Haruki Murakami: 1Q84

[Eric]

I've not read 1Q84, but in yesterday's Swedish daily Upsala Nya Tidning, there was a review entitled "Harry Potter for adults". In a most positive way, as the reviewer insists. I'm put off this book because it seems to exemplify things I don't like, such as cult writers, popularised fantasy, and fat books.

The reviewer writes:

And yet Murakami is never heavy or difficult. You must not forget that he has worked in the tradition of popular culture that is fantasy and sci-fi. This is literature as entertainment. In the most positive meaning of the term. 1Q84 is also rather like Harry Potter for adults. Here there is the same feeling for magic as with Rowling or C S Lewis, where a portal opens up onto an unknown world.

Not my cup of radioactive sake.

[Liam]

Not my cup of radioactive sake.

Dude, you're the best!

[DB Cooper]

http://www.complete-review.com/revie...kamih/1Q84.htm

The Complete Review gave the book an A, which is a first for Murakami. Glad to hear it.

Thats a good sign. Although Orthofer certainly has his biases, I think he is a pretty solid reviewer. Not necessarily the most erudite, but he knows what is good work and whats not.

[Stiffelio]

Thats a good sign. Although Orthofer certainly has his biases, I think he is a pretty solid reviewer. Not necessarily the most erudite, but he knows what is good work and whats not.

He is a solid reviewer, albeit a whimsical one. He purposedly ignores some very important authors, unless he hasn't even heard of then, which would be worse. Sticking to Japan, for instance, there is not a single review of a book by Kenzaburo Oé, arguably Japan's preeminent living writer. Other recent absentees I tried to check on recently are Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Marguerite Yourcenar, Colm Toibin, Nadine Gordimer, etc.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

He is a solid reviewer, albeit a whimsical one. He purposedly ignores some very important authors, unless he hasn't even heard of then, which would be worse. Sticking to Japan, for instance, there is not a single review of a book by Kenzaburo Oé, arguably Japan's preeminent living writer. Other recent absentees I tried to check on recently are Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Marguerite Yourcenar, Colm Toibin, Nadine Gordimer, etc.

Hey, he is just a single man, how many authors have you not read??? And look at all those authors under review one probably has not read or maybe even heard of before. I think thats one of the big pros of this page, he is specializing in (non)-English authors that are relatively unknown. And I do not know of any other page that is providing also all the links to other reviews of the books, even snippets of other reviews are given.

[DB Cooper]

Orthofer seems to have some bias or even contempt for certain writers, specifically many of the postmodern (in English) crew. He gives William Gass glowing reviews, but completely ignores Pynchon. Nothing from David Foster Wallace, McCarthy, Denis Johnson, DeLillo, etc, etc. Dont get me wrong, I love his website, he does a great job and its one of the handful of Literature sites that I visit daily, but he is loathe to review something that doesnt land in the wheelhouse of what he likes. I also get that his site is also primarily for literature in translation, or foreign lit, but I would like to hear his opinion on those well known talented writers in a non biased review. He reviews each one of David Mitchell's books, but somehow those aforementioned writers arent talented or interesting enough, really?

[Stiffelio]

Orthofer should merit a specific thread, shouldn't he? He reads this forum (and posts on it occasionally) and I'm sure he would benefit from learning about our ranting concering his reviewing agenda.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Orthofer seems to have some bias or even contempt for certain writers, specifically many of the postmodern (in English) crew. He gives William Gass glowing reviews, but completely ignores Pynchon. Nothing from David Foster Wallace, McCarthy, Denis Johnson, DeLillo, etc, etc. Dont get me wrong, I love his website, he does a great job and its one of the handful of Literature sites that I visit daily, but he is loathe to review something that doesnt land in the wheelhouse of what he likes. I also get that his site is also primarily for literature in translation, or foreign lit, but I would like to hear his opinion on those well known talented writers in a non biased review. He reviews each one of David Mitchell's books, but somehow those aforementioned writers arent talented or interesting enough, really?

The site does not ignore Thomas Pynchon, open your eyes and then you will find his last two books under review. And again, authors like David Foster Wallace and McCarthy are already well known and properly treated elsewhere (in addition he actually covers well known authors, e.g. Roth, Murakami, Oz, Bolano and so on. I mean he has ~2500 books under review with most of the reviews written by him, thats already a lot). So try to think about it, if you have to decide about your own reading agenda for your own personal review site, what would you prefer, books that you are personally interested in and/or that are unknown or books of authors you do not like very much and that are already famous in any case? And about "non biased" reviews. First of all such a thing is practically impossible, and second, as I said, he is providing the links to many other reviews, where you can get different opinions, and again, I do not know of any other site that is doing something like this in such a coherent way. So really I think there is no reason to rant about anything. Since you are apparently reading the complete review regularly you should be a bit grateful to Mr. Orthofer and then maybe "suggest" to him ways of improving his nice site. The main drawback or problem I see is that the review site is mostly based on one sole reviewer. I think it would be a good idea to find additional help from people seriously interested in this. Like this the site could cover more authors and get rid of some of the "bias".

[Rumpelstilzchen]

The site does not ignore Thomas Pynchon, open your eyes and then you will find his last two books under review.

Which are also all books Pynchon wrote since the Complete Review was founded in 1999...

[miobrien]

The site does not ignore Thomas Pynchon, open your eyes and then you will find his last two books under review. And again, authors like David Foster Wallace and McCarthy are already well known and properly treated elsewhere (in addition he actually covers well known authors, e.g. Roth, Murakami, Oz, Bolano and so on. I mean he has ~2500 books under review with most of the reviews written by him, thats already a lot). So try to think about it, if you have to decide about your own reading agenda for your own personal review site, what would you prefer, books that you are personally interested in and/or that are unknown or books of authors you do not like very much and that are already famous in any case? And about "non biased" reviews. First of all such a thing is practically impossible, and second, as I said, he is providing the links to many other reviews, where you can get different opinions, and again, I do not know of any other site that is doing something like this in such a coherent way. So really I think there is no reason to rant about anything. Since you are apparently reading the complete review regularly you should be a bit grateful to Mr. Orthofer and then maybe "suggest" to him ways of improving his nice site. The main drawback or problem I see is that the review site is mostly based on one sole reviewer. I think it would be a good idea to find additional help from people seriously interested in this. Like this the site could cover more authors and get rid of some of the "bias".

I think you're dramatizing DP Cooper's purported "rants" about the CR. He's offering some criticisms of the site, not defaming it. And, honestly, both of you don't really seem to be in disagreement. You're both fans of the site, but he's more willing to note the absence of some high-profile authors. You, on the other hand, are also correct in pointing out some other high-profile authors he's covered -- such as, for the purposes of this thread, Haruki Murakami, who is certainly a huge literary figure on an international scale.

Nonetheless, I have emailed Mr. Orthofer about this very subject. My message:

Hello,

I've been reading your site for a while now. It's a wonderful resource, especially for information on international writers. It's
encouraging to read something dedicated to literature in all languages and not just solely English language literature. (Even though
I originally discovered it while searching Google for reviews of Coetzee's Disgrace.)

Nonetheless, I've noticed that many American writers are absent from the review archives. This is purely an observation, not a
criticism, but I'm wondering why. Have you not bothered to review them since other places have/will, or are you disinterested in
American literature? For example, the works of Jonathan Franzen have received generally positive reviews but that's about it. How
come you've never reviewed David Foster Wallace. I consider the latter far more important than the former. There are other examples
but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Of course, there are so many books to read, and it's unreasonable to expect someone to get to them all! Keep up the wonderful work.

His reply:

Thank you for your interest in the Complete Review, and for your comments.

Yes, American fiction is definitely under-represented -- I'm in the process of tallying last year's reviews and find, for example,
that I reviewed 22 novels from France but only five from the US in 2010, which even I find astonishing. The two main factors are that
I just tend to focus on international literature, and that I don't worry that much about American fiction because, as you suggested,
it gets so much coverage in any case. Franzen's latest didn't really need any coverage from me (even if all those links-in-one-place
are useful ....).

I also tend to cover books by authors already under review -- hence the keeping-up-with-Franzen (and, for example, Cynthia Ozick's
newest will certainly be covered) -- and it can be hard for new authors to break in, especially if there's already a big body of work
I'd have/like to cover -- tackling David Foster Wallace at this point doesn't seem the best use of my time/the site.

Still, I do expect/hope to cover more US fiction -- but then I could say that about almost all the nationalities I do (and don't yet)
cover .....

Glad to hear you enjoy the site !

[DB Cooper]

I wasnt trying to be overcritical of the site, maybe I didnt get my point across clearly. The main gist of things is that I think Orthofer does great work, and I would love to read his thoughts on some of those writers I mentioned, solely because I value his judgement and opinions. His voice is quite different from what you get on most other lit review/crit sites, and I appreciate his unflinching honesty and straightforwardness. I was pointing out the obvious lack of books originally in English that he gets around to reviewing, or more specifically American authors. Miobrien posting his correspondence does shed a little light onto the subject. but Im not sure why Apfelwurm took such offense to that. While the American books naturally get press here, it seems that The Complete Reivew/Literary Saloon draws readers from across the globe due to his focus on foreign literature. If he chose to review more American authors, I believe he could point international readers in the direction of some quality work that is being done here.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

I wasnt trying to be overcritical of the site, maybe I didnt get my point across clearly. The main gist of things is that I think Orthofer does great work, and I would love to read his thoughts on some of those writers I mentioned, solely because I value his judgement and opinions. His voice is quite different from what you get on most other lit review/crit sites, and I appreciate his unflinching honesty and straightforwardness. I was pointing out the obvious lack of books originally in English that he gets around to reviewing, or more specifically American authors. Miobrien posting his correspondence does shed a little light onto the subject. but Im not sure why Apfelwurm took such offense to that. While the American books naturally get press here, it seems that The Complete Reivew/Literary Saloon draws readers from across the globe due to his focus on foreign literature. If he chose to review more American authors, I believe he could point international readers in the direction of some quality work that is being done here.

Ok, got the point. I was just carried away by your wrong example (Pynchon), no offense taken or meant.

Though I do not get the impression that Mr. Orthofer will delve into American literature soon.

[Liam]

The cover of the American edition (out in October):

[Rumpelstilzchen]

The cover of the American edition (out in October):

And some background info on this cover here:
http://knopf.knopfdoubleday.com/2011...ng-novel-1q84/

[Liam]

Ah, thanks for that.

I have always thought that book designers are very much underappreciated by most readers/book-collectors: after all, these are the people who can either make or break a book. I mean, look at the two editions of DFW's The Pale King: the American one is aesthetically very pleasing to the eye and yet thematically linked to the novel's contents; the British one, meanwhile, is a fuckin' fright!

I think this particular cover (or, rather, the combination of two different covers, one on top of the other) is both artistically stimulating and aesthetically appealing. Put the case I knew nothing about Murakami. A cover like this one would definitely make me want to pick the book up at the bookstore.

Ditto the American Wallace. But not the British Wallace.

[Bjorn]

I just started this, and on the very first page he starts off by having a character listen to a piece of music and muse about how the meaning of music changes with the historical context. Yeah, it's Murakami.

[Eric]

Good luck, Björn. It'll be interesting to know what your reaction is as you start Volume II in due course. By then you should have got into the story. Everybody's ordering copies and flashing the cover design, but no one seems to have actually read enough of 1Q84 to describe the book to us. Before I pick it up in the bookshop or library, I would like to see what the pioneers in the vanguard of reading brand new books here on the WLF website have to say about style and content. I hope this is a new, serious novel, not just another overhyped book, especially now that Japan's in the news, so everyone's attention is focused on that country. Fingers crossed.

[Bjorn]

Well, given that Murakami and the release of 1Q84 was a pretty big deal long before the earthquake, I don't see why anyone would think the "hype" was only connected to that. And from what I can see there have been several reviews of the style and content linked in this thread already.

[Mirabell]

I just started this, and on the very first page he starts off by having a character listen to a piece of music and muse about how the meaning of music changes with the historical context. Yeah, it's Murakami.

Yeah, I am so tempted by fat novels that I am sitting down to read or reread some older Murakami novels. I'm not telling you which ones I've already read, but which ones should I read (or reread) to improve my opinion of Mr. M's works (who I currently rate marginally higher than Auster)? I'd hate to read a 1000 page book while feeling somewhat hostile to the book/writer. Did that already with the Tellkamp p.o.s., so, you know.

[Bjorn]

Yeah, I am so tempted by fat novels that I am sitting down to read or reread some older Murakami novels. I'm not telling you which ones I've already read, but which ones should I read (or reread) to improve my opinion of Mr. M's works (who I currently rate marginally higher than Auster)? I'd hate to read a 1000 page book while feeling somewhat hostile to the book/writer. Did that already with the Tellkamp p.o.s., so, you know.

TBH I'm wondering if it's time to reevaluate Murakami, this is going to be the litmus test. I've loved the novels I've read of him so far, but when I think about why I loved them, I just come back to "Well, they're beautiful." What I Talk About... was pretty mediocre, the film version of Norwegian Wood made me wonder if the book was really that skeevy or if it's the director's fault, and while I really like what I've read of 1Q84 so far (40 pages in), I could see it theoretically go off the rails if it keeps doing some of the things I hope is just setup. The one book I'll say definitely stayed with me is Underground. Read that one.