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I've read a good number of them and enjoyed them, but I don't think he's my favorite author by any stretch.

My complaints (which need not apply to others, of course) - A lot of the main characters and plot lines feel the same. I can't tell you what happened in some books vs other books because they all (to me) feature listless males who drink Cutty Sark, enjoy jazz music, and have weird shit happen to them that they mostly tolerate while acknowledging that it is bizarre. - The style feels a little flat. It just kind of is. Even though the sentences can get quite long and windy and full of descriptions and details until you get lost, much like a sentence like this, my inner voice still reads it in a kind of monotone that I imagine resembles how the protaganist (if you could call them that) goes through life. The kind of prose that, if you're tired, will make you more tired.

What I liked - The casual surrealness. I complained about it earlier but it's also a feature. It isn't meant to transform the book into a sci-fi or fantasy novel, it just is what it is. - The lack of resolution. Too many books try too hard to wrap things up. Sometimes things just are. Which is also probably why I can't remember what happened in which books since they just end up being a series of events (think another commentator noted that). - The way things weave together. Not everything wraps up, but that doesn't mean they aren't connected. - Japan. I've lived there before, it's fun to read about characters and think "oh, I've been there!"

I don't think this accurately sums up my feelings, which I guess means there's actually a lot to unpack which is a positive sign, but basically I think if you can't get into Murakami, that's fine and isn't on you.

i had the pleasure of going to a talk/Q&A that Murakami did many years ago. i am paraphrasing the following question and answer, but the root of it made a deep impression on me:

> someone in the audience asked what his stories meant. there was a sense of the plots being profound, but just out of reach. > > Murakami replied that there was no great meaning. they were dreams he had.

Still might be profound.

I wouldn't worry that it's your failure, you're just not into it.

I loved Windup Bird Chronicle. I struggled with 1Q84. I find the same thing in every creative field (art, film, lit, games); a favourite author/artist/director/company will release something I think is a real stinker while everyone else praises it, and vice versa.

Of course it can help to build up a vocab/grammar/approach to appreciate particular works or what something is referencing, but there are too many fish you'll never even see to be worrying about one author. Just hunt down the stuff you like and don't be afraid to give up halfway through if you're not enjoying it. It sounds like you've already figured that part out.

Interesting. That's the second one I read, but I put it down 5 chapters in and never picked it back up. So it sits in my 'to read' pile. I even confiscated the bookmark the last time I rearranged my books, because I'd have to start over at this point.

1Q84 was several hundred pages too long.

Is his works really great works of literature?

My impression is that he is a popular author, but literary-wise, not really up there with the great ones, like Yasunari Kawabata.

I am very much a layman when it comes to literature, but I want to say that Kawabata's writing has an awe-inspiring quality to me - I've never been as engrossed reading stories that, if I were to summarize, would barely have any plot; and have felt so satisfied by the end, even when they usually stop before any major changes.

You can definitely feel his mastery in the art of telling a story, not just the art of creating a story itself. I feel Murakami unfortunately lacks the former, even though he has taken with the latter.

Just to present another view, I enjoy Murakami's books despite agreeing with you that the style seems pretty flat (I've read some in English and some in my native Romanian, but I didn't notice any big differences of style, though I have no idea how well either translation holds up to the original Japanese).

The thing that keeps me coming back to his work are the stories themselves, I am usually quite curious how events will unfold, and I do find that, despite remaining mysterious, there is some sense of revelation.

On the other hand, I still prefer other works of magical realism, especially those by Marquez and Rushdie - of which I feel both have a much more interesting style to their writing.

Aren’t like half of modern Japanese books in Romanian – including some Murakamis – translated by Angela Hondru? Her output is so prolific that I suspect she doesn’t get that much time to polish the prose, and so it is no surprise if the result feels a bit flat. (I don’t blame her for that; I have also worked in literary translation and I know that deadlines are always much shorter than one would like.)

As a big fan of his books, they read a lot differently than most novels. They usually feel pretty un-structured, much of the story doesn't connect logically to me, often times they come to an abrupt end with no resolution. I basically read it by paying attention to the feelings or moods it's trying to invoke.

But if that isn't for you, I wouldn't beat yourself up for it. Just not your thing, and there isn't anything incorrect with that.

For me, I think the enjoyable thing about Murakami's books isn't necessarily the story line in the traditional sense. The story lines are always wacky, surreal, etc. But the things that captivate me are the characters and world-building. The characters are deep. He does a really good job explaining what they're thinking and where they come from. In such surreal stories, they're surprisingly rational and consistent.

I also feel like a lot of the author himself comes through the pages. You'll read a lot of really detailed descriptions of that jazz bar that one character visited (Murakami owned a jazz bar for some time). He talks a lot about cats (a cat lover, for sure), and all of the protagonists are males that have really similar personalities.