Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

はじめての文学

はじめての文学: 村上春樹 [Hajimete no bungaku: Murakami Haruki]

Rate this book
小説の面白さ、楽しさを味わうために、著者自身が用意したスペシャル・アンソロジー。はじめてのひとも、春樹ファンも欠かせない一冊。「シドニーのグリーン・ストリート」「かえるくん、東京を救う」など全17編を収録。

Tankobon Hardcover

First published December 6, 2006

1 person is currently reading
31 people want to read

About the author

Haruki Murakami

608 books133k followers
Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009–10); the last was ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun's survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for his use of magical realist elements. His official website cites Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has named Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including First Person Singular (2020), and non-fiction works including Underground (1997), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), a memoir about his experience as a long distance runner.
His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection The Elephant Vanishes (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
6 (40%)
4 stars
7 (46%)
3 stars
1 (6%)
2 stars
1 (6%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 of 1 review
Profile Image for Erika.
2,840 reviews89 followers
March 2, 2019
今まで、"The Strange Library"しかちゃんと読んだことがなく、「読まず嫌いも良くないな」「「はじめての文学」だし、村上春樹初心者の私にもちょうどいい」、と思って読んだ。
たしかに、村上春樹作品のエッセンスがつまった作品たちだった。

読んだ結果、結局私は村上春樹作品が嫌いだということがわかった。

全体的に昭和の男性優位・女性蔑視を感じるのは私だけだろうか?
とくに、著者のそれぞれの作品へのコメントで、「自分を慕って地の底からやってきたけなげな緑色の獣をどこまでもいたぶる女性は、けっして特異な存在ではない。それはすべての女性がうまれつき心の内に秘めているものなのだ」(「緑色の獣」コメント)と書いていて、好きでもない相手に言い寄られる気持ち悪さを理解していないのにとうとうと語る様と、相手の気持ちを考えずに言い寄ってくる行為を「けなげ」と表現することに嫌悪感を抱いた。

それと、これも村上春樹作品の特徴なんだろうけど、全てMagic Realism文学で、私が一番嫌いな(そこまで強い感情を抱かない場合は、「苦手」くらい)部類の文学。
それプラス、昭和末期から流行っている(ように私は感じる)「お察しください」系の、詩を長編の物語に引き伸ばしたようなパステルカラーな作品ばかり。

何故ここまで人気なのか分からない…
が、解釈の余地があって、深読みができるから、頭がいいような気持ちにさせてくれるのかもしれない、とも思う。
(先日カズオイシグロの"The Buried Giant"も読み終わり、同じ様に「何故ここまで皆がこの作品を愛しているのか理解できないと思った。が、カズオイシグロ作品はまだ「最後まで読みたい」と思わせるものだった。良かった。)
Displaying 1 of 1 review

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.