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MURAKAMI_SMITH

                                             November 3, 2016

From Patti Smith's review of Haruki Murakami's "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki":

    "This is a book for both the new and experienced
    reader. It has a strange casualness, as if it
    unfolded as Murakami wrote it; at times, it seems
    like a prequel to a whole other narrative. The feel
    is uneven, the dialogue somewhat stilted, either by
    design or flawed in translation. Yet there are
    moments of epiphany gracefully expressed, especially
    in regard to how people affect one another. 'One
    heart is not connected to another through harmony
    alone,' Tsukuru comes to understand. 'They are,
    instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain
    linked to pain, fragility to fragility. ... ' "

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/books/review/haruki-murakamis-colorless-tsukuru-tazaki-and-his-years-of-pilgrimage.html


Okay: this quote catches my eye, because at the beginning
of it, though her impression is more favorable than mine,
Patti Smith is saying something about Murakami's writing
that's very similar to my own impression: he makes it up
on-the-fly, and the pieces fit together awkwardly at best.

Secondly, the "epiphany" gets my attention
because I can see how that flow naturally out
of the story premise-- a man who feels suddenly    There must, after all,
isolated from his four friends for reasons he      be a reason someone like
doesn't understand, so he continues on for         Patti Smith is obsessed
years without them, but still feeling the loss.    with Murakami, he must
                                                   have something going for
   But: does that insight really stand-up          him, and here she points
   isolated from the context?  Doesn't it          the way to it...
   sound kind of trite, something said many
   times in other contexts?

   Though there are other contexts where I might
   find that insight to be entirely appropriate...
   You can imagine it working really well in some
   sort of young-adult teen drama, for example.


It may be besides the point to complain that an
insight isn't entirely new: there's also value in
expressing the old in a way that it comes alive
again for you, and it could be that's really the
primary job of a novelist.

  Artists are not, after all philosophers or scientists.

  If you've got a new, critically important idea,
  why would you bury it in the form of a novel?         A misnamed form:
                                                        novels need not
                                                        be so novel.

Arguably, my objection to Murakami is simply that he's
promoted as a phenomenally intelligent, brilliant
author-- it seems every year, his name is floated for
the Nobel in literature.  So I'm reviewing his
*reputation*.  If I take the trouble to say something
deflating about him, it's because I'm trying to correct
what I regard as an "overrated" status.


    Still I do find myself wondering about why
    the four friends abruptly rejected this
    man, and may well read the book, just to
    resolve this melodramatic detail.

    One thing you have to say for Murakami,
    he *is* readable--





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