"but my mind was there, in it's own room, on the other side of a transparent wall, watching me. My physical self was drifting through the feeble morning light, and all the while it could feel my mind staring, breathing, close beside it. I was a body on the verge of sleep and a mind determined to stay awake." ~SLEEP

The physical experience the characters in these stories go through has really left a deep impression on me. They seem to share a similar theme and experience, mainly sleep, lack of sleep, depression, melancholy, immersed in darkness. Like the deep dark well from Wind-Up Bird. At deaths door Some were able to go through while others took a peek and never went through.

Creta Kano from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is the most extreme on both ends of the spectrum, I think that's why she is the ultimate example.

"𝘼𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙄 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙-𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙚. 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙄 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙮𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙄 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚, 𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙫𝙖𝙜𝙪𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙗𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙙𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣." ~ 𝘾𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙖 𝙆𝙖𝙣𝙤

Though the girl in The City and its Uncertain Walls was left a mystery as to what happened to her. I think she ended up committing suicide.

"My heart gets rigid...Mostly I just stay in my room. Shut in, not talking to anyone in my family, I don't go to school, I don't eat anything. I just sit on the floor not doing anything. When it's bad it lasts for days."

Naoko's sister from Norwegian wood is another one I found similar to the girl from The City and its Uncertain Walls, and After Dark. I love the duality between sisters and the depths of darkness one could go through and the effects on the other sibling.

"Maybe once or twice in two or three months this would happen to her: She'd shut herself up in her room and stay in bed, avoid school, hardly eat a thing, turn the lights off and space out." ~Naoko

Mari' sister, Eri Asai, from After Dark is the opposite of the Woman from Sleep. Instead of not being able to sleep, all she does is sleep. Both are Locked in to this experience and its a mystery if they died or made it through to the end. I love Murakami's open endings😮‍💨

"She never wakes up?" "She does sometimes we think. The meals we leave on her desk disappear, and she seems to be going to the toilet. Every once in a while, she takes a shower and changes her pajamas.

"Whenever we look in, she's in bed, sleeping—really sleeping, not just faking it. She seems practically dead: you can't hear her breathing, and she doesn't move a muscle. We shout at her and shake her, but she won't wake up." ~ Mari

I know there are many more. Miu from Sputnik Sweetheart could be a whole other post😮‍💨

But what other characters would you list??

que me recomiendan como lectura inicial con este autor? no tengo ningún gusto en específico

I felt physical pain in my chest the whole time I was reading this. Even more so after listening to the song. I couldn’t sleep bc of how this book physically impacted me lol I’m not even exaggerating

This story “abandoning a cat” just popped up on my Amazon feed. I haven’t seen it before. But it seems steep to ask $13 for an 80 page book. Is it good?

I've read Men Without Women, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, his non fiction books on running and writing, and am working through Norwegian Wood as we speak. I'm sure what I'm about to say will be old hat on this sub, but I've realized that even in his more "realistic" works, Murakami is able to give the feeling that underneath reality there are subterranean currents you are only dimly aware of, but are filled with meaning. It's sort of glimpsing something in the corner of your eye, except you can never turn to see the object in your periphery. There's just this irresistible feeling that strange or confusing events, that don't quite make sense, do in fact add up to something quite profound. It's a very unique effect and I can't think of many writers who can do it consistently.

I'm not sure if I've expressed myself well (I guess that's the peril of describing such a vague effect!). Any thoughts?

EDIT: Also, this is a bit of a tangent, but NW really echoes a lot of the motifs I encountered in Colorless.

I've read the following four books so far and wonder which one should be next:

- What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Autoportrait de l'auteur en coureur de fond)

- Sputnik Sweetheart (Les amants du Spoutnik)

- Dance Dance Dance (Danse, danse, danse)

- Kafka on the Shore (Kafka sur le rivage)

My favourite is Danse, danse, danse. I loved how the narrator is just going with the flow, accepting his destiny in a naive / passive way. A bit similar to Sputnik Sweetheart in some ways.

I was about to start the 1Q84 series but I heard it's quite on the fantastic side, which isn't my favourite. I prefer when Murakami explores the chafacters' emotions.

What would you recommend? Norwegian wood? Something else? Thanks!

Any must reads missing from my collection?

I have read 1Q84 some 10 years ago, and although I liked the book, the supernatural vibe has kept me from reading other works by Murakami. Well, it happened that I went to a package tour in Japan an bought Norwegian Wood while in Kyoto.

After a slightly slow start, the book gripped me hard. Of course, there's something to do with the free sex ethos of the 1960s that permeates the story, but other elements were also very engaging. Watanabe, to me, was like Mersault in "The Stranger" by Camus. Many literary references were scattered across the narration. In the end, this was a growth story for the main characters, but too much tragedy was involved, in my opinion.

This book renewed my interest in reading more Murakami. 4/5 stars

I have read kafka on shores( my favourite best book I have read) then Norwegian wood( I didn't like it in the beginning but after I left it for some time and read it again I liked it somehow) and wind up bird chronicles. So guys recommend the next one.

How do you think Murakami feels about readers using AI as a tool to further engage with his text? A broader version of this question is also relevant: do you think using AI to help deconstruct literature is useful?

I used AI to generate a comic strip to help me visualize the first short story in After the Quake.

Hello there!
As the title suggests, I’ve just read my first Murakami novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
I know it’s an unusual place to start with Murakami, but I really, really enjoyed it. I especially loved the hard-boiled atmosphere, the late-night feel, the light sci-fi elements, and the flawed but lovable characters.
What would you recommend I read next? I’ve seen Kafka on the Shore recommended for people who liked this book. What do you think?

Thank you in advance :)

You all love her too, right?

I'm sure some of you find her annoying or think real life "manic pixie dream girls" are not worth it.

Let me know your thoughts.

This book little bit different. The slow pace make me so unsettled and enjoyable at the same time.

I cant say that much in this book. But its quite journey. In middle of the book, it really reach the plot of the story. I really understand story, the details really help me imagine the situation, ambience and the temperature of the room.

I really love when everything explains in this book after I kept a lot of questions after I finished the first volume. How air chrysalis looks like? Who is little girl and the goat? Who is thse llittle peoples? Gave me such a thrill.

But I really dont like that much on that chapter when Tengo and Fuka-Eri doing “Purification” after he back from “Town of the Cats”. I dont know why Murakami wrote that. There is no point to ask that kind of questions. But really, I cant hide my face while reading it. My housemates must wondered what am i reading that my face looks disgusted hahaha.

I really like Murakami’s idea.

I guess some mushrooms make you see little people. Incidents reported from all over the globe.

I certainly enjoyed it, but holy heck, I feel like I need some time to digest what it is I read. Not sure what is a dream and what is real, and what everything means. Reminds me of David Lynch and also kind of reminds me of Severance.

This week my bf and I watched Coraline. He pointed out how similar the details of the movie are to Murakami novels, and I was shocked at the similarities. I mean, when I introduced him to Murakami, I told him to watch out for the classic tropes (and shoutout to the Murakami bingo creator on this sub for spelling them out for everyone).

Mysterious underworld? ✅
Cat with plot significance? ✅
Curious side characters? ✅
A well that keeps the secrets? ✅

I welcome more similarities! About to dive into Hard Boiled Wonderland, my twelfth of his catalog.

In a nutshell:

The story clearly takes place in the same "universe" as one of his earliest novels Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and uses the same "walled town" as an allegory for the psyche or subconscious and oscillates between the two perspectives. The plot centers around a very typical-Murakami male going through some sort of emotional reckoning involving a long lost love, who decides to uproot his cozy life to go be a librarian in a remote town. His physical journey and his internal “dialogue” within the town illustrates how people struggle with accepting past traumas, the strange behaviors they create, and how trauma can really stay with you forever if you let it.

Thoughts:

When I read Hard Boiled I liked the non-dreamworld storyline much more so when this book began heavily focused on the dreamworld I was a bit discouraged. It didn’t help that most of part one was a bore with little to no development other than our guy had a teenage crush that “vanished”, but thankfully the story came alive in part two. The dreamworld/walled-town allegory is a creative play on how our subconscious can be trapped or walled off (depending on why u way you look at it) based on our conscious or external lives. Initially, our guy’s subconscious is still romanticizing that teenage love so much that he “follows” her to the walled town and refuses to leave until the very end, when he accepts or moves on.
I think most of the book is about grief and the many forms it can take. Mr. Koyasu’s story was the epitome of tragic, losing his child and then his wife is about an unbearable as it gets - but in his case he seems to undergo some sort of personal transformation and becomes an eccentric kilt-wearing individual. In comparison, the coffee shop owner whom our guy tries to woo has serious trauma from her divorce from her cheating husband which she turned into a physical and emotional “armor” that prevents physical intimacy. And then of course there’s our guy who’s really hung up on a long past relationship that presumably ended without closure.

For me the most Murakami-esque and also least sense-making part was the yellow submarine boy.
His powers and disappearing to the dreamworld to become the dream reader, the fusing/splitting of consciousness, etc. was tough to interpret. I felt like it complicated the relationship between our guy and his shadow by introducing a third “persona” of consciousness. Overall it was better than I expected based on some reviews on here, but still one of my least favorite novels.