After Dark – Haruki Murakami

Considering some of Murakami’s stories involve dancing dwarves, talking cats and sheep with plans for world domination, you’d expect a novel in which he explores Tokyo’s dark side to be pretty damn strange.  But surprisingly, After Dark is one of his less weird novels.  Sure, a girl gets trapped inside a TV set for a bit, but that’s as mundane as a walk to the shops for this author.

Most of the action in After Dark takes place in an unnamed entertainment district, one of those places like Shibuya that lend themselves to stereotypical images of modern Japan, full of giant television screens, neon signs and pay-by-the-hour “love hotels”.  Murakami perfectly captures the nightlife and atmosphere of Tokyo: the salary men rushing for the last train; the constant traffic of kids heading between convenience stores and karaoke bars; the scavenging rats, cats and crows. 

A Wild Sheep Chase – Haruki Murakami

A sheep with a star shaped mark on its back and possibly nefarious designs for the human race.  A girl with supernaturally dazzling ears and a sixth sense.  A dying right-wing power broker.  A narrator haunted by a whale’s penis.  A slurring dwarf in a sheep outfit.  What could they all have to do with each other?  Why, they’re all part of the plot of one of Haruki Murakami’s earliest novels, A Wild Sheep Chase.  Naturally.

The Sound of the Mountain – Yasunari Kawabata

review by Gabriel

The Sound of the Mountain is depressing for all the right reasons.  It captures the longing, loneliness and disappointment of aging using characters that are so real you might expect to run into them in the street (at which point you’d probably want to give them a hug).  It’s depressing because it’s confronting – it makes you reflect on your life, where it’s going, and how far that might be from your dreams.

The Elephant Vanishes – Haruki Murakami

review by Gabriel

It’s Murakamipalooza!  By which I mean, I’ve read two Murakami short story collections in a row.  That probably doesn’t qualify for a palooza suffix, but I’m going with it anyway.  The Elephant Vanishes, like Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, is a random collection of short stories, being neither chronologically nor thematically linked.  It is probably more consistent in quality than the latter, and contains everything you’d expect of the author – readability, weirdness, a sense of playfulness and gratuitous references to jazz, classical music and cats.  But it also contains a few stories that surprised me with their characterisation and perspective, and showed me that Murakami can be more flexible than I’d thought.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman – Haruki Murakami

Review by Gabriel

This collection includes the short story The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes, in which an unnamed narrator enters a contest to win a two million yen prize by inventing a new kind of confection.  To win, he must gain the approval of an unusual panel of judges – the Sharpie Crows, revered birds that live deep in the bowels of the company, and who feed only on genuine Sharpie Cakes.  When he presents his invention to the crows (*spoilers on*), they tear each other apart trying to decide if his product is the real deal.

 In the introduction to Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Murakami states that The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes was his reaction to the Japanese literary establishment.  When the narrator of the story walks away from the prize due to the savagery and ridiculousness of the judges, he says, “From now on I would make and eat the food I wanted to eat.  The damned Sharpie Crows could peck each other to death for all I cared.”  This pretty much sums up Murakami’s attitude to writing, and it’s what makes his books so damn enjoyable.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami

Review by Gabriel

Before Murakami became a full-time writer, he was running a jazz bar in Tokyo.  While working long hours, he managed to have two novels published, and achieved some critical success and recognition.  Not the type to do things by halves, he decided to sell his business to devote himself to writing full time.

At this time, he also took up running to keep fit, a habit he maintains to this day.  But he doesn’t just run – he runs marathons.  He runs for around three hours a day, between one hundred and fifty and two hundred miles a month.  He competes in at least one marathon a year, and also trains for triathlons.  As I said, he’s not the type to do things by halves.  

South of the Border, West of the Sun – Haruki Murakami

review by Gabriel

South of the Border, West of the Sun has the same basic plot as another of Murakami’s novels, Norwegian Wood – a protagonist whose life is in turmoil because he is unable to forget his first love.  Published only five years apart, the former is a revisitation of many of the latter’s themes – death, love, sex, fate.  But there are a number of significant differences that make for a very different, though equally enjoyable, reading experience.

The Lake – Yasunari Kawabata

review by Gabriel

“I don’t want to drag you down into my world… But be sure to bury deep the things that I’ve drawn out in you.  They might be dangerous.”

This quote is spoken by Gimpei Momoi, the protagonist of Yasunari Kawabata’s darkly moving novel.  It is a quote that could be read to warn of the unconventional perspective of The Lake, which focuses on the taboo and degenerate.

Forbidden Colours – Yukio Mishima

review by Gabriel

One of the many reasons I read novels is because they provide a window into lives I could never imagine.  Forbidden Colours depicts the life of a young homosexual in post-war Japan.  It offers not only an insight into gay culture, but also an examination of the deeper implications of being attracted to members of one’s own sex.  More broadly, it is a novel about secret lives, and of finding the balance between the gratification of desires, and ones social responsibilities.

Norwegian Wood – by Haruki Murakami

review by Gabriel

Norwegian Wood is a novel about youth, love, and death, and the pain that comes from all three.  It’s unusual amongst Murakami’s work in that it is firmly grounded in reality, absent of his signature style of magic realism.  Nonetheless, the author is still instantly recognisable due to his distinctive first person narration and addictive readability.

Set in Tokyo in the 1960s, the story focuses on Toru Watanabe, a university student haunted by the suicide of his best friend, Kizuki, and dealing with the angst and ennui of late adolescents.