Haruki Murakami

[Bard]

Anyone else out there a fan? I read Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and watched the anime it inspired, Haibane Renmei (not necessarily in that order ). I've got The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle here on my desk in the queue.

He has a sort of understated sense of action that I like. I'm thinking in particular of the scene in HBWL where the main characters sits back and calmly sips a drink while some goons tear up his apartment.

[pzarquon]

Re: Haruki Murakami

Our own NemesisVex is a huge fan, and at one point ran one of the definitive fan sites and even interacted with Haruki Murakami, if I recall correctly. Sadly, he generally lurks... maybe this thread will bring him out of hiding?

I probably would be a fan, if I'd invested the time to read some of his work. Someday, someday...

[Bard]

Re: Haruki Murakami

Hey, cool. Well, I will say that his work is a polarizing sort of thing.. usually people either love it or hate it. I've been told HBWL is a bad book to start with if you haven't read any of his stuff, but I really liked it. Then again, like I said, I'd seen Haibane Renmei and was interested to hear some more about the setting of that. It works. Yoshitoshi ABe's anime don't tend to be easy to pick apart without 2-3 viewings (and sometimes not even then) but I got a lot more depth out of it from HBWL.

(Threw some links in there for the curious...)

[Honoruru]

Re: Haruki Murakami

I'm a huge fan of Haruki Murakami. I've read everything he's written, beginning with "A Wild Sheep Chase" when it first came out in English in 1989. This is, in my opinion, a good introduction to Murakami, though it's not considered his best work. "Dance, Dance, Dance" is another title you might want to read. It's a follow-up novel to "A Wild Sheep Chase" and much of the action takes place in Hawaii. It's interesting to see what a Japanese writer writes about Hawaii. He's not accurate, that's for sure (he has sea gulls flying here).

Another Hawaii tie is "Tony Takitani," a short story that was made into a movie, which played here last year at Dole Cannery Theaters. The title was inspired by a T-shirt Murakami bought on Maui. Here's a link to a review of the film http://starbulletin.com/2005/06/24/features/story2.html

Another interesting link is his official website, which was nominated for a Webby award this year. Harukimurakami.com

I didn't know there was an anime made from one of his novels. I'll have to try to find it. Thanks.

[Bard]

Re: Haruki Murakami

Awesome, I'll have to check out the other books.

An anime wasn't technically made from the book, it was just "inspired" by it. The plot isn't the same, and it'd be missing half the book's plot anyway. But you can definitely see where the ideas tie in. I don't know if Haibane Renmei has been released in the US yet, though I was able to buy a soundtrack at Suncoast, so I'd assume so. I haven't seen it in any stores yet though.

[NemesisVex]

Re: Haruki Murakami

Our own NemesisVex is a huge fan, and at one point ran one of the definitive fan sites and even interacted with Haruki Murakami, if I recall correctly. Sadly, he generally lurks... maybe this thread will bring him out of hiding?

Actually, that was Andrew Vachss, whose web site I essentially launched in 1995. I did build a similar site for Murakami at the same time, but the Vachss site got far more attention, so it didn't really go anywhere.

Oddly enough, it was an assignment for Ka Leo (where Ryan and I both worked) that introduced me to Dance Dance Dance. I liked it, but I didn't become a die-hard fan till I read A Wild Sheep Chase, far and away the better of the two.

I don't know if Hakubundo or Book Off in Shirokiya would carry them, but Murakami wrote two novels before A Wild Sheep Chase -- Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973 -- which were translated into English but published only in Japan as a means for Japanese readers to practice their English. Hear the Wind Sing is quite a rambling but fascinating work.

And let's not forget Norwegian Wood, the book that put Murakami on the literary map in Japan. It's a watakushi novel in the tradition of Soseki Natsume's Kokoro but with far more racy language. That too was published in Japan with an English translation by Alfred Birnbaum (who translated A Wild Sheep Chase). A separate translation by Jay Rubin was published in the US a few years back.

[Honoruru]

Re: Haruki Murakami

Oddly enough, it was an assignment for Ka Leo (where Ryan and I both worked) that introduced me to Dance Dance Dance. I liked it, but I didn't become a die-hard fan till I read A Wild Sheep Chase, far and away the better of the two.

I agree with you on “A Wild Sheep Chase.” It’s still my personal favorite.