Haruki's. In The Miso Soup is a great introduction but just a warning it's pretty graphic.

op, do you like murakamis short stories too?