Haruki Murakami (63)

12 Name: Bookworm : 2006-02-22 06:49 ID:zJs3N5I0

Murakami's most popular work is arguably Norwegian Wood (ノウェーの森). He's undoubtedly famous for a Japanese writer in the so-called "western world," mostly because of the deluge of cultural references to the U.S. and European pop music, unabashed discussions of "fastfood sex," modern fashion, and the occasional jabs at student movement in the 60's as well as capitalism, which makes him posh as well as pop to western sensibilities. He's also quite a problematic writer in Japan because his prose is often criticized for being "not Japanese enough." Murakami has been greatly influenced by American writers such as Raymond Chandler and Truman Capote, whose many works he translated into Japanese afaik.

Personally, I think the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and Dance, Dance, Dance make up his four best works. The novels he's written since Sputnik Sweetheart seem to range from subpar to downright boring. One of the biggest problems with Murakami is his way of recyling motifs so that his novels look very similar in content, even though it is obvious that the themes explored in his novels are always, but not always completely, distinct from one book to the other. In Dance, Dance, Dance, Murakami inserts the caricature of a successful hack writer named Makimura, who sees his work as nothing but "shoveling cultural snow." Sometimes I wonder if that's how Murakami sees himself as a writer; but at least I know sometimes that's how I think of him.

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