The New Haruki Murakami Book is Here. Is it Any Good?

[@juanpenahernandez6981]

The spanish edition was published early this year and the cover for that versión is gorgeous

[@vellichor_ventures]

I feel like almost every other version is better than the US one lol. I think the last time we had a good cover design was Colorless Tsukuru.

[@nickisnotarapper]

That was a really insightful and entertaining rumination, not just on the book itself, but on authors/artists creating work as they get older. The rating at the end had me giggling too lol. Thanks for another great video, Shawn!

[@noamheller4043]

Please do reviews for other books! You've created a Murakami community here on this channel, but I'd love to hear you explore other stories.. (new subscriber here👋). Also, I started reading Murakami when I was 24 (I'm 31 now), and I'm a bit scared I won't like his new book 😅... My reading taste has also changed. I guess that's a natural process.. but still, Murakami has played such a major part in my love of Japanese literature, I might find it heartbreaking if I don't like this one.

[@vellichor_ventures]

@@noamheller4043 I will! Getting this one done felt good and now I can move on to other things. If this one doesn’t hit the spot, don’t worry! I really enjoyed it even with its flaws.

[@harukimurakamiart]

Thanks for the review, appreciate your opinion. I share the same thoughts in most cases and totally get your points. Very well combined and concluded. Also totally agree to this whole Nobel Prize discussion. And of course thanks for the mention 😉hope you can finally enjoy all the other books that have been waiting for you!

[@joaotfranco]

I agree with the pace. Hard-Boiled Wonderland is one of my least favourite Murakami's novels so it took a little long for me for this one to get good. Once the pace hitted me, I started loving this book. It's one of my favourite books I've read this year and I can't wait for the english translation release. I read The City and Its Uncertain Walls in Spanish but I really want to read it again but in english. Murakami is my favourite author and it's sad for me that I have no people in my life that love his stuff the way I do. Still, it's fun to keep discovering new authors and this year I "discovered" Yukio Mishima. I'm obsessed with him at the moment. Funny that I also started reading Murakami in college, in my case on sophomore's. Do you intend on making an in depth review/analysis of The City after the release? Really enjoyed your video. Keep it up

[@endlessteatime4733]

I’ve read the German edition and I (as a woman) am not really concerned with his way of writing about breasts and sex but overall I never really ended up knowing how I felt about the book. I think it hit me in a sensitive spot because I’ve moved back and forth between two countries, one that I feel passionate about and my home country that’s, well, safety, and me feeling torn between the two was something I saw in this book, and in the struggles the protagonist had to go through. 4/10 feels fair but I gotta say I much prefer it over the second Killing Commendatore book, which I just couldn’t warm up to.

[@vellichor_ventures]

@@endlessteatime4733 that’s a really unique perspective to have on it. Killing Commendatore is just one book in the states but I do remember feeling like the latter half got lost in some shoddily constructed metaphor. Felt like a Temu version of Wind Up Bird to me.

[@raswartz]

Yeah, when I first discovered Marukami, I devoured every one of his books. But now I'm like, "Ok, jazz, cats, breasts, yada yada..."

[@thomervin7450]

Same. I read up to halfway through Wind Up Bird Chronicle and then stopped. Honestly, his first two books are the best, imo, and South of the Border, West of the Sun comes in third.

[@mrlately]

@@thomervin7450I love South of the Border. Which ones u like?

[@camerenisonfire]

This is the first book since probably Harry Potter I've actively looked forward to releasing. I still need to read Hardboiled Wonderland. When I first picked it up, it was so different from what I came to expect from a few other books that I had read at that point, but I plan to get to it after this. I preordered the UK version, which has a far better cover art. I agree the US one is quite bad, maybe one of the worst of his US releases.

[@Arbutus-v5m]

How can this be allowed? A seventeen-year-old boy is fascinated by a sixteen-year-old girl's breasts. Outrageous!

[@vellichor_ventures]

A man of nuance! Welcome to the channel. Spoilers: the main character spends pretty much his whole life stuck on not getting laid when he was a teenager. The girl in question barely has a personality aside from “sad and has boobs”. Absolutely a 17 year old boy should have those thoughts, but the lack of depth is typical Murakami.

[@Arbutus-v5m]

@@vellichor_ventures Thanks for your welcome and your reply. I've read the book and was very interested in your review because it's the first I've seen. I too enjoyed it but nothing about the writing allows for depth of character, in my opinion, even though the later relationship with the woman from the café has a sense of maturity about it (not just because of their age). Murakami's writing about women is pretty mild compared to Roth, Updike etc.

[@vellichor_ventures]

@ I agree that it’s pretty mild in comparison to other writers. The strength of his work is definitely the stuff going on around his characters, although occasionally you’ll get someone fun like Ushikawa or the sheep man.

[@filetmignon23]

If it's more Cutty Sark, cigarette smoking, random philosophy discussing, sleeping with women whose names the protagonist forgets, jazz record shopping, I'm gonna pass. My taste has changed and I can't be wasting more time with something I can guess the pages are going to be filled with before even reading.

[@yxvoegl2263]

Your loss, dude. There are of course many things that Murakami brings into his books that are repetitive, but mostly they are background effects. The main themes of his books are very different from each other.