Allycks's comments (member since Jul 19, 2007)

Allycks's comments from the Murakami fans group.

Gerald wrote: "Well golly, I don't read Chinese (or Japanese either). I found the book sufficiently long and totally involving, so I guess the abridgment, presumably by Murakami, did not cause the flow of the book to be interrupted. I think I'm going to declare myself satisfied (and thankful) for the book he gave us in English. If he's happy with it, so am I."

Murakami did not abridge the book. It was abridged by his translator in order to meet a word-limit set by his English language publisher, Knopf. Take a gander at message 7 or click the link provided on message 9.

How to Japonese, an American-in-Japan blog, is gonna do an hour-by-hour live blog next Friday dedicated to the official release of 1Q84.

http://howtojaponese.com/2009/05/22/one-...

Lindsey wrote: "does anyone know when it might be released in English here in the States? any rumors?"

I've heard that 1Q84 is going to weigh in at a whopping 1,600 pages. It should take a couple years to get it all translated. But the situation isn't very cut-and-dry for a couple of reasons. One, if Murakami gets involved in the translation as he supposedly did with Kafka on the Shore, it could easily cut the time needed to translate in half. In that case we could be reading 1Q84 this time next year. But the second issue is that Murakami's other behemoth, Wind-Up Bird, was ruthlessly chopped up by the English publisher who had set an incredibly imbecilic word limit for the English language version. Let's pray that the same thing doesn't happen with 1Q84 and that we'll be able to read the entire book as the author intended, no matter how long it takes.

Why are the love-interest characters always disappearing in Murkami's stories? I think that's a great question. Murakami's protagonists are often coming out of a break-up and then meeting somebody new, but then that something new leads to other unexpected consequences. His style is all about that strange feeling you get on certain days, when you meet somebody new, hear a song or see something that moves you, when everything normal is suddenly turned on its head. Serious relationship building, for better or for worse, doesn't seem to fit.

Christina Stind wrote: "Sounds intriguing. Annoying that we have to wait till it gets translated."

Annoying that I never made better use of my time to learn Japanese!

1Q84 is the name of Murakami's new novel which will soon be published in Japan. Evidently the title is an homage to Orwell. 1Q84 could be Murakami's 'biggest and most ambitious' novel and it might take a couple years to get it translated into English.

http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/ar...

The 'ears thing' is something that totally surprised me and drew me into The Wild Sheep Chase. Call me conservative but I'd never before truly considered the ear. Great writers expand your perception of the world and Murakami did just that. Since reading The Wild Sheep Chase I do look at and occasionally consider people's ears. Of course in the novel she was able to perform some unspeakable or unsaid thing with her ears, another classic Murakami technique, leaving the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks.

GRAZIE Pamela.

I actually got a friend started on Murakami with Norwegian Wood. It's clear to those of us who've read most of his stuff that NW is the most 'normal' of all Murakami's novels. But this gal was one of those people who had never really considered or experienced 'wierdness' in literature. So it turned out Norwegian Wood was the perfect introduction to all that Murakami has to offer. Seriously, compared to the average (totally unreadable) bestseller or 90% of novels up for the Pulitzer or Booker or whatever, the tone of NW is pretty peculiar. OK, there are no Sheep Men and no giant frogs, but Norwegian Wood is absolutely chock full of that classic Murakami mix of wry nostalgia, no-bullshit characterisation, and a dreamy sense of both freedom and foreboding that magically unleashes the reader's imagination.

Check out "The Long Good-Bye" by Raymond Chandler. One of the greatest American novels of the 20th Century. And Murakami has recently translated it into the Japanese, along with "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "The Great Gatsby."

I agree about "Death and the Penguin," too!

Yeah learning Japanese is definitely going to take many years and a lot of effort! In the meantime, I wonder if any requests on the part of us readers could influence subsequent publishers to release Rubin's complete translation. I mean, it may sound quixotic, but it's not totally out of the question. For example I remember reading that five different translations of Kundera's 'The Joke' have been published.

Really though, the mere concept that they cut down Murakami's magnum opus is truly, royally, mindbogglingly (stretching it with the adverbs) screwed up. Can you imagine the Smithsonian or the Tate or the Louvre cropping a painting by any of the last century's great painters? It's unthinkable. But Knopf did the equivalent to one of the world's greatest living novelists.

Wow, this is horrifying. I found this blurb about the English translation "version" of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles on the CompleteReview.

In a review in World Literature Today Yoshiko Yokochi Samuel writes that "the English version has been subjected to extensive cutting, undoubtedly under pressure from the publisher". This sad fact is now confirmed in Jay Rubin's Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words, where he writes that it was "stipulated in Murakami's contract that the book should not exceed a certain length". Rubin, in fact, handed in both an abridged and a complete translation, but Knopf stuck to their ridiculous word-limit. May they suffer at the hands of the literary gods for their crimes against helpless readers and Murakami. But it's just another reminder, that when you read a book in translation you're getting screwed -- often far worse than you could even contemplate.

Word limit?! I'm feeling a little sick. Has anyone else read Rubin's account or otherwise heard about this?

Funny I'm just the opposite. Hard Boiled Wonderland is among my favorites, but Kafka on the Shore left me unimpressed. Why? Kafka touches on so many familiar Murakami themes (surreal life as real life, the urgent and bizzare quest, history as mystery, innocent but frank sexuality) but without the continual flourishes of genius and originality of his master works- Wonderland, Norwegian Wood, DanceDanceDance, and The Wind-Up Bird. To me Kafka on the Shore reads like Murakami on autopilot. In his best novels Murakami seems to guide the reader towards some greater truth or understanding, and if in the end that truth is not actually revealed, the reader still feels exhilerated for having taken the trip. Kafka on the Shore lacks that, in my opinion, and comes off flat.

for joanna,
'Not sure what to read next...'

I'd be tempted to suggest 'Dance Dance Dance' as it's a sort of sequel to 'Wild Sheep Chase,' and the protagonist is very much akin to those pure-hearted wise-asses who lead in 'Wonderland' and 'Chronicles.' But if you want to go in a slightly different direction there's 'Norwegian Wood.' It may lack much of Murakami's trademark flights into 'unreality' but delivers on every other level, with plenty of humor and existential pathos, and some of the finest characterizations you're likely to read in modern fiction.

My favorites are "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World" and "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles." These are two masterpieces of modern fiction in my opinion. Murakami has such a clear and utterly unique voice, without ever 'forcing it.' What's unsettling is how easy it is to relate to his characters as they try to navigate the borderland between mundane 'reality' and the dream world. Part of Murakami's genius is that this 'borderland,' which is obviously just the invention of one writer, feels like common property, a place the reader has already been before but discovers anew as the reading goes on.