I'm reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and really enjoying how fluid and light it is...

I'm reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and really enjoying how fluid and light it is. You can feel Kumiko is cheating on her husband since the first chapter, but I'm enjoying the other characters and the whole description of the places.
I'm interested in another book from Murakami, but a person I know said he always follows a formula and most of his books tend to look the same. Is this correct? If that is the case, which author/book I should get after finishing this one?

Attached: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.jpg (255x400, 21K)

>a person I know said he always follows a formula and most of his books tend to look the same.
People only perpetuate this meme because the dude’s stuff is hard to put into words and they can’t think of anything else to say. Might as well say all clouds look the same.
Sure they’re full of cats and disappearing women but I enjoy Muki’s Books for reasons very different from one another.

I enjoy Murakami, and though his works might not be repetitive through a formula, the narrators do seem a bit derivative of one another. That may be the factor that people view as repetitive.

Read one and you read them all.

/t

Like Dan Brown?

It's not that he uses a formula but rather he always uses the same elements: inmature protagonist, lost loved one, a cat, old pop references, eating noodles, paranormal teenagers. He can describe the shit out of a place, though.

In every book or a few are different?

I hate myself for going over the spoilers without thinking, now I can't read the stinking thing!

spoilers are a made up meme

how's it made up i know a key part of the plot i should have only found out by reading it, not that that's the only justification for reading the book but it's clear as crystal to me that spoilers are a real thing

I don't blame you because some faggot spoiled the end of The Magic Mountain to me and, 3 years latter, I'm still mad. But you can clearly see what is happening in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in the first or second chapter and I'm not joking, I was reading the book without any info about it and saw the whole thing.

okay, that comforts me greatly. so it's still worth the read?

No.

Murakami's short stories are far superior to his novels. Read Barn Burning

Yes. It's a fluid and interesting read, different from the really old stuff I was into.

Kafka on the Shore is good too. Norwegian Wood is hilariously bad and props to everyone who read it at the time and didn't immediately write the guy off.

Answer me this, is one book that fits this formula any less enjoyable than the previous five were?

It’s his best book

I've read a variety of novels in the past few years and I keep falling back to Murakami. I recently finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The beginning is well-paced but around 75% way in, I found myself snoozing. The whole piece ties beautifully together in the end. I still think Kafka on the Shore is my favorite, benefiting from its tighter structure. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is still an enjoyable to read for Murakami fans.

The bird one is the best, but dance dance dance was really comfy

Kafka on the Shore probably deserves a re-read in the future. I feel like he dropped a lot of sci-fi elements early on in favour of it being a nod to Greek tragedy and comedy. Norwegian Wood felt like it dragged in several places but it was still decent.

Agreed, Norwegian Wood was so boring. I've read those 2 and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and I think I'm finished with Murakami

> I'm interested in another book from Murakami, but a person I know said he always follows a formula and most of his books tend to look the same. Is this correct?
Yes.

>If that is the case, which author/book I should get after finishing this one?
Ryu Murakami, "In the miso soup" and "Coin locker babies".

for more surrealism try "kafka on the shore"

for more realism try "norwegian wood"

for nonfiction try "underground"

basically most of h. murakami's stuff is similar in voice/perspective/pacing/format until "after dark" with this book he changes perspective and even gets into multiple perspectives afterwards with 1Q84.

if you want similar to murakami try soseki's "sanshiro" or possible "botchan."

for more hardcore shit try oe's "the silent cry" or less hardcore from oe but comfy try "a quiet life."

i really like kawabata as well. i would avoid meme authors like mishima. he's a good writer but he heavily injects his juvenile perspectives on art and violence it just gets boring.

one of murakami's major influences was raymond carver. read any of carver's short story sets. they're all awesome. very minimalist prose. he leads you by the nose and drops a 3 or 4 word sentence at the end which feels like a bomb dropped in your lap.

happy reading.

I thought Murakami's introduction to Akutagawa's short story was pretty good. I'd recommend adding that to read too. I would suggest reading Kobo Abe too, I feel like Murakami fans would like his works a lot. I feel like his writing had an influence on Murakami.

i've only read woman in the dunes. it was pretty good (and a good film too). i forgot akutagawa. i've read his short story set that murakami wrote an intro for and it was solid.

i can totally feel the kafka/abe vibes in stories like hard boiled wonderland and strange library. in other stories too but maybe not as strong.

The very dreamlike and surreal elements seem like they were influenced by Abe a lot. Kangaroo Notebook feels like something Murakami could've written.

i've not read kangaroo notebook. i'll add it to my shortlist. i feel like the two strongest influences are probably soseki and ray carver. i should read more abe. as i've said, woman in the dunes was the only book i've read by him. surrealism certainly play a big part in many of murakami's books.