Also, reading this right now after finishing Killing Commendatore, really interesting discussion

English translation of new book finally comes out this month

FINALLY

Been waiting forever for this

bout 20% through kafka on the shore. pretty great so far

Wasn't even that far with Wild Sheep Chase, and the protagonist's already talking greasy about this chick

my second favorite book from him after Dance Dance Dance

English translation of Murakami's latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, is now available

reading now

Reading 1Q84 rn and holy s*** this is the best book I've ever read.

uk edition just came in the mail

done with Part 1 of C&IUW and enjoying it so far. prototypical main character but Murakami is really in his magical realism bag with this one.

s***s giving me crazy dreams

on the last 8 pages of Kafka on the shore. story is nuts so far

finished. i am so confused

just finished The City and Its Uncertain Walls

really good, any Murakami fan of Murakami's earlier work will enjoy this one. it covered topics like identity, belonging, and loss and I've read some reviews saying it's a farewell which I could see but it felt like it was Murakami perfecting a Murakami story. this was based on a short story that he wrote at the beginning of his career that he had been wanting to expand into a novel for many years

what's always attracted me about Murakami was his prose. reading him just feels cozy, and this novel was no exception. it is typical Murakami, so if you're looking for a novel that doesn't focus on a lonely man or describe erections and small breasts you should avoid this

Murakami seemed to address this in the afterword:

As Jorge Luis Borges put it, there are basically a number of stories one writer can seriously relate in his lifetime. All we do-I think it's fair to say- is take that limited palette of motifs, change the approach and methods as we go, and rewrite them in all sorts of ways

which seems like a fair response to the criticisms Murakami often gets. he writes what he knows, and especially this late in his career, readers shouldn't expect him to switch up his style that much

the magical realism in this novel was beautiful tho. Murakami had a meta quote towards the end of the book describing 100 Years of Solitude, but which could also be used to describe Murakami's style

In his stories the real and the unreal, the living and the dead, are all mixed together in one. Like that's an entirely ordinary, everyday thing. People often call it magical realism but I think that although that way of telling stories might fit the critical criteria of magical realism, for Garcia Marques himself it's just ordinary realism. In the world he inhabits, the real and the unreal coexist and he just describes those scenes the way he sees them

anyways just a really great read for a Murakami fan. it was giving me crazy dreams and I could relate to a lot of the passages of being caught between two worlds

would love to hear somebody else's thoughts when they finish The City and Its Uncertain Walls

i remember feeling like this when i finished it, with slight disappointment too

but now i always think back to the time i read this so fondly
such a cozy book looking back

just read the little synopsis for After Dark and it sounds like something ill love so might get that soon

have you read Hard Boiled Wonderland/The End of the World?

I have but it was a long time ago and I barely remember it so it didn't really impact my reading experience. I did read some people saying HBWL is similar to TCAIUW but the latter becomes more unique in part 2 and part 3

I'm asking because I saw someone saying that this is essentially that book reworked, but I found that weird.

Can't wait to check this out either way, I'm almost all the way through his fiction work

The one book of his that I devoured is Norwegian Wood. Windbird Chronicles was good but not as life changing as it was hyped up to me by others..

Still thinking about Kafka, what a trip. Was my first Murakami book as well, I red it in September. Did Norwegian Wood after that, which I also really enjoyed however not as much as Kafka.

I'm starting on Killing Commendatore now, lets see how this goes

Just scooped up a first edition copy of wild sheep chase at the thrift