I have read everything but Catcher...

everyone should read it

best book ever-inspired me to write.

half a century+ of literary theory went out the window in the first 3 min of the video that’s crazy

I'm in my seventies and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I just finished it for the first time at 26 and I was SHOCKED it was ever taught. I loved it and related to Holden and his thought processes so much, but I had always heard about how he’s insufferable and annoying. I couldn’t imagine being in a highschool class and haveing a discussion about it, it would have absolutely torn me apart to know people thought so harshly about depression. And even then, I don’t think it’s even healthy. The themes of suicide and anhedonia would have completely swallowed me up and I feel like I would have ended up idolizing his struggles as “poetic”, you know, how teens do. As an adult, it felt almost indulgent to go back to that headspace of feeling so lost and isolated, but without the added weight of adult responsibilities. Now everything has an additional layer of overwhelming guilt, along with a weird jealousy that I was never hospitalized for treatment, because failing to thrive is always putting your weight on someone else’s shoulders. As an adult it felt comforting. As. A teen… I believe it would have been dangerous.

Excellent. Thank you.

Wow that’s how I realized I loved penguin too when I was enjoying the long intros they provided when I read The Count of Monte Cristo!

you are so well articulated! I first read Murakami in my late teens, consuming probably as many as you and also getting a wind up bird tattoo. In my thirties, upon reread, there is so so much I can no longer identify with and feel really icky to me. I love his writing and I'm not criticizing it, there's just one too many 'cumming on the shape of a 13 year old girls ear while down a well' that makes me squirm now.

Bro. Do you ever have a hard time with baby boomers? They are one generation removed from sexists who slapped the shit out of their wives, and constantly gaslit them and called them lazy motherfuckers for no damned reason. They are masochists, dying to be pushed back at. If you would hold them to the standard of toughness instead of the standard of purity, you would have a lot more luck with them.

😅😅😅😅😅

Also read all of murakami and I strongly recommend starting with the wind up bird Chronicles It's his most believable relationship in my opinion and the surrealist elements relating to the dissolving of a relationship is very powerful

Great video, excellent reasoning! I dove in headfirst, starting with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, then 1Q84, followed by Kafka On The Shore! I have no regrets & I do agree that one should not start with 1Q84. It is one of the most original, ambitious pieces of fiction out there, but it would be a daunting introduction to Murakami! I may have had a built in advantage prior to reading Murakami. Just out of college I read The Magus by John Fowles, which is an incredible surreal, dreamy mystery. In 60 plus years of reading, Haruki Murakami is my favorite author!

i love how murakami writes because i get to see how men really sees women from their very own POV. it’s a depiction of reality. i am not expecting him to be a feminist, because in the real world not everyone are.

A lot of this is fair, some of it annoyed me, some of it made me angry even. I have only read a few Murakami novels but I am familiar with most of the stuff you touched on here. The Norwegian Wood thing, yeah, that was uncomfortable and weird. I don't remember how graphic the sexualization was, but I think that's certainly pushing the boat out by anyone's standards. That said, for me this character was someone who had been taken advantage of at a low point and had her inner weakness and darkness cultivated in her by a supposedly innocent child - the exact inverse of the relationship they were supposed to have, where the older woman tutors the younger one and brings out the best in her. This idea that she was lying about the whole thing I think is just some weird conspiracy theory, I don't really get that. As such, it doesn't really make sense that she's an adult, I mean it's laughable honestly that this makes just as much sense if the girl is 18. Still though, its just playing it a bit fast and loose with child sexualization for me, I'm not gonna go ahead and outright defend it. And I do remember really hoping she wasn't gonna have sex with the main character when I saw it going that way, just started to feel like a shitty anime a bit. With regards to Colourless, I can see there's a bit of a taboo element to this scene but I really think it boils down to a non-issue. This is not like the case in Norwegian Wood, because a 13 year olds (at least before the horrors of the modern age) are assumed to not be sexually active or... "have developed sexual psychology" I guess, whereas when two 16/17 year olds have sex it's no big deal. As such, a scene depicting the dream representations of two 16/17 year olds having sex with the dream avatar (of unspecified age) of a ~22 year old (is that right?) who knew them when they were all that age, and who feels ashamed of the dream after, that's just a non-issue to me. Speaking of non-issues, noticing and appreciating in passing girls in bikinis is definitely in that category. I know you address that this may seem like a nit pick but that really doesn't change the fact that it does. There is also the fact that female characters are often a vehicle for growth in male characters. I say fact because I think that's totally true, I'm not disputing it, I just don't think it's necessarily a problem as long as it's taken for what it is. A limitation, sure, but not a moral failure. Was Mr. Rochester not a vehicle for Jane Eyre's growth? Are the Bronte sisters sexist authors? There is an element of this in all main - secondary character relationships, male or female, Murakami or otherwise. What angers me is the idea that Murakami should recognise this as a moral failure "causing harm" (???) to his (almost exclusively grown up adult) female audience and that he should repent and change his ways over this. This is just one manifestation of this toxic attitude within online book review spaces - my suggested videos right now includes '40 "problematic'" Authors I Won't Read...', and I think that sums up the tone. No wonder Murakami takes offence to this attempt to subjugate his intellectual freedom as an author. No wonder, even, that he likens it to the persecution of academics during communist revolutions that occurred during his own lifetime. I also don't understand why you have not included redeeming points or counter-arguments, bar a passing reference to the fact that his female characters are fleshed out and have their own agency and ideas, which I feel was brushed over hugely given the video's topic. You mention other books which have problematic themes that you could bring up, including After Dark, but don't think to mention it as a counterexample of a Murakami story that focuses on the personal growth of a female protagonist? Or the recurring motif of independent, strong-willed female characters in his stories? Obviously you are a genuine Murakami fan and not out to make a hit-piece, your tone and your other videos make that clear, but the actual content of this video is exactly like a hit-piece and I just don't understand why. I think a lot of this evaporates away when you step out of American prudishness and demonization of male sexuality (not the child sexualization of Norwegian Wood, to be clear). There is a (very good) novel called "The Virgins" by Pamela Erens centred around high school seniors in 1979-80 which contains vivid descriptions of sex between 16/17 year olds and their bodies, male and female. She is not on trial here, nor should she be. It is a truly sad thing that Murakami cannot be afforded the same respect, and that so many men (and women, of course, in a different way) are made to feel ashamed of their sexuality.

Those editions you have on the left look awesome, where can I get them?

It's the perfect book for helping adolescents understand and find themselves. Yes there are a lot of words that are used that people find offensive these days but those words weren't used in as an offensive way in the 1950s. You gotta look passed that, and frankly just get over it and read the damn book, it's the best ❤

I feel so impressed after watching your video, especially your last serval words. And I am into Stoner too, I bought stoner in Spanish version lately, I feel both languages are so beautiful and vivid to describe the moment when Stoner lost his parents and his love of his life, Katherine. I always put Stoner on my desk where I could easily see it, as if Stoner is accompanying with me all time. Thanks for sharing!!!!!! You are great!!!

"As a white male..." That's pathetic. Nice books though

I loved the Iliad bookstore when I lived in LA. 🎉

Are you trans or an ally? Beautiful man either way.

The only reason I would not recommend this book to anyone is because it’s a road to no where. From what I remember, Holden does not grow as a character, he does not evolve. He’s a whiny b!tch throughout the whole story. Just when you think he’s going to have an epiphany, he doesn’t.

You whole talk about women being oppressed was arrogant. Sure it’s a patriarchal society but it’s not slavery. Chill

i really like your voice

trans rights are human rights? the fuck dude ??

what a good video to start getting to know a writer

These NYRB editions are great and much needed. Some of the best books I have ever read. I highly recommend some recent ones, if you like Russian literature: The Story of a Life, by Konstantin Paustovky, the first half of an extraordinary memoir of a man who was a young adult at the time of the Russian Revolution. Even this first half is very long (769 pages), but it is very interesting and not difficult or dull. The author is sane and sensitive, and writes vivid pictures of people, places, nature, and of what is now a lost world. NYRB estions of Leskov and Platonov, two lesser known writers (in the West, at least) are very rewarding. And don't miss Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time of Gifts," a memoir of his walk across Europe on foot, solo, in his youth from Rotterdam to Constantinople in the 1930s. Incredible! There are many others. NYRB selects titles of real literary merit. You almost can't go wrong.

I rather catcher in the rye taught in school than the scarlet letter I hated that book

Eh

Have you read any of Hard Rain Falling (Don Carpenter), Black Wings Has My Angel (Elliot Chaze) or Fat City (Leonard Gardner)? All NYRB

Introduction was sooooooo long you repeat yourself over and over.

Dude your introduction was TOOOOOOOOO LONG~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I finished Stoner recently. It was a pretty amazing book about a fairly ordinary life.

I was assigned to read Catcher in the Rye in high school. It is one of the few books which I hated primarily because of the character of Holden Caufield. Who in the hell is Holden Caufield to judge whether or not a person is authentic or phony!?! Is concept of authenticity is ill-defined and some of the adults who ere interacting with him were being authentic but Holden labels them as phony anyway. His critique of his brother is the worst one of all, his brother has found a way to make a living doing what he loves, but Holden criticizes him because he makes compromises in order to pursue a living. You have to make compromises in order to survive in this world and to establish a stable society. The lack of a willingness to compromise is detrimental to mainitaining a democratic society. I blame Holden Caulfield for the state of political polarization that we are currently experiencing. In short it is better to learn to get along with others than it is to pursue a phony authenticity. Holden Caulfield thinks that anyone who does not conform to his way of thinking is a phony insteard of a person who has a genuine disagreement. Thank you for this video. I now have a more sympathetic understanding of Holden Caulfield and realize now that he was trying to process his grief over the loss of his brother and of how those feelings made him feel isolated and disconnected from the world and that is the reason for a lashing out at what he perceives as being phony, because it doesn't want to deal with the existential crisis that all of us share.

i will agree that Holden is seeking a sort of guidance. but reject all the sources of guidance, and instead tells the guides that THEY are wrong. he is simply trying to make the world conform to his wishes. he is being the phony but not genuinely seeking guidance. Holden is seeking for the cherries to his reality. this is exaclty how the book seeps in the kind of skeptics that leads to it's notorious alt-right slopes. i think Holden was disenchanted.... bipolar or in a manic state honestly. --- um.. so kids should teach themselves Catch In The Rye? that sounds dangerous. that feels like a way form alt-right groomers to REALY sink their teeth into the kinds of people that feel Holdens plight. IDK.. i understand your sentiment... but... lets just admit... Holden is NOT the good guy... this is a cautionary tale. this is what happens when you don't have a support system and are drowning in emotional disconnection. Into The Wild is the natural extension of Catcher In The Rye when he slips into his next psychotic episode.

Aha I started with "Colorless.." as well, followed by "Norwegian Wood" and really liked both. I wasn't sure which one to read next as I wanted more realism rather than surrealism so i started reading his short stories, of which some are amazing such as "Barn Burning", "Birthday girl", "Sleep", "Chance Traveler", "The second bakery attack" to name a few. But it seems "A wild sheep chase" will be my next novel read of his, so thanks for the recc

I think murakami is a sexist author and this video helped me finalize some thoughts on why. As jumbled as my explanation is, here it be: The fact that he says he doesn't write complex characters but writes complex women --that somehow magically support the male MC's growth-- makes me believe that he just doesn't realize he is sexist. He shakes off the pressing questions about sexism and just says essentially "ayyy I'm just writing here." It has been pointed out that his male characters hold his world perspective. He probably just sees women as creatures that develop men's growth, but not as humans themselves. I think the weird age sexualization thing is horrible, but is common in Japan. Some areas of Japan literally have the age of consent set to 12. I've seen theories that relate this pedophilic view of young girls to misogyny because young girls aren't able to "fight back" as easily, but serve the purpose of being a female. One can separate artists from art, but does it really matter at the end of the day? I like Murakami's books, but I recognize they have sexist elements to them. I think the important part is that it's talked about, like this video. By calling him sexist or "cancelling" him won't stop him from writing and won't stop his books from being bought because he's a good author. The problem is when people read these books and assume this is how the world (and women in it) are supposed to act/function. How to ensure that this does not become the case,, I have no idea lol. TL;DR: He's sexist, but just doesn't realize it because he doesn't really care about women like that. Japan and age of consent is extremely sus overall. Art from artist is a compelling argument on whether Murakami is sexist or not, but it's not him that reaches audiences it's his art.

If you were a black woman you would be equally limited to your own perspective and upbringing. Not sure why you felt the need to do the typical woke white male guilt thing. Just say you're limited to your own world and want other perspectives and move on.

If a woman appears in a Murakami novel, its as if, at some point they are going to strip naked and have sex with the main character

I recommend: 1. Along This Way -- James Weldon Johnson (his autobiography) 2. The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- Milan Kundera 3. The Outsider -- Richard Wright 4. Chosen -- Chaim Potok

There’s a difference between reading and buying books to make sure you have constant KZbin content versus having content after you’ve read what you enjoy. I’ve wanted to make book videos but haven’t yet because I love reading too much. When I’m done with a book, I immediately can’t wait to start on the next one. I can’t see myself stoping reading to focus on making a video. I know, this just means I’m more of a reader than a book tuber and I’m not trying to sound above anyone. It’s just the difference I see between the ways people experience books and or book tube.

The books just feel so damn good too! Something about the paper and size, just great hand feel. So far Victor Serge has been my favorite NYRB discovery!

I am sorry....I don't like his writing style and Norwegian Wood was a terrible story 😅 but I am very particular about the type of stories I like. And I get why a teenage boy or...young man would like his stories. Not my thing.

Reading "Wind & Pinball", his first works alongside "The City and Its Uncertain Walls" (his latest work; it's already out in Spanish, my native language) and also his 24 short stories "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman"

I'm from Brazil and I like listening to you because you speak so well. Your diction is awesome. I hope be able to speak like you one day :)

you and drunzo should do a collab

You've got the 'separating art from the artist' concept wrong. It isn't about determining whether or not the artist holds the same views as are expressed in his art, but whether we can forget the artist altogether and treat his/her art as an independent entity. Suppose Murakami is indeed sexist, does that make his work of any less worth?

Come out bro. Don't fade out like that. Its been a year since your last video.