Haruki Murakami

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Anybody read Haruki Murakami? I feel like his characters are fairly aspergarian in their own ways. Especially in the book Kafka on the Shore. Ryu Murakami is also a very good writer.

I love him

He's my absolute favorite author. I stumbled onto A Wild Sheep Chase and was hooked. I've read everything he's written (in English translation) and I just can't get enough.

He almost lost me with one passage in Wind Up Bird Chronicles where a man gets skinned alive. But I skimmed through that and any other gruesome parts. He is just such a magical writer.

Somebody had a "what do you like from Japan" thread and I put him in the thread and was disappointed that nobody else seconded that like.

Haruki Murakami I'm a fellow fan.

Haven't read A Wild Sheep Chase yet. Although it was very gruesome that seen in The Wind Up Bird Chronicles was very poignant and there is a scene in Kafka on the Shore that is very similar. Kind of reminds me of the opening chapter of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Murakami's is just a blast to read.

I'm a fan. I've read

A Wild Sheep Chase

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

South of the Border, West of the Sun

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Kafka on the Shore

Has anyone read any Yukio Mishima? His characters are very Aspie too.

Mishima is cool although I need to read more of him. He has such a hell of a story, I mean taking over the Japanese Self-Defense Force and committing seppiku, he was gay as well. Kobo Abe is kinda like an older version of Haruki Murakami and also very much influenced by Franz Kafka.

Confessions of a Mask was his first novel I believe and is semi autobiographical. I have that and his Sea of Fertilities 4 book series. He announced his intentions to commit seppiku when the last one The Decay of the Angel was completed and actually went to the Japanese Self defense Force on the day he mailed the manuscript off. I read a book about it. He was a fascinating character. He was very nationalistic and had his own private army. Apparently he had two of them with him and when he botched his own seppiku one of them stepped in to decapitate him and had to hack away at his neck. The other one then had to do the same for the first one. That one was charged with both their murders.
Here's Mishima recreating a famous painting he was obsessed with.


In The Sea of Fertility series, Matsugae is like a right brained aspie and Honda a left brained one.

The cartography student, who the main character shares his room with in Norwegian Wood, is definitely an aspie.

Besides that; I like Haruki Murakami, even though I never remember his name. He's a master in writing prose. Can't think if a writer at the moment that's on par with him. I especially love to read his short stories, which I normally read whenever I take a break of reading a difficult book.

I don't know if his characters are Asperger's but I love his books too.
The woman who made me discover him is fond of Nothomb books, that I love too.
And I love Mishima too !

that's a good thought about Murakami... i sort of imagined at the time he was using his central characters as symbols more than actual descriptions, but it works.

Mishima was entirely too interested in the impression he made on other people to be aspie. good writer, though.

I've got Kafka on the Shore buried in my 'to read' piles somewhere, should I look for it?

I read a fair chunk of Wind Up Bird Chronicle a long time ago. I vaguely recall thinking that it was well written but empty. It hasn't stuck in my memory at all. I should probably give him another shot.

I didn't like Wind Up Bird Chronicles a great deal either. It seemed a little too self aware. I liked Hard Boiled Wonderland etc etc though.

Then I'll probably crack on with Kafka after I finished re-reading Gulliver's Travels. Cheers.

Didn't he write one about a guy who lived in a box? I don't retain things. I read it years ago.

That was Abe Kobo's The Box Man, in which a man seeks anonymity by wearing a cardboard box over his head when he goes out. I'm a fan of Abe myself, though I've only read a few of his works. Unfortunately, though, I often find the premise of his novels more appealing and interesting than the books themselves. I loved the idea behind The Face of Another, for example (A man whose face has been horribly scarred loses his connection to people, so he constructs a lifelike mask. When he wears the mask, he adopts a new personality to go with it. Over time, the new personality takes over). One notable exception to this is The Woman in the Dunes--the premise (A man goes to the beach to collect insects and is kidnapped by people who live in a village located in deep pits in the sand. They need the extra hands to continually dig out the sand as it falls into the pits, so they trap him in one with a woman.) only slightly intrigued me, but it ended up being one of my favorite books. I highly recommend it, if you're into that sort of literature.

I am ambivalent about Murakami. When I first read him, I started with South of the Border, West of the Sun and Sputnik Sweetheart, both of which I enjoyed very much. I then moved on to his other, more popular works (Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Wild Sheep Chase) and was not impressed--the wild, amusing fantasy devoid of substance simply isn't my style. With all of his books, though, I found that Murakami tries too hard to be hip with his endless western references, which grew tiresome. I haven't read Kafka on the Shore, since it hadn't yet been translated into English when I was on my Murakami kick, but it's on the list and I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

I could go on (I'm also a Mishima Yukio fan), but I will refrain. I apologize for the length of this post--Japanese literature was a "special interest" some years back. ^_^;

@kaybee You're right. I bought The Face of Another used but it didn't manage to grab me. Sometimes it's just a matter of mood. I might pick up something later and really like it.

Have you seen the movie based on Woman in the Dunes?

re: Mishima have you read this series?
Spring Snow
Runaway Horses
The Temple of Dawn
The Decay of the Angel

There's also Kenzeburo Oe' who won a Nobel prize for Literature. I've read one book by him titled A Personal Matter. It's about a young father trying to decide whether he wants to kill his newborn son because of a deformity.

Aimless,

I haven't seen the movie based on the book, no. Is it any good?

I started reading Spring Snow once, but it didn't immediately grab me, and before I knew it I was off an a Kawabata Yasunari obsession and there went the brief Mishima kick. I was particularly fond of Mishima's The Sound of Waves, Patriotism, and, of course, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. I loved the idea of being obsessed with something so much that you just have to burn it down. Not sure I would appreciate that one as much as an adult, though--don't think I'm angry and bitter enough.

I haven't read any Oe (shameful, I know), but he is on the long list of things to read. That sounds like an interesting book. I've been considering re-visiting this particular special interest. Perhaps I should start with a little Oe.