Home
sign up| member's portfolio page |
 content by: member |
|
I still can't decide whether I like Murakami's work or not.
After reading David Mitchell's "Number9Dream" which is now possibly one of my favourite books, I was looking for something more in that sort of area of fiction. Realism mixed with science-fiction, musings on the lifestyles of late capitalism and more importantly sad love stories brought right up to date to make them even easier to relate to. Murakami is all this in his work and yet I'm still not sure what to make of him. "Dance Dance Dance" is the third book of his that I've read. I've just finished it. Though the style or writing hasn't changed much from his previous books (I sometimes think the same narrator may run through all the books having read "Sputnik Sweetheart" and "Norwegian Wood" before) there are some definite ideas here. Cue a freelance writer who describes his job as "shovelling cultural snow" and his journey to find a call girl he was involved with some years ago leading him to an old hotel which he believes is calling him, somehow, psychically. Only the hotel isn't old now. It's a brand new five star intercontinental, part of a sinister redevelopment scheme happening in the area. One of the most exciting things about this book is that the narrator never seems to stay in one place. Murakami's world is one of endless possibilities and as such the plot twists and flexes out of the reader's reach; so much so that by the book's mid-sections you might forget what actually took place at the beginning. His array of characters is also to be praised: a famous actor typecast into trusting roles, a thirteen-year-old girl into rock-n-roll with psychic sensibilities, a one-armed English poet living in Hawaii, a highy intelligent highly expensive call girl who claims she "shovels sensual snow" and of the course the narrator himself, not so much trapped in a complex web as finding his way round, making the connections. For me, the narrator is one the weaker points of the book. I found him annoying, perhaps in an overly sincere way, perhaps in the way that he constantly makes bad jokes. Another problem being that no character in this book is really shallow enough to make this realistic enough, no-one has a problem with the narrator's sincerity. While Murakami definitely isn't going for realism here, it just doesn't seem to ring true that everybody the protagonist meets is a deep spiritual person, with the same level of understanding as the character. In effect there are no real arguments or debates in this book, only minor little conflicts. Apart from that everyone seems to want to help. For a book that is at least partially about living in the late capitalism it seemed to be missing out on something bigger. As always, Murakami's descriptive passages are fantastic even if his dialogue does seem a little weak. There's no reason why you shouldn't read this book, only its probably best to approach it with a kind of open-mindedness that his work requires. catabolic_kid x
 conversations
Read members' comments.
If you register you can discuss this article with other users. |
 |
see also
art  art archive Watch artist interviews and see images from British exhibitions. |
send to a friend
