Haruki Murakami - After Dark

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talking cats!
jazz clubs!
alternate dimensions out of an REI catalog!

i can't wait!!

― The Macallan 18 Year, Saturday, 12 May 2007 17:19 (eighteen years ago)

I think Wind Up Bird is sort of overrated. Why is overratedd one word?

― Moti Bahat, Saturday, 12 May 2007 20:02 (eighteen years ago)

The notices I've skimmed (re: After Dark) seem to rate it below average (at best), but I'm still interested - still ready for another dose. It's ordered, but hasn't shipped yet...

― Jeff LeVine, Saturday, 12 May 2007 20:39 (eighteen years ago)

talking cats!
jazz clubs!
alternate dimensions out of an REI catalog!

[Leaden sarcasm]So he's really trying something different then?[/leaden sarcasm]

― James Morrison, Monday, 14 May 2007 03:35 (eighteen years ago)

Actually I have no idea if any of those things are in the novel, but I wouldn't be surprised or bothered if they were. :)

I'd agree with WUB being overrated in comparison to his other novels like Almost Transparent Blue and Kafka on the Shore but I'd say it's criminally underrated against popular American lit...

― The Macallan 18 Year, Monday, 14 May 2007 23:11 (eighteen years ago)

I'd agree with WUB being overrated in comparison to his other novels like Almost Transparent Blue and Kafka on the Shore but I'd say it's criminally underrated against popular American lit...

Actually, Almost Transparent Blue is by Ryu Murakami (who also wrote: In the Miso Soup, Coin Locker Babies, Sixty-Nine, and Piercing.

Haruki Murakami wrote After Dark, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood, Underground, etc.

I agree that most of Haruki Murakami's stuff is underrated when compared to current American/British lit., but so is most modern stuff that comes out of other-than-America-or-Great-Britain countries. (There has to be an easier way to state that!)

― MsLaura, Monday, 14 May 2007 23:41 (eighteen years ago)

Weird - I don't feel he is under or overrated - I feel his work has been rated just about right.

― Jeff LeVine, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 03:15 (eighteen years ago)

In my opinion, everyone underrates Hard-Boiled Wonderland. I also think everyone overrates Wind-Up Bird INCLUDING Murakami himself.

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 03:22 (eighteen years ago)

I overrate both of them.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:49 (eighteen years ago)

I really liked WUB until the ending, which I did not like. Also, the war torture scene thing seemed like it was dropped in from, I dunno, a DeLillo or something.

― Dimension 5ive, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 02:10 (eighteen years ago)

oh, ryu! and i call myself a fan...

― The Macallan 18 Year, Thursday, 17 May 2007 23:16 (eighteen years ago)

I think his Hardboiled is the absolute best of his novels, and yes, while I thought Wind Up was great I didn't think it was such a mind-blower. But then I actually enjoyed Kafka, unlike most of his fans (so it seems); and rate South of the Border a much better treatment of the the themes covered in Wild Sheep. (I've yet to bring myself to read Dance.)

― Arethusa, Thursday, 17 May 2007 23:43 (eighteen years ago)

ive read all of them & my favorites are the wild sheep/dance dance dance twofer

― and what, Friday, 18 May 2007 13:30 (eighteen years ago)

After Dark - yeah - this was not very good. But not completely awful either (I guess). I'd like to see Murakami write a book with a main character closer to his own current age. When you're in your late 50s and still only (mostly) writing about teenagers or 20-somethings - I don't know - it's kinda creepy - maybe time to get out of the house and actually do something

― Jeff LeVine, Monday, 21 May 2007 06:59 (eighteen years ago)

What, you mean like being an internationally best-selling author or something? Like being so fucking famous that you inspire entire message-board threads on the Internet wherein non-authors sit around discussing how they know how your books could be better?

Also: several of his characters have been his exact age.

― Dimension 5ive, Monday, 21 May 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

Like managing a jazz bar or something?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 21 May 2007 18:22 (eighteen years ago)

haha, jeff

CREEPY TALENTED OLD GUY AUTHORS... GET A LIFE WOULD YA??

― The Macallan 18 Year, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)

I started this, it's okay so far. I don't know, the translation seems a little flat, I think the dude who did it is my least favorite.

― Jordan, Tuesday, 29 May 2007 16:08 (eighteen years ago)

This was just okay. The first-person plural narrative sections are weird, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading a script for a David Lynch scene rather than "actual" descriptive writing.

― Jordan, Tuesday, 5 June 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)

I'm reading it on my lunch break. It's diverting enough, but I am skipping over the magic realism parts.

― Virginia Plain, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 00:34 (eighteen years ago)

I've just started with Murakami and I've read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and am almost through WUB... it's so tempting to jump to the newest book, but I shouldn't, right?

― mh, Wednesday, 6 June 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

Only because it's not his best.

― Jordan, Thursday, 7 June 2007 18:54 (eighteen years ago)

Everywhere I look his name has been coming up recently, but I've read none of his books-- where should I start?

― Will M., Sunday, 10 June 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

Norwegian Wood is where (and why) you should start.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 12:26 (eighteen years ago)

four weeks pass...

I'd go along with that.

I've been off Murakami for a while, then I reread Sputnik Sweetheart, and remembered why I liked him in the first place.

― Matt, Tuesday, 10 July 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

love the stacks of wax at his old jazz club:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/08/books/mura600.jpg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 July 2007 16:03 (eighteen years ago)

Nobody else read that most mailed article by him in the Times about how listening to jazz was his model for writing?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 10 July 2007 20:44 (eighteen years ago)

i did. i even posted a picture from it right above your head.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 July 2007 21:16 (eighteen years ago)

I see. My head? Now I have some vision of going through a Murakami wormhole and ending up tangled up inside the hypertext of this thread, HTML Wonderland style.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 14:16 (eighteen years ago)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200/drp200/p211/p21137j98gg.jpg
Dance, Dance, Dance

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 12 July 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

I'd appreciate it if he put a bit more planning Into his writing. A bit too strea
of consciousness for me (and I love Kerouac). Like the torture bit mentioned above in wind up bird.

― calstars, Saturday, 14 July 2007 01:35 (eighteen years ago)

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