Specs
Reviews
(4.29/5)Super interesting book
I was recommended this book by my brother who read the English version. I found the start to be a little uninteresting but by the end, I couldn't put the thing down. Grammar/Vocab-wise, it's not super difficult.
A leisurely Murakami quest story
Apparently this is early Murakami, to the extent that Murakami himself isn't as fond of it. But I liked it, and it felt very much in the vein of other Murakami I've read (in English or Japanese). It's slow, with many pages spent on just the details of the narrator staring out the window, feeding himself, smoking ridiculous amounts of cigarettes and drinking lots of alcohol. Lots of poetic language and similes. Lots of side quests and scenes that are mostly there to add to the mood or to touch on deeper themes, than to advance the main story. To be clear, there is a main quest, and it does advance, and even climax. It's just a winding road with lots of time to stop and smell the roses. I definitely enjoyed it, although I'm ready to switch it up for my next read and find something a bit more fast-paced.
From a language-learning perspective, I think this book is pretty good. The poetic language and the descriptions of nature means there's a lot of more-advanced vocabulary, but ~none of it is essential to the plot, and often the meaning can be understood just from the kanji or from context. The novel is quite rare on proper names, instead giving everyone easy-to-track monikers. The worst parts are when the narrator spends a couple paragraphs listing some katakana-ized American musicians or record names (this happens at least twice), and you can just glaze over them. I did notice a lot of "nonstandard" spellings (usually involving more hiragana than I expected, e.g. 間のび, 伏せ字, はげ落ちる, 見はらし, はりめぐらす, きわどい, or rarer kanji, e.g. 鴉, 倦む, 曝す, 交叉), which could be a function of the 1982 publication date, but that's good practice.
A true Murakami
After reading "世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド" ("Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World"), this was my second Murakami book.
The book, how should one best describe it... It was a true Murakami. It was even more Murakami than "世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド."
But what do I actually mean by that?
I believe that Murakami's unique way of telling stories captivates the reader. It's as if individual, simple patterns of normal life, emotions, personal encounters, and humanity weave into a large, intricate web of complex threads, each standing alone yet connected to all.
Like "世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド," it can be read and enjoyed in various ways. You can navigate the sentences, which transform into gentle waters, with a canoe, listen to the gentle waves, and sail towards the autumn sunset.
But you can also, if you want, and I would recommend it to everyone, pay more attention to the currents. Pay attention to the interplay of different currents, to the rocks they encounter, to the foam crowns they stir up.