As anyone who's been following my reviews over the years will know, I've had a rocky relationship with Murakami. At this point, I've resigned myself tAs anyone who's been following my reviews over the years will know, I've had a rocky relationship with Murakami. At this point, I've resigned myself to going into one of his novels, essay or short story collections with an open mind and few expectations. Put simply, sometimes Murakami lands and sometimes he doesn't.
My only previous experience with Murakami's nonfiction is What I Talk About When I Talk About Running which worked well for me in part because it became part of my, at the time, running routine. By comparison, I picked up Novelist as a Vocation on a whim in the bookstore and decided to see what Murakami had to say about his experience as a novelist and what wisdom he could impart.
For better or worse, this collection of essays is more of a memoir and look into Murakami's inner workings over the years. He offers some general pieces of advice that vary in their practical applications but always couches it in a "this works for me, but maybe not you" statement. Yet, it's not the subject or its particulars that had me chopping stars of its rating, but rather Murakami's circuitous and needlessly repetitive writing.
Indeed, Murakami makes sure the reader never misses his point as he repeatedly makes them crash up against whatever idea holds up his essay. More than a few times in my reading I thought to myself, "He can't be coming back to this again, we just went over it!" I suppose your mileage will vary on this one, but I found this style to be grating and superfluous to the points he tries to get across.
There's a point in one of the essays where Murakami reflects on correspondences he's received from his readers. He identifies a reader who really dislikes the book he just read, but says that he'll continue on with whatever project Murakami puts out next. Murakami says that this is his favourite type of reader: one along for the experience but not beholden to a preconceived opinion of his works. Well, I suppose Murakami would be a fan of mine: I didn't love this one, but I'll see him for the next....more
It’s that special time of year where I return to the works of Haruki Murakami to see how I feel about the guy. For those of you who have been followinIt’s that special time of year where I return to the works of Haruki Murakami to see how I feel about the guy. For those of you who have been following my slow reading of Murakami, I loved the first novel I read by him, 1Q84, was ho-hum about The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, considered abandoning Murakami after really disliking Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, and had my faith restored when I listened to What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
So, having felt the ebb and flow of my appreciation for Murakami, I’m happy to come back on an annual basis to check the depth of my enjoyment. This year’s candidate: Men Without Women, which also happens to fit in nicely with my attempt to read a short story collection per month in 2018. I’ve provided a brief review of each story below for your perusal and an overall review at the end. Enjoy!
1. Drive My Car ***** I really enjoyed this one! A great character study of an aging actor and widow who enlists the services of a female driver after losing his license due to a DUI. I liked the philosophical musings in this story and appreciated the lack of the supernatural. Great start to the collection!
2. Yesterday *** When a buddy is unable to make the next move with his girlfriend, what do you do? You go on a date with his girlfriend? Sounds like you’ve got a classic Murakami socially awkward situation! This failed to land for me with the circuitous dialogue that occasionally plagues Murakami’s writing, as well as a character with whom I failed to identify. Still, some interesting expository bits and some nice turns of phrase.
3. An Independent Organ ***1/2 A man reflects on his squash-partner’s career, personal life, and strange death. The salacious details of Dr. Tokai’s sexcapades were intriguing, but the heartbreak that leads him to his strange death is treated as some sort of right of passage on the way to self-discovery. A bit strange, this one didn’t totally land for me.
4. Scheherazade ** “I told you about being a lamprey in a former life, right?” From there, a man has frequent, perfunctory sex with a woman who tells a really good story. This one’s my least favourite of the stories to date, though you just gotta appreciate how weird Murakami can get sometimes.
5. Kino****1/2 This lands right in the Murakami sweet spot for me. It’s a good mix of introspection, enticing story developments, and the surreal. What perhaps makes this story most effective is that it deals with repression and shame in a way that seems universal and not just limited to the odd turns in narrative that Murakami often takes. Also, there’s got to be some Murakami-Bingo points for: mystical cat, jazz music, surreal experience.
6. Samsa in Love**** This is another hit, though it is also another reminder that I’ve yet to read Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Though I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be set before or after the novella, I was fine motoring my way through the story with what little knowledge I had from popular culture. This is also the story that feels most different from Murakami’s standard story telling. I’m a fan!
7. Men Without Women * Ooomph. This is my least favourite type of Murakami. When he alters between the ethereal and wallowing men. It seemed more like notes to a potential story than a story itself. What a sour note to leave on.
Average Score: ***
This has been a really great collection for me, primarily to help me suss out what type of Murakami stories I enjoy most. It seems that I prefer his stories most when they have a clear direction, and I get irritated with him when it seems like he’s a lovesick college boy trying weed for the first time. With this in mind, I think this collection is going to help guide me towards his novels that are perhaps better suited to me.
All in all, not my favourite short story collection of the year, but still a worthy mixed bag. It would also be a good choice for the Murakami initiate!...more
My running companion over the past two and a half weeks has been Haruki Murakami; at least, narrator Ray Porter channeling Murakami. What I Talk AboutMy running companion over the past two and a half weeks has been Haruki Murakami; at least, narrator Ray Porter channeling Murakami. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is more empathetic memoir than self-help book, but I have no doubt in my mind that Murakami helped to boost my running game. After a few runs I began to think of the audiobook as a philosophical coach. I’d recommend this memoir to seasoned runners as well as relative newbies like myself!
I decided to only listen to the audiobook while I was out for my runs. I’d been averaging 30-minute runs, with the occasional foray into longer runs and Murakami’s chapters roughly equaled the length of my runs. Reluctantly, I replaced the bass-heavy hip-hop that usually soundtracks my runs for the voice of Ray Porter as he read what is essentially a memoir about running.
I’ll admit that it took a chapter or two before I was fully committed to my initial plan. I’ll occasionally throw on an audiobook or podcast during my runs, but usually once a week while the rest of my running time is reserved for pouring over new and old music. Soon my need for earth-shattering bass and bar-spitting over trap beats gave way to the calm and tranquil ponderings of a man that runs far further distances than I had ever dreamed.
My thoughts during runs before this book ranged from you should stop, you should stop, you should stop to this is slightly better than dying early from cardiovascular disease. Murakami’s cool philosophy and matter-of-fact account of his sufferings during his runs helped both to let me know I wasn’t alone and that I didn’t have much to complain about. I mean, the man is running for 1-2 hours daily for 6 days of the week. My god! It is also reassuring, in some perverse way, that Murakami’s legs still scream out, cramp, and he stops from exhaustion even after all his training.
His honesty was my favorite part of the book: he doesn’t achieve some insane goal, destroy records, and get a personal best every race. He struggles, he persists, and that struggle in and of itself is satisfying. I’ll admit that when I started to run seriously, at least 3-4 times per week, I did so for three reasons: to stave off morbidity and mortality from a family history of obesity, to have a convenient form of exercise, and—I’m not shamed to admit it—vanity. But those aren’t the reasons I kept running. Even when my schedule got busy, I kept up with my regular running and had to admit there was something more than my initial reasons for starting to run.
Murakami helped to crystallize this motivation for me. Running for running itself is rewarding. The attempt to pound yourself and your screaming muscles, lungs, and psyche into submission yields both an amazing sense of personal accomplishment and a supreme runners’ high. The act of running became less of a chore for me as Murakami spoke of brutal courses and events in which he’s participated. Most runners, like myself, will find much to sympathize with here and it is that sense that you are not alone, but the run depends entirely on you, that helped motivate me run after run.
For those of you who follow my reviews religiously—hi mom!—you might be surprised to read that I took on more Murakami after a pretty acrimonious split in the fall. Lisa was kind enough to gift me with the audiobook after a particularly challenging rotation. She hoped the book would help to encourage both my running and my writing. I’m sure that there’s a lot of difference between his nonfiction and fiction, but this book has opened the door for Murakami to come back into my reading life.
Today, for my final run with Murakami, I decided to listen to the entirety of the last hour in a single go. The run started out brutal. The lateral aspects of my feet both ached and there was a constant dull throb in my calves despite a decent stretch the night before. I’m just getting over a cold too, so I was still hacking, spewing, and snorting as I ran. This was exactly the type of run that I would have aborted twenty minutes in before this book. So, despite my body’s protests, I persisted. I’m happy to say that Murakami helped to get through a run that I would have abandoned before his audiobook.
Thanks to this audiobook I’m a better runner, and I believe it’s helped out my writing too! I’ve avoided talking too much about Murakami’s revelations about reading, writing, and running since they are so much of what makes the audiobook great. Suffice to say, it all works very well as a companion on the trails and treadmills. To my fellow runners out there, I can’t recommend this one enough...more
This book is very, very odd. This also makes it pretty tough for me to write a good review, as I am positive I missed the hidden meanings and metaphorThis book is very, very odd. This also makes it pretty tough for me to write a good review, as I am positive I missed the hidden meanings and metaphors present throughout this novel. What's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" about? Good question! Here's my best attempt (it still comes out sounding like some sort of sit-com shot through a kaleidoscope). Mr. Toru Okada thinks he's got it made, he's unemployed but happily supported by his loving wife, Kumiko. When his cat goes missing, Toru Okada spends his days hunting a cat only to discover that his wife has left him. Toru runs into some kooky characters, chills out in a well for 100 pages, deals with some bizarre shit, and copes with dermatological issues.
Now, the writing is pretty good in this book: readable, interesting, and made with a good ear for Japanese dialogue. What slips is the story itself. For the first half of the book I was compelled. A missing wife? Shady, potentially magical evil force keeping love apart? It seemed to have all the makings of a novel I'd love, but then the book meanders all over the map, introducing new characters and storylines but failing to resolve any of its disparate threads. The stories set in and around WWII are those with the most punch to them, but I have to admit that they are pleasant vacations from the monotony of Toru Okada's journey. Also, there are some other characters who are introduced that sort-of fade into the background of the narrative after their backstories are positioned as major plot points to unfold. Unfortunately, these characters aren't given much room as Toru Okada has got some serious shit on his mind. There is a lot of pining in these 600 pages, interspersed with weird sex, normal sex, phone sex, sex that might not be sex, and the occasional skinning. Its not that these parts aren't entertaining on their own, but they don't coalesce into anything that resembles an enticing narrative.
Does that sort of thing sound appealing to you? If so, "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" may be exactly what you're looking for! I seemed to have had the opposite reaction to the general populace with Murakami novels. Lots of folks told me that if I was one of the rare few who enjoyed "1Q84" (and I did) then I would love "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" (I didn't). I believe it was the plot driven nature of "1Q84" that made it a compelling read, while "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" felt more like a chore. I didn't look forward to reading it after the first 300 pages, and had to muscle through the end just to move on to a new novel. Overall: meh....more
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