Murakami book order

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I'm pretty sure this has been done on here before, but I'm inept at finding old posts. I've read my Murakami books in the following order:

1) Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
2) The Elephant Vanishes
3) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
4) Norwegian Wood
5) After the Quake

I have the rest of his books sitting at home waiting to be devoured; any suggestions for the order? To help the memory, they include: A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance, Underground, Sputnik Sweetheart, South of the Border West of the Sun

Either that or just point me in the direction of the old posts. Thank you!

(A follow up question: does order matter when it comes to reading an author's body of work?)

― zan, Friday, 8 October 2004 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Whatever else you do, read "A Wild Sheep Chase" next!
:)

― mark, Sunday, 10 October 2004 04:34 (twenty-one years ago)

"Dance, Dance, Dance" is the sequel to "Wild Sheep Chase". The rest are unconnected.

― jordache, Monday, 11 October 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

A Wild Sheep Chase, followed by Dance Dance Dance it is! Thanks.

― zan, Monday, 11 October 2004 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Wasn't there a third novel connected to A Wild Chimp Sage?

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Monday, 11 October 2004 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

"hear the wind sing" and "pinball 1973" feature the characters the Rat and the narrator.

― zappi (joni), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 11:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I've got "Pinball 1973" on printout... I'll fit it in somewhere as well. "Hear the Wind Sing" seems to be harder to find.

Gah... I've told people before I'm cursed/blessed to forever read only Murakami. Like unicorn skulls.

― zan, Tuesday, 12 October 2004 12:23 (twenty-one years ago)

"hear the wind sing" comes up quite regularly on ebay for £10-20

― zappi (joni), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 13:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Hear the Wind Sing: 1979
Pinball, 1973: 1980
A Wild Sheep Chase: 1982
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: 1985
Norwegian Wood: 1987
Dance Dance Dance: 1988
South of the Border, West of the Sun: 1992
The Elephant Vanishes: 1993
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: 1994
Underground: 1997/8
Sputnik Sweetheart: 1999
After the Quake: 2000
Kafka on the Shore: 2002

Old thread was on ILE: Haruki Murakami

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 13 October 2004 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks a million, jel! That's exactly the post I was looking for. (You may even notice I was the last person to post there, and couldn't even find it myself.)

― zan, Wednesday, 13 October 2004 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

three weeks pass...

Try getting Hear the Wind Sing through Interlibrary Loan at your local library. Murakami doesn't actually like that Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973 are available in English, but as a fan, it's hard to resist them.

― Donna Feddern, Thursday, 4 November 2004 00:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Zan, did you read A Wild Sheep Chase yet? I love that book!!

Speaking of Murakami, does anyone else greatly prefer the new translater, Philip Gabriel? I've only read one translated by him (South of the Border), but I liked it much more. Of course, I don't know the Japanese to compare it on translation terms, but the English is smoother and calls less attention to itself.

― Cherish, Thursday, 4 November 2004 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I finished A Wild Sheep Chase a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm nearly done with Dance, Dance, Dance. I definitely preferred the first, though I think in spite of their sequentiality, they're two very separate books and styles. Still, I'm not saying anything until I finish both.

I have yet to read any of Gabriel's translations, but I believe South of the Border, West of the Sun is next in my line... so I'll let you know.

― zan, Thursday, 4 November 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Yup, very different styles! Plus, for me, Dance, Dance, Dance lacked the cohesive plot and, most of all, the emotional resonance of Sheep Chase.

I liked South of the Border very much. Hope you do, too!

― Cherish, Thursday, 4 November 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Hard-Boiled Wonderland was my 'way-in' to Murakami. And an initial put-off. I waited another two years before I tried again. Norweigan Wood. Brilliant (and lovely twin red and green edition). Got sucked in and did the whole Dance / Sheep Chase thing.

Wind up Bird Chronicles still sitting on the shelf, though, despite my girlfriend saying how good it is.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

I'm only about 50 pgs into Kafka on the Shore now and I'm enjoying it, but all of the dialogue involving the (inevitable) girl read like bad RPG scenes!

I never felt this way about Dance Dance Dance...could it be a function of the translation? Does it get better? Is he subverting Japanese cultural tropes or something?

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 18 April 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

has this new translator re-translated the other books? because i only read "hard boiled wonderland" and while I thought it was ok, it came across as really obvious and kind of, uh, dumb to me. and I think that's because the translation was so blunt. there was almost no mystery to that book whatsoever. I can't imagine the book really reads that basically.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

I'm a hundred pages deeper into the book now and none of the other dialogue has bothered me. Maybe it was just the one scene that came off badly in translation (blunt is definitely the word), or maybe I'm just absorbed enough in the story/style at this point not to notice (I think it's the former though).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 20 April 2005 14:09 (twenty years ago)

I've only read one Gabriel translation (Sputnik Sweetheart), and it's my least favorite Murakami book. I've always preferred A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland, but I have no idea if it's because of the original text or because of Birnbaum's voice.

There's a great roundtable discussion among the translators and American editor here: http://www.murakami.ch/rd/translators/translators_an_email_roundtable_gabriel_randonhouse.html

And more on each translator (with comparisons between Birnbaum and Rubin translations) here:
http://www.murakami.ch/rd/translators/main.html

There's also a good Wendy Lesser article somewhere on the translator's voice that spends a lot of time on the Murakami translations. Forgive me for being too lazy to find it right now.

― zan, Wednesday, 20 April 2005 15:18 (twenty years ago)

Here's the Lesser article (it was linked in one of the above ones): http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i05/05b00701.htm

This stuff is fascinating, thanks.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 20 April 2005 15:34 (twenty years ago)

Hmm. I don't agree with that Wendy Lesser article at all! I find Birnbaum's voice distracting and, often, awkward. I've only read South of the Border by Philip Gabriel, but, as I said above, it's the smoothest, least distracting Murakami translation I've read. Of course, maybe Birnbaum's quirks are a more accurate rendition of Murakami? I wish I knew!

― Cherish, Wednesday, 20 April 2005 19:00 (twenty years ago)

I see that Gabriel did Kafka...maybe I just like Birnbaum better.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 21 April 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

despite anxious sensitivity to translator i seem to not give a fuck who translates murakami novels, which is very odd and in need of explanation.

jordan, did you mean the girl he meets on the bus?

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 24 April 2005 07:39 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I meant that girl, specifically the scene at the rest stop when he first meets here. I finished the book today on a plane back from New Orleans, I loved the rest of it unconditionally.

― Jordan (Jordan), Sunday, 24 April 2005 23:07 (twenty years ago)

thing that bothered me about the translation was the occasional anglo-ness of some of the slang, which seemed odd, bcz i can't really justify it: just that "dick" is transparent to me in a way that "willy" isn't - actually, i think the problem is that "willy" is what five-year-olds call it, maybe. i dunno if the word in the japanese is juvenile. there are other examples but i can only recall this one because of how my mind works.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 01:22 (twenty years ago)

"bad RPG dialogue" is interesting and a way I never thought about how the translations read. Although possibly "largely acceptable RPG dialogue" would be more helpful. Although not about to reread him focussing on this.

Kafka seems a more self-acknowledgingly straight fantasy story than Wind-Up Bird C., which is what it seems closest to out of others I have read: this is possibly only bcz of length, though.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 01:25 (twenty years ago)

Another great article to help you rethink the way you read Murakami in translation, or any author in translation for that matter. I'm not sure if it helps settle the "willy" debate, but, nonetheless...

http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article.php?lab=HowTo

― zan, Thursday, 28 April 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

i dunno if the word in the japanese is juvenile.

it is, if that helps settle the debate. in american slang, it would be the equivalent of "wee wee" or "weenie".

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 29 August 2005 03:36 (twenty years ago)

nine months pass...

sp@m

― sp@m, Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:42 (nineteen years ago)

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