2008 Woodie Awards
Murakami masterminds metaphysical masterpiece
Meredith Byers
Issue date: 9/28/06 Section: Arts
- Page 1 of 1
Most authors will find a niche and remain there for the rest of their careers. The examples are countless. Jane Austen wrote nearly all of her work about life in stifling upper-class English society. Ernest Hemingway focused on the disillusioned "lost generation" and based works like A Farewell to Arms on his experiences as an ambulance driver in Europe during World War I. Horatio Alger exhausted the "rags-to-riches story" starring industrious, dedicated young boys willing to fight for their success. "Write what you know" is perhaps the most clichéd adage to which young writers are advised to adhere. Writing books based on real-life experiences is always, we are told, the favored method when writing novels.
None of this applies to Haruki Murakami. Murakami has written nearly a dozen novels and non-fiction accounts, each one radically different from the one preceding it. His subject matters range from the 1995 Sarin Gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system in 2001's Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche to a successful professional's search for his missing cat and wife in 1998's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He has even written a coming of age tale about a man in the 1960s and the 1970s with 2000's Norwegian Wood.
Murakami's works are always slightly bizarre and his plot lines are always colorful and unique; cats occasionally talk to each other, yet his characters are always sensitive, an attribute that is highlighted by his silky prose and ambitious plot lines. It is no surprise that Murakami has emerged as the most popular Japanese writer both in Japan and in the Western world and his books are consistently unbelievable. Reading his work is like being in a dream-a dream that happens to be beautifully written, richly embellished and carefully constructed with compelling characters, limitless imagination and just a hint of magical realism.
Murakami's latest work of fiction is Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, a compilation of short stories, many of which have previously appeared in The New Yorker, among other publications. The stories possess the signature Murakami blend of magical realism and a supernatural perception of humanity. In one of the stories, entitled "The Shinagawa Monkey," a woman literally loses her own name. In another, called "Man-Eating Cats," a man's girlfriend disappears, and in his search for her, he manages to lose his own identity. Yet the best story in the compilation is a simple one with a realistic premise entitled "Tony Takitani." The story masterfully conveys Tony's ascent from loneliness when he marries a beautiful and materialistic woman and goes on to explain his return to loneliness when his wife is killed in a tragic accident. The story is remarkably unforgettable. While some of these premises may come across as fantastical and absurd, a writer as swift and miraculous as Murakami is capable of making them succeed. Few other writers could get away with what he does. He can take the most ineffable of human emotions and describe them with such accuracy and simplicity that it seems to be nothing more than arithmetic for him. The audacity of his story lines and the almost supernatural sensitivity of his characters are what make his works succeed.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is certainly fantastic and one of the best books of the year, but Murakami needs the canvas of a 300 page novel to truly express his literary genius. While the short stories are nothing short of brilliant, Murakami's most realistic novel, Norwegian Wood, is a much better introduction to the genius of Murakami. Regardless, his genius is rare in contemporary fiction and it is not solely by chance that Murakami has become one of the most admired and widely-read writers in the international world of literature.
None of this applies to Haruki Murakami. Murakami has written nearly a dozen novels and non-fiction accounts, each one radically different from the one preceding it. His subject matters range from the 1995 Sarin Gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system in 2001's Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche to a successful professional's search for his missing cat and wife in 1998's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He has even written a coming of age tale about a man in the 1960s and the 1970s with 2000's Norwegian Wood.
Murakami's works are always slightly bizarre and his plot lines are always colorful and unique; cats occasionally talk to each other, yet his characters are always sensitive, an attribute that is highlighted by his silky prose and ambitious plot lines. It is no surprise that Murakami has emerged as the most popular Japanese writer both in Japan and in the Western world and his books are consistently unbelievable. Reading his work is like being in a dream-a dream that happens to be beautifully written, richly embellished and carefully constructed with compelling characters, limitless imagination and just a hint of magical realism.
Murakami's latest work of fiction is Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, a compilation of short stories, many of which have previously appeared in The New Yorker, among other publications. The stories possess the signature Murakami blend of magical realism and a supernatural perception of humanity. In one of the stories, entitled "The Shinagawa Monkey," a woman literally loses her own name. In another, called "Man-Eating Cats," a man's girlfriend disappears, and in his search for her, he manages to lose his own identity. Yet the best story in the compilation is a simple one with a realistic premise entitled "Tony Takitani." The story masterfully conveys Tony's ascent from loneliness when he marries a beautiful and materialistic woman and goes on to explain his return to loneliness when his wife is killed in a tragic accident. The story is remarkably unforgettable. While some of these premises may come across as fantastical and absurd, a writer as swift and miraculous as Murakami is capable of making them succeed. Few other writers could get away with what he does. He can take the most ineffable of human emotions and describe them with such accuracy and simplicity that it seems to be nothing more than arithmetic for him. The audacity of his story lines and the almost supernatural sensitivity of his characters are what make his works succeed.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is certainly fantastic and one of the best books of the year, but Murakami needs the canvas of a 300 page novel to truly express his literary genius. While the short stories are nothing short of brilliant, Murakami's most realistic novel, Norwegian Wood, is a much better introduction to the genius of Murakami. Regardless, his genius is rare in contemporary fiction and it is not solely by chance that Murakami has become one of the most admired and widely-read writers in the international world of literature.
Be the first to comment on this story