Yeah, there's another Japanese writer who's last name is Murakami. Nope, he's not related to Haruki Murakami (let's call him H and the author of this book R). But H has cited R as one of the only Japanese writers he's been consciously influenced by, one of the only ones he enjoys reading. So obvi...
I have wanted to read the original book of AUDITION ever since seeing the truly terrifying Japanese movie of the same name. For those who are curious, there aren't many differences. Both the book and the movie highlight different aspects, but the majority of the story is the same in each.First ...
This is the first novel of his I've read, & it hit my sweet spot. The pitch black glee is hilarious, & seems it's what I've been looking for. I didn't know anything about his writing, but I've been bingeing on Japanese-to-English novels, & I think that I've found just what I wanted. It reminds me...
I put the thin fragment of glass, dripping blood, in my pocket, and ran out into the misty road. The doors and windows of the houses were shut, nothing was moving. I thought I'd been swallowed by a huge living thing, that I was turning around and around in its stomach like the hero of some fairy ...
It has probably been two years since I read “In the Miso Soup,” what I consider more than just Ryu Murakami's flagship novel, but one of the few pieces of literature that I still draw on regularly when I want to ush and gush about fiction. I can still conjure what it feels like to read that book:...
Hashi ṣi Kiku sunt doi copii care, nou-născuṭi fiind, au fost părăsiṭi de mamele lor în boxele de bagaje ale unei gări. Ei doi sunt singurii copii care au supravieṭuit acestui abandon ṣi acest lucru îi va lega pe viaṭă. Hashi dă semne de autism iar Kiku dezvoltă o obsesie pentru mijloace de trans...
In 1969 we were seventeen. We listened to the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Bob Dylan. We read Rimbaud, played guitars, smoked pot, fell in love, rebelled against the establishment, protested the war in Vietnam, b...
”I had just turned twenty, and though my English is far from perfect I was working as a ‘nightlife guide’ for foreign tourists. Basically I specialize in what you might call sex tours, so it’s not as if my English needs to flawless. Since AIDS, the sex industry hasn’t exactly welcomed foreigners ...
Okay, the rundown is as follows: This is a wonderful satire of two groups of disaffected people who somehow find their way in the world through karaoke and murdering each other. While this is well-written, it's more about the relationships between the two g...