Books what you is reading: Page 7 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Books what you is reading

Burnwinter

Klaus wrote:
General Mirth wrote:
I has 'Kafka on the shore' lined up once I get some free time. Any reviews?

First half of the book is probably the best thing he's ever written apart from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Second half gets a bit more linear and predictable but I enjoyed it a lot more than Norwegian Wood. I know I'm in a minority here though. Have you read anything else by Murakami?

I think 'Kafka on the Shore' is one of his weaker works. 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' is without a doubt my favourite. That's a brilliant book. I was working from home at the time I read it and had a ridiculous amount of empathy for Toru Okada.

Of the others I've read I would also rate 'Hard-boiled Wonderland ...' and 'Dance Dance Dance' ahead of 'Kafka ...' ... just my opinion though. I found 'Kafka ...' rather flat.

I've got a copy of '1Q84' sitting around waiting to be read at the moment, people are telling me it's very good.

flobaba

What you doing to your username inburwn et r?

Biggus

It's a anagram.

Like that line from LA Woman- Mr Mojo Risin (if received from beyond the grave was suppose to prove there was life after death) is an anagram of Jim Morrison.

Claudius

I prefer 'I Burnt Wren'. Sounds more Australian.

Klaus

Burnwinter wrote:
Klaus wrote:
First half of the book is probably the best thing he's ever written apart from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Second half gets a bit more linear and predictable but I enjoyed it a lot more than Norwegian Wood. I know I'm in a minority here though. Have you read anything else by Murakami?

I think 'Kafka on the Shore' is one of his weaker works. 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' is without a doubt my favourite. That's a brilliant book. I was working from home at the time I read it and had a ridiculous amount of empathy for Toru Okada.

Of the others I've read I would also rate 'Hard-boiled Wonderland ...' and 'Dance Dance Dance' ahead of 'Kafka ...' ... just my opinion though. I found 'Kafka ...' rather flat.

I've got a copy of '1Q84' sitting around waiting to be read at the moment, people are telling me it's very good.

That's interesting. I'm working from home at the moment too and I really symphatised with Okada for similar reasons.

The only Murakami book that I would rate ahead of "Kafka..." apart from "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" is "Hard-Boiled Wonderland". I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's because it felt like Murakami started to evolve beyond his well-established style.

I'm not a huge Murakami fan though to tell you the truth. Don't get me wrong, I love his stories but I always get a sense that the prose has been a bit ruined in the translation process from Japanese to English. The difference in syntax between some languages does that to great literature sometimes. Russian authors like Dostoevsky, Bulgakov and Tolstoy suffered from the same problem before Volokhonsky/Pevear came along.

Burnwinter

I think we're on the same page re Murakami Klaus. I've noticed he's a favourite "literary" author of quite a few people who don't actually read much serious fiction, eg genre fans. Bit like Palahniuk in that respect.

He's no genius and seems to have a hatful of limitations regarding the types of stories and characters he'll take on.

However, I do enjoy his stuff. I don't find the English translations too jarring, but there is a slightly alien spareness to the prose, that's part of his charm though, if you ask me.

Klaus

Yeah, maybe. I thought it worked wonderfully in The Wind-up Bird. It just added to the strangeness of the story. After a few books you know the drill though. I can definitely see why Murakami has been criticised for overdoing his thing. Palahniuk is another pretty good example. There's probably a good case for Bret Easton Ellis too, but he deserves the intellectual label he's slapped with at the very least.

Burnwinter

Parable? Methinks you'd better check your thesaurus (though to be fair I've always assumed English is not your first language, but yours is still more or less flawlessly articulate).

Yeah, Murakami's a writer of whom I'd say I'm not desperate to read all his work, because he is a little bit of a one trick pony.

Bret Easton Ellis is a great writer, but a strange man. Follow his Twitter and you'll see what I mean. It's like he's emulating the vapid celebrity and public life obsessions of his characters.

I was really pleased to see him say he thought Glamorama was his finest work the other day - that's what I've thought for a long time. It's got what American Psycho lacks, horror. Much more deeply unsettling for men to read, because the protagonist is victim, not perp.

Klaus

😆 I'm barely awake. Don't be too hard on me.

I adore Glamorama too! Had no idea he rated it so highly. Loved it for pretty much the same reason you did. I always thought that was a bit of a failure in the premise of American Psycho, speaking of: everyone's so fucking self-absorbed and obsessed with their superficial lifestyle but Bateman is the only one who really flips. You get the feeling that the way of life the novel depicts creates assholes as opposed to psychopaths.

Burnwinter

Good thought in your last sentence there.

I finished Glamorama, including the extended and brutal plane crash scenes towards the end, on a long haul flight to Asia from Europe. Creeped me out as I recall 😃

Klaus

😆 When I flew to Shanghai a couple of years ago the guy in the seat next to me was reading Lost Horizon. It really fascinated me. You have to wonder why anyone would bring a book with them on a plane where the cover depicts a bunch of people crashing into the very same Himalayas that you're crossing over.

Burnwinter

Just picked up issue numero uno of this:

www.newscientist.com/arc

Looks good. Anything with M. John Harrison contributing is going to look pretty good to me though.

Klaus

Margaret Atwood <3

Klaus

It looks extremely promising, Burnsy. Let me know if it's any good, will you? I might just order the printed version in that case.

Burnwinter

Will do. Expect it will be my train reading for the next few days. First item is an essay on futurism by Bruce Sterling that I've already read, so that's a bum note.

Coombs

Inherent Vice by T. Pynchon right now. Needed a laugh.

RocktheCasbah

Finished The Secret Speech- Tom Rob Smith's sequel to Child 44- at the weekend. Though it was a page turner, the dialogue wasn't great and the book felt like one of those, aptly enough, Russian Dolls. I don't mean that as a compliment. I loved Child 44, would recommend that to anyone, but not this.

I've got The Woman In Black awaiting my attention next.

Claudius

Reading two political memoirs - Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope. One is just wordy musings and the other is a work of art - that is if you prefer your art to be painted by a kid in kindergarten

Burnwinter

I've been reading fantasy lately.

Read Michael Shea's "A Quest for Simbilis" which was a brilliant sequel to Jack Vance's "Eyes of the Overworld". Hilarious, picaresque and weird: PG Wodehouse meets Cervantes in one of Clark Ashton Smith's landscapes.

Also read Lev Grossman's "The Magician King", or as I like to call it, "Voyage of the Retreader". It's a sequel to "The Magicians" - continues the hommage to CS Lewis while answering some of the criticisms levelled at its predecessor, not least that the protagonist is an annoying little shit (in this one, he gets his comeuppance to a fair extent).

RocktheCasbah

I bought "The Dudley Smith Trio" last week; The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential and White Jazz. Just need to finish The Woman In Black and I'm there.

Don't know what you guys think of James Elroy generally, but American Tabloid is one of my favourite books.

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