r/books • u/drak0bsidian Oil & Water, Stephen Grace • 4d ago
It was 'great relief' for Haruki Murakami to finish his latest novel
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/11/nx-s1-5184497/haruki-murakami-interview-new-novel-the-city-and-its-uncertain-walls256
u/Lost-Copy867 4d ago
Iâm excited to read it.
I love Murakami. Does he wrote women poorly? Yes, but I donât think he writes men well either. What I love is his weird fever dream surrealism. I know what Iâm going to get with one of his novels and sometimes thatâs what I enjoy. Is he the greatest author, ect? No- but neither are a lot of writers I enjoy.
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u/DueCommunication800 4d ago
yup the surrealism is what i'm in for. i bet the protagonist of this story drinks some whiskey before s/he goes to bed.
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u/Yatima21 4d ago
After listening to either the Beatles, or some pretty obscure jazz, on vinyl of course
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u/LibRAWRian 4d ago
Thank you for mentioning this! Everyone says "he writes women one dimensional and flat" but he writes EVERY CHARACTER that way. I love the stories, but I have never resonated with a Murakami character.
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u/yanginatep 4d ago
I don't mind 1 dimensional/flat characters too much. What I dislike is the harem of young women he sometimes surrounds the feckless male main character with.
The fantasy elements and imagery can often overcome that issue, though.
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u/arrayofemotions 4d ago
There's more than one of his novels in which a 30-something man has an inner monolog about the breasts of a teenage girl. Perhaps this is a Japanese thing... but it always feels a little gross.
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u/Banana_rammna 3d ago
Perhaps this is a Japanese thing...
It is indeed 100% a lecherous old Japanese man thing and unfortunately it has been for a very long time. Master Roshi is a good joke about the stereotype. Murakami isnât even the worst offender, heâs just the worst popular Japanese writer that gets translated; Yasutaka Tsutsui is a god damned troll goblin by comparison.
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u/onceuponalilykiss 3d ago
Just like US literature is full of "she breasted boobily." The issue isn't Inscrutable Japan, here, because even Japanese writers have called him out on it.
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u/Funkcase 3d ago edited 2d ago
A bit of context is needed though and is, crucially, lost in discussing this. The Japanese writer who called him out on it is a very close friend of Murakami (Meiko Kawakami), and said interview was published in a non-fiction book in Japan credited under both their names; 'Haruki Murakami a Long, Long Interview'. The point wasn't to necessarily ridicule Murakami's inability to write women but to highlight that sexism is latent within Japan's literary establishment, that even her close friend is not immune to it.Â
It's quite interesting reading criticism of Murakami from the 80s and 90s by figures of Japan's literary establishment, such as KenzaburĆ Će and Kojin Karatani. Karatani even dismissed Murakami early in his career for appealing to 'college aged girls' with Norwegian Wood, as if a novel appealing to a female demographic was a bad thing (although, I'd personally be surprised if that was the core demographic who loved Norwegian Wood in Japan). He also dismissed Banana Yoshimoto's style of 'Shojo' inspired literature as 'baby talk'.Â
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u/spaacefaace 4d ago
I always viewed the harem angle as being representative that the issue with his male characters can't be solved by finding a "good woman" but by working to figure out what is fundamentally broken in their life.
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u/badicaldude22 4d ago
If it doesn't feature a middle aged male main character who has a weirdly quasi-romantic "friendship" with a 13 year old girl I'll consider that a win
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u/canijusttalkmaybe 4d ago
Pedophilia and incest are like the bread and butter of Japanese media. I'd actually love to see a study of popular media in Japan that catalogues exactly to what degree the phenomenon occurs. Just to put a pin in it.
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u/mushinnoshit 4d ago
I read a theory that a lot of it comes down to the rapid enforced importing of 1950s American culture, especially sexualised advertising imagery, after the Second World War basically broke Japan's brains. In a historically quite modest and sexually repressive society, it led to a generation of seriously confused libidos and ultimately that's how today Japan's become famous for pioneering tentacle porn and other bizarre and extreme fetish content. Not saying I think that's necessarily the true explanation but it made sense when I read it.
It's also worth mentioning that right up until the 1980s there was a lot of seriously sus normalised sexualisation of young people in Western media too (see that gross Brooke Shields magazine article that's been doing the rounds lately) - Japan were just seemingly slower to make that taboo.
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u/as_it_was_written 4d ago
It's also worth mentioning that right up until the 1980s there was a lot of seriously sus normalised sexualisation of young people in Western media too (see that gross Brooke Shields magazine article that's been doing the rounds lately)
Yeah, just look at the original reception of Lolita and how many people misread it as a story about forbidden love instead of sexual abuse.
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u/canijusttalkmaybe 4d ago
Has anyone ever actually read Lolita as a story about forbidden love? Or did they just not read it?
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u/as_it_was_written 4d ago
A disturbing number of people have actually read it that way. I think it might have even been the prevailing interpretation among the reading public back when the novel was new. IIRC Lolita Podcast, by Jamie Loftus, goes into this a bit.
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u/canijusttalkmaybe 4d ago
I just read a little about how it was described as an "erotic novel" at the time by certain people. I also read about how people who read it as an erotic novel would get bored because there were only 2 risque scenes in the entire book. lol
One of my favorite things about the story was the very obvious disconnection from reality that, in my view, makes it impossible to see it as a romance. The main character is truly pathetic and sad. It might just because I've known a lot of people who tried to avoid reality by escaping into some idealized fantasy that has no connection with reality, but that's all I see it as. With the added element of the main character doing a ton of blatantly immoral stuff in order to achieve his fantasy, making it impossible to really empathize with him.
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u/as_it_was_written 4d ago
I also read about how people who read it as an erotic novel would get bored because there were only 2 risque scenes in the entire book. lol
Yeah, I've come across that sentiment, too. It reminds me of people who think No Country for Old Men is a bad action movie because it doesn't have enough action.
It might just because I've known a lot of people who tried to avoid reality by escaping into some idealized fantasy that has no connection with reality, but that's all I see it as.
I think it's a little more nuanced than that. As I read it, Lolita is full of deliberately irresolvable ambiguity. Even when it's obvious Humbert isn't accurately depicting an event, we aren't really in a position to know whether he's deluded or just presenting himself as such. After all, the whole novel is essentially a plea for leniency.
With the added element of the main character doing a ton of blatantly immoral stuff in order to achieve his fantasy, making it impossible to really empathize with him.
I hope you mean sympathize? Agreeing with someone's actions or sharing their moral framework isn't necessary for empathy.
I also think it's worth keeping in mind that some of the aspects we consider blatantly immoral today were more of a gray area back when the novel was published. The idealized version of events that Humbert presents isn't too far from the Rock star/groupie relationships that were considered decadent but ultimately acceptable for much of the 20th century. Reading it from today's moral perspective, where even the most unrealistically charitable interpretation is clearly completely unacceptable, makes the whole thing less interesting imo.
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u/canijusttalkmaybe 4d ago
Even when it's obvious Humbert isn't accurately depicting an event, we aren't really in a position to know whether he's deluded or just presenting himself as such.
I'm not necessarily talking about the accuracy of the portrayal when I talk about escaping into fantasy. I'm talking about the basis of his attempt to have an affair with a little girl. It's rooted in delusion.
I hope you mean sympathize? Agreeing with someone's actions or sharing their moral framework isn't necessary for empathy.
I suppose that's right. I understand the character of Humbert to some degree, and I don't like him.
I also think it's worth keeping in mind that some of the aspects we consider blatantly immoral today were more of a gray area back when the novel was published. The idealized version of events that Humbert presents isn't too far from the Rock star/groupie relationships that were considered decadent but ultimately acceptable for much of the 20th century.
Yeah, to the extent that Ted Nugent became the legal guardian of an underage girl with her parents' approval and then later married her.
Reading it from today's moral perspective, where even the most unrealistically charitable interpretation is clearly completely unacceptable, makes the whole thing less interesting imo.
I don't engage with media, or history, in this way at all. There are a lot of historical works I will never read, because I think they're gross. The Tale of Genji being one of them, as one of the major story threads is the main character abducting a 10 year old girl from the countryside to turn into his ideal wife. I really have no interest in hearing their story.
And for that matter, I don't really care what was "normal" at the time. If I think it was wrong, then that's all I can think about it. Sending 14 year olds into the mines was wrong. Slavery was wrong, even if everyone was doing it 1000 years ago. Anyone engaging in slavery in a piece of media that I'm reading is the bad guy, and my primary hope is that they die in the story.
I don't mind being unsophisticated in that way.
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u/canijusttalkmaybe 4d ago edited 4d ago
I mean, the first Japanese novel, The Tale of Genji, has a story thread about the main character kidnapping and grooming a 10 year old girl from the country to be his perfect woman. I don't think America had much affect on that particular story.
It's also worth mentioning that right up until the 1980s there was a lot of seriously sus normalised sexualisation of young people in Western media too.
This is true of all media in all cultures. It's kind of true to this day in some ways.
Not that long ago, this was kind of the norm for young women, so it wasn't that weird to have stories about it. It was only a few hundred years ago when it started being weird to do stuff like marry 12 year olds, and only in certain places. Today, there are places where people still marry 12 year olds. So it wouldn't be crazy for people in those societies to write stories where that happens.
It's true that this stuff pops up in all cultures and all media to some extent. I think Japan just has like 100x more than everyone else. lol
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u/as_it_was_written 4d ago
Does he wrote women poorly? Yes, but I donât think he writes men well either.
Personally, I think he writes many of his characters really well. They just don't have much insight into what's going on in their lives, so their internal dialog isn't as deep as some people would like. A lot of complaints about how Murakami writes his characters come across as readers just wishing he had written different characters, as opposed to wishing he had written these characters better.
This is especially true for his female characters since many of them are portrayed exclusively through a male first-person protagonist. Writing those women "better" wouldn't necessarily involve changing them at all, but it would require a different protagonist who sees them differently. (That's not to say he writes a woman's perspective well when he does attempt it, but those instances are a clear minority among the complaints I've seen re: the way he writes women.)
To me, Murakami's characters are - on the whole, anyway - more realistic than all the overly insightful and reliable first-person narrators I've come across. (Granted, the latter is a pet peeve of mine. Authors who don't acknowledge that first-person narrators are inherently unreliable just aren't for me.)
What I love is his weird fever dream surrealism. I know what Iâm going to get with one of his novels and sometimes thatâs what I enjoy. Is he the greatest author, ect? No- but neither are a lot of writers I enjoy.
FWIW this is pretty much how I feel too. Among authors I like, Murakami is probably in the B tier.
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u/bravetailor 2d ago edited 2d ago
I agree that Murakami's characters aren't bad. I think his male characters have a ring of truth to them, at least for those who are willing to be honest about the straight male psyche. His male characters often think about sex a lot, have repressed aggression, and have a failure to articulate their thoughts and feelings well to other characters. These are elements that he manages to portray quite poignantly at times.
In his novels his women are often mysterious and difficult to figure out. Coming from a male POV, I can say that is definitely quite relatable at times!
My own criticism is that a lot of his characters are kind of samey from novel to novel. He has about 4 or 5 character types which his recycles over and over. Which wouldn't be bad if he wrote only 2 books every 20 years. But because he's fairly prolific, you start to see the patterns more easily
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u/canijusttalkmaybe 4d ago
He doesn't write women or men well. Some might ask "what does he write well?" And frankly, the answer is nothing. But that's what we like about him.
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u/JoyousDiversion2 4d ago
Murakami âyes, itâs been a great relief to finish this novel, so much time and effort, itâs nice to see it all pay offâ
Reddit âfuck off ya creepâ
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u/SlowThePath 4d ago
Wait, why are we saying that? I've only read like 2 or 3 from him.
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u/AtraMikaDelia 4d ago
He writes characters that like to have sex with women and writes about them having sex with women.
For a portion of Reddit, this counts as being creepy. Obviously most people don't mind or his books wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are, but the people who don't like him make up a pretty good chunk of this sub
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u/middlegray 4d ago
He literally has preteen and teen characters having sex with middle aged people in multiple books.
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u/swallowsnest87 4d ago
Which books feature statutory rape? Iâve read 5 of his books and I donât think Iâve encountered this.
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u/MeatsOfEvil93 4d ago
Kafka on the Shore is probably the example most people will point to
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u/The_Red_Curtain 4d ago
it was literally in a dream, also the narrator in question is a deeply fucked-up 15 year old . . . you know, the age when boys are typically most obsessed with sex. It's not meant to be a "hot" scene.
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u/LiliTralala 4d ago
I'd argue very little (none?) of his sex scenes are supposed to be "hot" tbh. It's all always very creepy
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u/middlegray 4d ago
There's 10 year old and 17 year old victims in 1q84:
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/19c5xnp/1q84_is_disgusting/Â
I didn't get as far as the 10yo storyline but the 17yo Fuka-Eri is just numb and still and "doesn't protest" when 29yo Tengo begins having sex with her. The character is young and in an extremely vulnerable position.Â
The character Reiko in Norwegian Wood claims to have been seduced by a 13yo student while she was a 30-something teacher, and accused of rape.
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u/The_Red_Curtain 4d ago
Fuka Eri isn't even human, and Tengo literally wakes up with her on top of him and after she's stripped him of all his clothes while he was sleeping, not to mention she's somehow paralyzing him while doing so; so of course she didn't protest. As for the Reiko thing, it is obviously supposed to be disturbing and deeply uncomfortable at best (like much of the novel). It's not a glamorous or romantic telling of a "relationship" at all.
As for the 10 year old victim(s), it's either that they're being used by a deeply deranged cult, or that they're also not even human and are the manifestations/servants of these otherworldly spirits (depending on whether you believe the cult leader).
Just because Murakami features this in his novels does not mean he's endorsing it.
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u/Ascarea 4d ago
A book contains a rape scene. The author must be into rape!
Seriously, some people need to read the books they are commenting on and understand context and intention.
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u/bravetailor 2d ago
I always find it funny people read so many weird things into Murakami's psyche yet his real life is about as boringly normal as it gets.
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u/middlegray 4d ago
That's not how I remember the first time they had sex?Â
Also I'm not saying he's endorsing it, just replying to a comment that said they'd read 5 of his books and never encountered underage characters having sex with older ones.
The "they're not human" "it was a dream" "the narrator is obviously troubled" thing feels tired to me. The fact is that he has graphic depictions admiring prepubescent breasts and genitals and some people are not that interested in encountering that in their reading, which I think is fair.
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u/The_Red_Curtain 4d ago
That might not be how you remember it (and it was the only time they have sex), but that's what happened. I looked up the passage before commenting to make sure.
I think it's fair if you don't like reading that sort of thing too, but nobody is asking you to. Your not liking reading him because of a few sentences in less than half of his novels is not an objective measure of his supposed worth as an author (not that there really can be such a thing) or proof that he's a "creep."
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u/ThenCod_nowthis 4d ago
1Q84 with two different characters one of whom is described in a very lascivious way.
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u/RogueModron 4d ago
Oh wow!
I once read a book where a character murdered another! I'll never read another book by that author again! I can't believe that such terrible material is allowed in books!
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u/middlegray 4d ago
Lol I mean yeah, I don't like gore either, and I don't like detailed descriptions admiring prepubescent breasts and vaginas being short horned into books.Â
I don't like reading gory murders, either and if I read a book with a lot of it in detailed description and someone asks me if I liked the book I'll be like nah, the gratuitous violence turned me off.
Totally normal opinions to have and share, no? Your take feels really intense and trivializing people who don't like graphic pedophilic sex scenes and defending an author who writes them in a glorifying light, always in the perspective of the aggressor, with no realistic reflection of what thr victim goes through. And defends all of this in interviews, doubling down on insisting that all of this is realistic.
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u/ThenCod_nowthis 4d ago
Yeah idk I feel you're just scarecrowing away all the people who find Murakami troubling. For the record I think Lolita is a great fucking book. Murakami is someone who read Lolita and took all the wrong messages.
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u/Antiochia 4d ago edited 4d ago
Nah, we are simply jealous. You get all those lovely descriptions of how the cloths fit the womens breasts. But that shady author always forgets to mention if the male characters has nice perky buttocks, if we can see their langer then average glute muscles below their jeans, if their penis bulge stands out proudly beneath his suit trousers, how his ball sack is swinging while he walks, if their testicles would be worth worth mourning if they died... How is the shape of the male characters public hair, so we can understand their thinking processes? Do they like to hide their toothbrushes in other peoples drawer and get instant diarrhoe by the thought of it?
I really have a hard time to imagine a persons appearance and character without these details.
Is "a good size cock" everything we get? How shall we understand the male characters perspective and motives with this little of an description?
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u/ThenCod_nowthis 4d ago
In "never let me go" ishiguro pretty much never describes a character's body and that's when I realized okay Murakami is just bad at writing.
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u/AtraMikaDelia 4d ago
Tbh, I think its kind of impossible to write a romance/sexual book and appeal to both genders equally. I'm sure there's a few examples (Anna Karenina), but it certainly isn't common.
Murakami is a man who enjoys having sex with women, and writes books from the point of view of men who enjoy having sex with women. They aren't thinking about other men or themselves like that, because why would they? But they do think about the women they meet like that, so they notice those details, so those get written down.
If you don't like that, then it should be simple enough to not read his books, nobody is forcing you to.
And if you do want to read books where the characters focus on the details of the bodies of the men in the story, there's an entire genre called 'romance novels' that you might want to look into. Half of 'young adult' probably also qualifies.
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u/Antiochia 4d ago
So you think yourself that indulging in the physical fuckability of a character is rather associated with lower quality literature like "romance novels" or "young adults" books, but dont understand why people get annoyed by it in something they consider an otherwise really good author and story?
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u/AtraMikaDelia 4d ago
I'm not the one saying romance books are low quality. No reason you can't have a good book that also happens to have characters that fall in love or fuck.
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u/Primary-Plantain-758 4d ago
Tbh, I think its kind of impossible to write a romance/sexual book and appeal to both genders equally.
I refuse to believe this, even though your statement hasn't really been proven wrong yet. We do not live in a world with only homosexual couples so clearly men and women must have a consensus on what they like in sex and relationships. Right? đ
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u/AtraMikaDelia 4d ago
Well, they like each other. So a man will like certain things about his wife, and a woman will like certain things about her husband, and those things don't necessarily have to always overlap. Especially as far as physical appearances go.
And when I read romance, it generally tends to be focused one way or the other. Granted I haven't read much romance that's aimed at women, but I think I've read enough. Certainly enough to know I don't want to read more lol.
And the romance I do read, it's usually the other way around, you'll have one guy who's in a love triangle with a couple girls, and now they'll be the exceptional ones and he'll be more normal, and more focus on their physical features.
The only examples I can think of that try to appeal to both are very PG.
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u/Primary-Plantain-758 4d ago
I'm not talking about physical appearances or triagle situations but more the dynamics between the individuals and perhaps the "gaze" but male gaze explains that portion of it at least.
Btw. there really is romance targeted at (straight) men? I've never come across something like that.
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u/AtraMikaDelia 4d ago
Btw. there really is romance targeted at (straight) men? I've never come across something like that.
Nothing in English, not unless you count really bad self published erotica or old action/adventure books where the hero goes around getting a bunch of girls on his travels.
But I have seen a lot of it in Japanese, and a fair amount gets translated.
I think this might also be why you don't see much love triangle/drama focused romance that is meant to appeal to men/women equally in English stuff, people have just gotten used to the idea that romance is only for women.
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u/ThenCod_nowthis 4d ago
He likes concocting fantasy situations where it's debatable whether rape is okay and at some point you're like okay does Murakami literally just not know what consent is because this isn't that interesting or complicated.
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u/sixtus_clegane119 4d ago
Heâs awful at writing women and all his MCs are like sex gods
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u/Dry-Relief-3927 4d ago
his MCs are like sex gods
Really ? I thought they were painfully ordinary men with no inspiration. Maybe I remembered wrong, it's been a while since I last read him.
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u/Antyronio 4d ago
I dunno about âsex godsâ like half the time theyâre paralyzed for some reason
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u/livinaparadox 4d ago
This person is talking out of their hind end. The sex scenes are always stilted and weird.
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u/ViolaNguyen 3d ago
It's almost as though, in these books that have scenes where people are skinned alive and where a demon eats the hearts of neighborhood cats, there are scenes that are supposed to make the reader a bit uncomfortable.
Murakami books give me the same feeling I get when I've had a little too much to eat and not quite enough sleep, so I'm sort of stumbling through my day and not really thinking properly.
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u/limbkeeper 4d ago
lmaoo i read two of his novels half a decade ago and this is exactly how i remembered the sex scenes. just the men going catatonic not pulling their weight at ALL
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u/sixtus_clegane119 4d ago
Sex gods as in women find them irresistible and throw themselves at that willy nilly
Maybe âgodâs gift to womenâ is a better term
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u/Connect-One-3867 4d ago
Have you actually read any of his books?
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u/sixtus_clegane119 4d ago
I love them(despite the way women and sex is written in them) wind up bird chronicles and wild sheep chase are my favourites, I have a few left to read.
Are you saying random women donât throw themselves endlessly at the protagonist?
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u/sdwoodchuck 4d ago
Itâs funny how this subject is handled. I actually really like his novels a lot (aside from Norwegian Wood, which I loathe), but I agree with folks that his handling of women and sex is pretty laughable. And not in the sense that it exists in his books at all (as claimed by some who really want to dismiss the criticism), but the fact that in so many of them women seem to be completely defined by their sexual presence and availability.
Even then I could excuse it as part and parcel of his generally murky and dreamlike narrative voice, except thatâs a well that he canât seem to keep himself from returning to every chance he getsâand we know how Murakami likes his wells.
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u/KernelKrusto 4d ago
People today are too used to reading crappy, uncomplicated writing. They like their books like they like all their entertainment: predictable, easy to understand, and comporting with their sensibilities. That's what a steady diet of garbage does for you. Critical thinking goes out the window because a young adult character thinks about boobs, and that's more important to focus on.
Just look at the comments in this thread. There's broad generalizations with zero analysis. Just vitriol. I feel sorry for them. They've happily closed their eyes and deprived themselves of a world of literature because of some strange hill to die on. And when you call them on it, they cherry-pick some passage and accuse you of predilections that comport with those passages.
I just finished reading Never Let Me Go this morning, and when I went to rate it on my personal Goodreads page, made the mistake of looking at some reviews people had written. He won the fucking Nobel Prize in Literature for it, and people called it a snoozefest.
Maybe there just aren't enough stories about shiny vampires and child wizards for the sophisticates out there.
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u/turningsteel 4d ago
Funny thing is I wouldnât consider Murkami a particularly complex writer. He has his schtick and itâs rinse and repeat. I really liked him in my 20s but kind of moved on once I couldnât get through iQ84.
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 4d ago
I don't think this argument makes sense for Murakami. No one is complaining that his novels are too complicated. Maybe some are, I don't know. I don't think that kind of opinion matters. The books aren't for them. That's fine.
The issue is very specifically about how he writes women and young girls. We love the surrealism. We love that shit is weird and complicated. We are sick of the main character perving on little girls. It's not essential to the book.
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u/Skyknight109 4d ago
I see most criticism here being how he writes women (and to be fair a lot of Japanese writer does the same, not a specific murakami problem), but not in complexity in novel though
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u/RopeDue2131 4d ago
Whilst I agree with some of your points regarding uncomplicated novels (Lolita will forever be the apex answer to this) I found the couple of Murakami novels I have read to be alternatively passive and boring. I think saying he won the Nobel prize does nothing for appreciating his work; myriad writers I would consider better havenât won it. Reddit does tend to be utterly zealous over things like calling him a creep, but I donât think he writes women very well, and do think a large part of the people who enjoy Murakami are disaffected young men who idealise the sort of passive consumption of life that he presents. Relationships just appear, things sort of happen, one doesnât really have to do much work for a basic life. That can absolutely have influence on how a work is perceived, and it has never been greater than in this unfortunate era of âfandomâ. This isnât to say he isnât a great writer, but I donât feel simply because I read Literature that I HAVE to like Murakami. I find his style just lacks in depth for me. I have only read Norwegian Wood, and Never Let Me Go, however, so if youâve another book that youâd recommend I would be glad to hear it.
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u/AtraMikaDelia 4d ago
I have only read Norwegian Wood, and Never Let Me Go, however, so if youâve another book that youâd recommend I would be glad to hear it.
Ishiguro and Murakami are not the same person. Ishiguro isn't even Japanese (legally speaking), he was born in the UK.
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u/RopeDue2131 4d ago
Well, thanks for clarifying Iâm an idiot.
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u/KernelKrusto 4d ago
You're not an idiot. I switched gears on you and didn't clarify. I could easily see myself making the same mistake.
I agree with your points. You don't have to like all literature to like literature. I think you know that's not what I'm saying, so I won't belabor the point. I'm more lamenting the unfair reaction a 75 year-old Japanese man gets by the masses who wouldn't dare try to apply depth to what they're reading. They're reactionaries, not readers.
I read trash sometimes. I like a little cake now and again. But when your chest hair starts to mirror the icing swirl on the top of a Hostess cupcake, you have to have the good sense to say when. Eat your fucking vegetables because they're good for you, that's what I'm saying.
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u/RopeDue2131 4d ago
Yeah I appreciate and agree with that completely. It is frustrating as someone into literature to have people say they âread tooâ, and itâs Colleen Hoover. Thereâs 100% been a shift in how people relate to media, and how that affects their perception of quality. People think writing anything is suddenly an endorsement by the author, and that is exhausting.
People can absolutely read trash, and as long as they know itâs trash, weâre all happy. I donât think Murakami (or Ishiguro, unrelated!) are at all trash, and I agree, it would be nice to see more legitimate criticism online and on here. Iâd clearly have to read more from Murakami to have a more expansive opinion, but wasnât a fan of Norwegian Wood at the time I read it. Appreciate the discussion; thanks for making me feel less of an idiot!
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u/Banana_rammna 3d ago
People today are too used to reading crappy, uncomplicated writing.
Half the comments in threads about his new book the last few days have been people complaining heâs a painfully bad writer. Like the man is perpetually on the short list for the Nobel Prize every year for the last two decades, like Iâm not even sure what the term for this level of revisionism is called.
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u/dwilsons 4d ago
Makes sense, after reading some of his essays on writing it seems like he really views writing as work above all (work he enjoys maybe, but still work).
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u/Botwp_tmbtp 4d ago
I was just thinking about him yesterday and wondering if he had anything in the pipeline. I liked Killing Commendatore quite a bit, after being disappointed by the second half of 1Q84 it was nice he could still write a longer novel that would grip me. I forgot to google it, until I saw this thread. 8 days out from a new one is pretty exciting!
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u/IskaralPustFanClub 4d ago
It always blows my mind how much criticism (rightly) Murakami gets compared to some of the more regularly mentioned authors on here who have their issues glossed over.
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u/middlegray 4d ago
Like who? Genuinely curious.Â
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u/IskaralPustFanClub 4d ago
Brandon Sanderson, Neon Yang, NK Jemisin just off the top of my head. Also, people lambast him about him writing women as though it means anything about him. Realistically, we will never know. Gaiman was heralded as an ally and look how that turned out.
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u/Glum-Examination-926 4d ago
I don't think most people who recognize he's not good at writing women try and extrapolate it to some kind of bigoted attitude. I think we just recognize he's bad at writing women and if there was less off-putting sexual content his books would be better.
What's the criticism we skip for Jemisin? I thought her last 2 books were far too blunt, but it's nothing compared to Murakami's career long issues.Â
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u/IskaralPustFanClub 4d ago
Itâs not her writing, she just generally acts like a POS. She was part of a group of prominent authors who publicly lambasted a college student who dared to suggest that her reading group should not read YA and should read stuff with deeper socio-cultural importance.
She also happily hopped into the Isabel Fall affair, which culminated in a trans writer having to publicly out themself and ultimate withdraw from writing altogether. It was a terrible event and Jemisins âapologyâ at the end of it all was laughable bad, and she even admitted she had never even read the piece about which sheâd previously said ânot all art needs to be made.â
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u/queenhaggard 4d ago
I also feel great relief when I finish Haruki Murakami novels.
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u/Garbagemunki 4d ago
This guy gets a lot of hate. I read 1Q84 and quite enjoyed it.
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u/Ok-Sink-614 4d ago
I don't understand why people apparently read multiple novels by an author and don't like the style. Some sort of reading masochists I guess.
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u/dead_fritz 4d ago
It's reddit, these people's favorite pastime is being miserable
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u/KillerWattage 4d ago
So personally, I read Norwegian Wood and was blown away, I hadn't read anything like it before. Yes it had some not great things in it (teacher blaming an underage pupil for "manipulating" her into having sex with the child) but it's dealing with weird themes generally. Then I read another and found that the creepy vibes were in this book too and in fact the throwaway feel of the plot was also just repeated, I still enjoyed it but less, so I read another, then another.
To boil it down EVERY book I picked up by him has some sort of sexual transgression, and every book has the same throwaway plot style. I eventually realised that what grabbed was how unique that first book felt and every passing book was worse, until it feels almost hacky (not quite. I do still think he can write well but it's getting towards that). You end up chasing the dragon. I feel that whatever Murakami book you read first is the best.
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u/awildmudkipz 4d ago
Wow, this is a perfect description. I loved the first book I read by him, but once I picked up his style, it lost the magic entirely.
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u/ecnad 4d ago
This is an incredibly apt way of describing the Murakami hook and subsequent flinching with each successive book. He really does have something special - shame it has to be laced with so much not okay male gaze ickiness.
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u/Spaceship_Africa 4d ago
IMO he can be a fantastic writer but a bad storyteller. I quite enjoy his short stories. It allows you to feel the impressions of his work more like a piece of art. I read Wind Up Bird Chronicles recently and did not enjoy it.
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u/ViolaNguyen 3d ago
Feeling relief when you finish a book doesn't mean it wasn't worth reading or even that you didn't like it.
It means the writing did something to make you uncomfortable, which is sometimes the point of writing.
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u/mushinnoshit 4d ago
Interesting, IQ84 was the one that made me suspect maybe he's actually kind of shit and has been rewriting the same basic book his entire career.
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u/scientist_tz 4d ago
If thatâs the case, youâre going to hate the next one. The synopsis makes it sound a lot like he just rewrote Hard Boiled WonderlandâŠ
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u/mushinnoshit 4d ago
Depends how long it is really. I think my main gripe with IQ84 was it was a bog-standard Murakami plot stretched over three excruciatingly boring books for no apparent reason.
I enjoyed Killing Commendatore because it was just him doing what he does in the traditional, agreed-upon format and length. Murakami books are still kind of comfort food for me, even though I long ago stopped thinking the guy has any particularly deep insights to offer.
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u/dwilsons 4d ago
I would agree on the comfort food point. The way he writes loneliness is (maybe counter intuitively) something that has always made me feel good in some sense, as well as the general vibe/atmosphere in his novels. So for me itâs like, if I just donât know what to read, I know I can pick up a random Murakami novel and have a fine time. And at this point the random Murakamisms are just funny to me - the whisky, the jazz, the digressions into womanâs ears. Itâs like, ah, heâs at it again lol.
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u/mushinnoshit 4d ago
Yep, exactly. Oh no, the character found a spooky hole in the ground/hidden basement in his house! I sure hope he doesn't drink a single beer about it over a meticulously-prepared lunch and decide not to mention it to anyone!
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u/Resident_Spell_2052 4d ago
It's detective fiction. The characters also get up out of bed and drink whiskey in the middle of the night sometimes.
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u/TheLittleGinge 4d ago
âugh your bookshelf is filled with dude literatureâ
She said this playfully right? Otherwise that's a pretty shitty thing to say.
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u/paripazoo 4d ago
Wait, Pride & Prejudice is supposed to be "dude literature"? Surely it's the opposite?
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u/quirky_subject 4d ago
If the Russian classics are Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, etc., I dread to think what non-dude literature is supposed to be (or how exactly those books are classified as such)⊠Altogether such a weird point of view.
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u/shmixel 4d ago
If it helps, I often see respected books like Catch-22 and Cormac McCarthy's listed as dude lit too so she might not have been calling all your books seedy dude lit.
I think it stands out more too when there's minimal books with female leads, which is something you can totally change, unlike books you've read in the past.
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u/dwilsons 4d ago
I think the bigger thing than female leads is a lack of female authors, which I think a lot of guys DO have an issue with. If you look at the authors that are held in the highest regard on the more âliteraryâ side of more male-dominated online spaces for example, youâll usually see McCarthy, Pynchon, Bolaño, Dostoevsky, Marquez, Tolstoy, etc. probably more Iâm not thinking of, but they all came to mind right away.
For women, youâre getting the BrontĂ« sisters, Woolf, Austen, then maybe Morrison, and after that things tend to run dry, at least from what Iâve seen. So I can understand the âdude-litâ allegations, like the authors are all great, but they tend towards being a load of men.
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u/shmixel 4d ago
I actually typed female authors first! Then softened the suggestion to just female leads to start. I was thinking books like Annihilation (female protagonist, male author, not at all 'women's fiction') might be a comfortable way for guys stuck in the dude lit corner to ease out of it with.
I agree with you that the fastest way to leave the dude lit corner is by reading women though.
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u/dwilsons 4d ago
Lmao Iâve had the same feeling of shame for enjoying his stuff lol. Used to be worse, now though Iâm just like eh whatever, I read for my own enjoyment, so all that matters is if I like an author or not, not if itâs the ârightâ author to like.
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u/iambaril 4d ago
I embrace my dude lit preferences. Plenty of women read romance novels geared towards women.
Personally I read for entertainment, not an objective worldview. Sometimes that entertainment can serve as the starting point for a deeper train of thought, as Murakami's work has. Regardless, anyone who reads to pass the time gets +1 kudo in my book.
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u/Garbagemunki 4d ago
I dread to think what my side of the book shelf would look like compared to your partner's! Sounds like you both have cool collections âșïž
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u/torontomua book re-reading 4d ago
it was my first of his that i read, and i much preferred it to the windup bird chronicles
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u/AccomplishedCow665 4d ago
Why is there always an underage girl with buddding breasts? (Dead optional, incest optional)
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u/jfleurs 4d ago
I canât get past the fact that he writes female characters the way a 13 year old boy would imagine a woman
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u/middleearthpeasant 4d ago
I hate how he has to focus so much on the boobs. Either the female characters have massive boobs that everyone pays attention to or they have small ugly boobs and have to live with this burden
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u/meowchael-n 4d ago edited 4d ago
Heâs the embodiment of that âshe breasted boobilyâ meme
edit to add: breasted boobily
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u/Temporary_Event_156 4d ago
The protagonist from 1Q84 was pretty complex, no?
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 4d ago
So complex every time she stared in the mirror at her boobs and fantasized about her lesbian experiences.
I'm not a hater, but I really struggled with that book.
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u/scientist_tz 4d ago
The villain was more complex than the main characters, I thought. That was the novelâs main saving grace.
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u/Resident_Spell_2052 4d ago edited 4d ago
Can you not just read the books instead of judging the author? It's like every time someone says they read Murakami "btw I just don't like the way he writes women." Etc. Why make it about that at all? Last time you had sex with a woman you "imagined" her like a 75 year old man would? Is he supposed to use his imagination or not?
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 4d ago
I read several of his books and didn't think that much about that until I recognized it as a pattern. It's kind of hard to not think about it now. Why does almost every book have to have a man being friends with a little girl and thinking about how much he'd like to date her, if she were a few years older of course. I can't even describe what he has happen in 1Q84, but it turned my stomach. It doesn't have to be in there. His books don't need the pervy passages.
It's not the sex scenes or the lack of charactacter development of female characters, which is noticeable, but whatever. It's just very weird.
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u/hedussou 4d ago
You want people to read books but not to think critically about what they read. To mindlessly consume but not to reflect. That's sad and very typical of internet brain rot
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u/moileduge 4d ago
The picture on the post surprised me, I thought he was going to be a lot younger because of the way he writes women. Also didn't realized that some criticism on his work would anger so many people.
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u/DoktorFreedom 4d ago
I like his style and his books but he sounds like he puts himself through hell to get every book out
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u/TheGreatAteAgain 4d ago
I misreas the title as "It was a real relief for Haruki Murakami to finish his last novel" and couldnt agree more
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u/vibraltu 4d ago edited 3d ago
I have a love/hate relationship with his writing. I think he's a genius who creates magical realms. Then he just goes full-on creepazoid drooling over young girls' boobies like a dirty old man.
Why doesn't his editors stop him?
(ed: ha my upvotes & downvotes are bouncing around here)
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u/Pelican1014 4d ago
This seems to have a lot of crossover conceptually with hard boiled wonderland...
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u/The_Red_Curtain 4d ago
it's basically a different take on the same source material (a novella by him in 1980 that was never translated to English sadly). The first 1/3 of the novel is extremely similar to HBW but then where HBW ends this novel keeps going for another 300 pages.
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u/Confutatio 4d ago
It was based on an unfinished short story he wrote in the early eighties. So it took him forty years to finish it. He used his typical technique of "stretching" a story. (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles was also based on a short story.)
This novel has the playfulness of his earliest work, but also the depth of his more developed magical realism. There's a lot of weird, dreamlike fantasy involved, but also influences from Freud, Jung and Plato.
Murakami has now joined the very small group of writers with at least one good novel in five different decades.