1q84 vol 1 and 2 by Haruki MurakamI
24 Apr 2012 14 Comments
in Japan, shadow IFFP 2012 Tags: 2012, Asian fiction, TRANSLATIONS
1q84 by Haruti Murakami
Japanese fiction
Translator Jay Rubin
Well I ve said a lot about Murakami in previous posts about him ,so I ll talk about his running .I link to a interview here in running world where he says he has been running for over twenty years .He wrote a non fiction book a few years ago called” what I talk about when I talk about running ” A book I d recomme3nd short but full of insights into the japanese mind ,which in a rather clunky way brings me to 1q84 Whch I feel is his most Japanese .
How many people could recognize Janaecks sinfornetta after hearing just the first few bars ? probably somewhere between “very few ” and “almost none” .but for some reason .Aomame was one of the few in the world
Janacek sinfonetta to express the contempoary free man ? is start of one line of surrealism in this novel .
I have been putting off reading 1q84 for a number of reasons partly the uneven reviews it got in the newspapers ,also some bloggers who views I trust were not overly keen on it .So I finally decide to read it when it was named on the IFFP longlist having dodged it some what already for man Asian shadow reading I couldn’t for the second time .I then decide to entered open minded ,to forget all the bits I ve read about it before and was surprised how much I enjoyed it for a Murakami fan there is the usual Murakami traits people on the edge or just coming into adulthood ,a lonely girl ,a writer,a whole host of surreal parts and set in the 80′s .T he novel is told in the form of two story lines from April to September Aomame ,she is a thirty year old women ,she works for a strange organisation as a sort of assassin ,we meet her as she is of to kill some one but has to rush and escapes a txi as she is running late and hear the Janacek piece and sometimes wonder if she is in a different 1984 maybe 1q84 .The other main character is Tengo he is a teacher at a prep school but dreams of being a novelist and when he helps a young girl that has written a manuscript called air chrysalis .But he is surprised when this book takes off and its young writer forgets his work on it .Well that is the bones of the book we see these two characters lives but then like a pair of skylarks mating the end up flying closer and closer together ,we see this as the story draws them together and to complete the analogy there is a third minor character but he is the third narrator Ushikawa he is a grotesque hired to follow first Tengo then Aomame so he is like a hawk watching the two skylarks falling and rising as they get drawn together .Also add in a cult and a some of his best surreal touches and do you have his magnum opus well when it first came out in Japan it seemed that way .I m not sure I enjoyed the book much more than I initially thought I would ,I do sometimes wonder if the surreal bits of this book pass me by at times .I also wondered if this book has a great meaning to the Japanese reader I feel the issues and subjects dealt with in the book are the most Japanese of his books I ve read . I Think it is now in my three favourite books by him ,I will finish the story later this year when I read third part of the book .
What did you think of this ?
Are you planning to read it ?
Hear the wind sing by Haruki Murakami
19 Jul 2011 19 Comments
in FIRST NOVEL, Japan Tags: 2011, Asian fiction, JAPANESE LIT, Murakami, TRANSLATIONS
Source – library
Translator – Alfred Birnbaum
Haruki Murakami’s debut novel like pinball 1973 which i read earlier ,it is quite hard to get hold of ,only being published in Japan in english translation ,this is also the first of the rat trilogy ,which includes pinball 1973 and wild sheep chase .
well this book focus on the meeting of the narrator and the rat ,the narrator is a young man who is stuck in limbo between adulthood and teen years meet the “rat” the nickname of Nezumi in j’s bar ,he is slightly older than the narrator and is a drop out ,the bar is focus of most of the book it is run by j a chinese man and is what might be called a spit and sawdust pub in the uk ,a place’s full of the dregs and drifters of life .So these to start a friendship that carries on through the other books in the series .there is also a thread about a fictional american writer called Derek Heartfield ,this is writer seems a mix of some sixties writers a sci-fi writer another thread is the narrators relationship with a women this from in a triangle of relationships like in some of his later books .the book covers a period of about three weeks .
I first meet the rat three years before in the spring .We’d both entered university that year , and the two of us had gotten pretty bombed .So I have absolutely no recollection what could have possibly thrown us together for that ride after four in the morning , in the rats shiny black Fiat 600 .I guess we had a friend in common .
The narrator remembering first meeting with the Rat .
Well what to say about this book I so wanted to read the first two books of Murakami not sure why ,to complete his books maybe ,or to see why they are not available in english .I m still not sure why there both available more widely in English .Well I m still not sure ,ok there not top-notch Murakami ,but on the other hand there not as bad as Murakami thinks they are ,this is a little more over the place than pinball 1973 was ,the fact names are missing and you tend to jump from situation to situation can be a bit jarring at time ,the fact you know how these two meet and a bit more info about the rat is handy as he crops up in the other two in the series and also in dance .dance ,dance .If you want to see how Murakami started on his path as a writer I would read this, if like me you want to complete his works read it .Like a number of earlier books Birnbaum is the translator he is a good translator ,whether his later translator Jay Rubin would be able to work his magic on this I don’t know if it is needed .the book is only a 120 pages and in full size print would maybe be 80 pages so an evening s read .I will be reading wild sheep chase next to complete the trilogy of the rat .
Have you read this book ?
Pinball 1973 by Haruki Murakami
24 Mar 2011 22 Comments
in Japan Tags: Asian fiction, TRANSLATIONS
Source – Library
Translator Alfred Birnbaum
Now this is a book I jumped for joy when I got from Library on an inter library loan from Manchester ,it is Murkami’s second book and the second part of the rat trilogy the others being the first hear the wind sing and the last part wild sheep chase .Now this book, like the first part is only available in Japan in english translation as Murakami has never let the rights be issued world-wide ,so what is it about .
The book is classic Murakami or what we now call his classic style ,the ,main character and narrator a nameless lonely man in his twenties works as a translator and his friend the rat ,we follow the narrator during a obession with pinball he starts playing late a night a relationship with a pair of twins called 208 209 by the narrator ,this obessin=on leads him in the end on the quest for a lost machine ,elsewhere there are references to themes that crop up in Murakami’s others books ,wells for one even couple mention of hard-boiled eggs but maybe I was looking to hard the book is gentle a man struggling with the real world ,he looks back on his student days a dead girlfriend ,yet another event Murakami use in his other books .
By the time I broke 150,000 ,winter had really set in .There I d be alone in the freezing deserted games center ,bundled up in my duffel coat , muffler wrapped around my neck up to my ears grappling with the machine .
the narrator talking about his obsession .
Well what did I think of this book it was a great insight into what madeMurakami the writer he is now this has parts used in other books and in some way maybe this narrator is nearest Murakami the man ,I did miss Jay Rubin’s translation style thou a certain zing you get from his work withMurakami particular with the more recent books were they have worked together for a number of years .Not to take away from Alfred Binbaum ,who lives in Japan and has translator a number of other books and teaches creative writing at the moment in Japan ,he does a great job but the tie between Rubin and Murakami isn’t there .Murakami use lots of references to music and film stars of the time which gives it a very personnel feel ,only music missing was the who which I kept hoping to see because he must have listen to pinball wizard at some point whilst reading this book .Why this book yet to have a UK publication is beyond me it is a sign post on the road to the writer Murakami is today .
HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK ?
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SE IN PUBLISHED IN UK ?
Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami
22 Jan 2011 16 Comments
in Japan, reading challenge Tags: 2011, Asian fiction
Source – Library
I had a girl,or should I say ,she once had me ,
She showed me her room ,isn’t it good ‘Norwegian wood .
the opening of the beatles song that gave the book its title .
This is my first of many Murakami’s this year so I ve decide to scrap the usual bio start of my post for these and at end of year do a port all about the man and what I ve learned through the year of reading his books ,hopefully all of them if time allows .
So Norwegian wood I read a few years ago and loved it is what I call the classic Murakami style ,A young male and two females ,this has cropped up in other Murakami novels this is set in the sixties and told in a series of flashbacks by the Male Toru Wa\ntabe who on a flight remembers his First love Naoko and a wild lover Midori ,we see the loose morals of the sixties young people finding the feet in the world via drink ,casual sex all this is acted out in front of a soundtrack of modern jazz Miles Davies and beatles songs .Toru in his young days is like a moth caught between two lights the bulb like Naoko dependable and always constant and the candle like Midori a flickering siren for the young man .When you throw into the pot of this book a dying father in Midori case you have a tale that boils over and constantly has you wanting to turn over to the next page .for me one scene really touched me in the hospital Mr Kobayashi Midori’s absent father that return from Uruguay ,that is dying and he shares a cucumber with this old man touching and slightly funny at the same time seemed something that you have to be a master writer to pull off .
I m going to eat some cucumber if you don’t mind ,I said to Midori’s father .He didn’t answer I washed three cucumbers in the sink and dribbled a little soy sauce into a dish .then wrapped a cucumber in nori ,dipped it in soy sauce and gobbled it down.
mmm great I said to Midiori’s father .Fresh simple smell like life .Really goo cucumbers .A far more sensible food than Kiwi fruit .
Toru trying to get the dying mr Kobayashi to eat .an important incident in the book I think .
The book is how we deal with the shit life brings you when young you have it all loss death ,despair ,longing ,angst .All this through the older Toru eyes looking back on his youth .In some way this remind me of W somerset Maugham’s of human bondage Toru and Philip from that book seem like similar characters and both have to deal with the attraction to two women .
Winston’s score -
Kevin from wonder year thou a lot younger than Toru deals with a lot of the same things he does in the wonder years ,like a love divide with Winnie and new loves during the series and there is also the fact that the title music for this is a beatles cover
A Personal matter Kenzaburo oe
04 Aug 2010 4 Comments
in books from, Japan Tags: NEW VOICES
Kenzaburo oe is one of Japans foremost writers ,having lived in france in the sixties and studied french literature ,make him more accessable than some of his contemporarys with a more western style of writing .His own son was born with a brain disorder and this one event has led to disability being a recurring motif in his books ,A personal matter is considered on of his best he also on the nobel in 1994 .
A personal matter is about Bird a cramming school teacher and a bit of a daydreamer ,he dreams of escaping Japan and heading to Africa staring at maps and imaging living their with his wife who is with child .When the child is born it has a brain damange and its life is placing on a cliff edge ,Bird is struggling with this and this leads him in to a number of life choices after he has gone on a downward spiral want his son to die knowing that was wrong descending in to a bottle and pleasures of the flesh with an ex girlfriend ,but this leaves bird seeming empty and needing to make some important life decisions for himself ,his wife and new-born son .
Bird was sitting on the stairs in front of the intensive care ward ,gripping his thighs with grimy hands in a battle with the fatigue had been hounding him since his tears had dried ,when the one-eyed doctor emerged from the ward looking thwarted .
Burd in the hospital just after his son is born .
This book has a real memoir is sense at times ,like oe is writing a what might of happened in his life with his own son ,the sense that he has lived through some of the Bird’s feeling when his own son was born but had chosen a different coping mechanism than he had done ,Bird is a well drawn character and I got in this daydreams head as he struggle with his son’s birth ,on a personal level as I have support people with learning disabilities for over twenty years I was interested in the insight of being a parent of some on with a disability ,seeing how Bird didn’t cope and his guilt is something I have heard parents of people I looked after speak about with their own Children ,I shall be reading oe again thou this book isn’t the easiest read it has and will stick with me for a long time ,may I also point out that John Nathan translations stands the test of time still making the prose seem fresh and flowing .This book was one of their non structured reading group choices that frances and other run
the sailor who fell from gace with the sea by Yukio Mishima
19 Apr 2010 8 Comments
in asian fiction, Japan Tags: japan
the sailor who fell from grace with the sea
notes-
In his time Yukio Mishima was one of Japans most successful writers been considered three times for the nobel prize ,this is one of the best known of over forty novels he wrote in his lifetime ,he also wrote plays and short stories in his time .he did after a failed coup to restore the emperors powers in japan that had been lost at the end of the second world war ,he committed ritual suicide .
the book-
Starts in post war japan it follows Noboruo a wayward young lad who is in a gang and has been held in his room at night by his mother to prevent him joining the gang ,this lad is voyeuristic watching his mother dress and her liaisons with Ryjuli a sailor ,when he hangs out with a gang and the chief the head of the gang . the gang does a particular brutal attack in the middle of the book ,Noburuo resents his mothers affair with Ryjuli and purses him with the gang .he initially likes her mothers lover but then sees flaws in him .Noburo is a typical teenager in a lot of ways this is about him wanting to break free and his sexual awakening but in a extreme way
my view -
this is a short review because i didn’t really enjoy this book ,the synopsis read a bit like a japanese lord of the flies or clockwork orange it did have a bit of that but also felt a bit forced by the writer am not sure if this was the translation or the style of writing ,it did give a view in to the more traditional side of japan that we don,t always get chance to see in a lot of modern japanese novels .the attack describe in the middle of the book is quite shocking and nearly made me put the book down !
