New Murakami novel becomes huge, instant hit

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12 Comments

sydenham at 07:48 PM JST - 6th June

Am I the only one who thinks Murakami is good, but a bit overrated? I've read quite a few of his novels, and have always felt that. Good, but not great.
Bento at 01:28 AM JST - 7th June

good or overated i will be reading this book,alas only in english.
aintgottimetobl at 08:13 AM JST - 7th June

I enjoyed The Wind Up Bird and to a lesser extent Norwegian Wood,but not much creativity in Dance Dance Dance and Wild Sheep Chase is just plain dull..IMHO..
saborichan at 09:42 AM JST - 8th June

I think he has wonderful insights on the human condition and the things we ask ourselves. That said, not an awful lot tends to happen in his books. I found Kafka On The Shore quite good, but the ending frustrated me.
timeon at 06:33 PM JST - 8th June

notice that he doesn't say anything about the actual contents of the book :)

Mitsuyoshi Numano, a Tokyo University professor and noted critic in literature, said he thinks the hit of ‘‘1Q84’’ resulted from a combination of Murakami’s growing accolades overseas and the advertising tactics.
sk4ek at 08:17 AM JST - 9th June

I enjoyed Kafka on the Shore enough to read it twice, and buy the Japanese version (which I have yet to get to), but I found the Wind Up Bird Chronicles a little slow going. I wonder how soon the English version of the new novel will be available?
LoveUSA at 12:49 PM JST - 9th June

I have not read anything by him so far (shame)
sydenham at 07:14 AM JST - 10th June

The first one I read was South of the border, West of the sun. Kind of depressing, but an interesting read. Then I zig-zagged around and finally read A wild sheep chase a couple of years ago, and decided he's not my favorite author. It started well, the lack of human connection and all that, and went down hill with the surreal stuff. I think he's a little over the top.

It's just not my bag, man.
goingtoshopping at 08:44 PM JST - 14th June

Uber-overrated author who will eventually win the Nobel prize for Lit.
The only reason why they did they did the current advertising "strategy" was that he was stung last time around by criticism for the over-the-top media blitz.

Japanese books are like double albums: one work counts as two sales. Hm.
pawatan at 03:19 PM JST - 17th June

I've liked most of his novels, and really liked a few. Sometimes they really resonate deeply with me; other people, maybe not. That's the difficult thing to capture when a novel aims for the heart and not the head.

My favorites of his are Sputnik Sweetheart and Hard-Boiled Wonderland, though I also really liked Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore. The only one I was disappointed in was South of the Border, etc which just didn't strike me at all. Well, I didn't much care for After Dark either.

I can understand why people don't like him - his stories and characters are very similar to each other. It works for me, though.
EUgirl at 09:55 AM JST - 24th June

I do like them, mostly, though I tend to get irritated about some characteristics of them.

I am reading 1Q84 on page 30. The female protagonist's Charles Jourdan high heels and Junko Shimada skirt have already been mentioned. It would be fun to see, if Murakami managed to write a novel, whose protagonists are poor freetas.
Osakadaz at 09:37 AM JST - 26th June

I have read most of his books..some are a good read.Wind-up bird was brilliant.Kafka was like....zzzzzzzzzz