MURAKAMI... MORE-RECCOMMI-ENDATIONS

and i am the final of these replacement muskateers of recomendeering. my name is tj. its a real short name... so sometimes easy to remember... but sometimes easy to forget... i don't mind if you do either. may i first preface the following text with an apology. i am a horrible writer (the grey suite can account for this) and i write with very little editing... so if this is wordy or choppy... please forgive me.

it seems like its protocol to talk about how we first met adam before getting into the actual recommending....so there i was... a freshman at james madison university, with no friends around... sticking my newborn-freshman head out into the open air of the beginnings of adulthood, when i come across'd adam hopkins. i am not sure if i first saw him with a skateboard or with his bass... but either way he seemed dorky enough to want to be my friend. he tells tale of me apparently lying to him about my origins and whereabouts... i have no recollection of this. i do recollect having horribly smelling feet at jazz band and him telling me that it offended his large nose. i also remember him saving my life as we were skating through the streets of harrisonburg va on at least one occasion. all in all, a good friend who needed some weight lifted of his internetty-shoulders and i'm here to help. the other 2 shoulder-relievers did a darn fine job with their first recommendings and i am honored to be a part of this team... i reeealllly hope i dont forget to keep it up.

ok... so with the recommendations...

i am going to refer back to mike gittings list when he recommended HARUKI MURAKAMI'S - WIND UP BIRD CHRONICLES. now this one is an easy one for me... so i thought i'd start here.

For those of you who are unaware of his writings at this point... you are in for a real treat. Murakami holds a special place for me. Perhaps its just because I can relate so easily to the plights of the protagonists, or at least the emotions they go through really are easy for me to associate with. I will continue to read his work for as long as I can see... and I will easily say his writings are my favorite reads. For a lamely brief intro to the author. He is a short, japanese man with a real keen interest in running and music, baseball and apparently writing great stories. He didnt start writing until he was 29... so for those of you out there thinking youre getting on in years to start something new, thats always a nice little treat to hear . I know about the shortness part because I went to an interview with him and we sat only a few feet away. he was seated on a raised platform but we were still eye to eye... and i think he looked at me. (" the baby looked at you?" - cheif wiggum) he was fielding an interview about his latest book WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING - which is another great book... not the wind up bird chronicles, so we'll talk about it another time. Anyways, I think he's 60 years old now, and he's got a great honesty and seemingly "aloof" quality about him which I really admire. When I say aloof, I am more talking about him keeping a distance from his stardom. He is quite popular world-wide... and sometimes characterized as a best-selling popular type novelist to which the elitists would snub up their noses at (they would also snub their noses as my hanging proposition in that previous sentence). Anyway, these qualities of Murakami come through in his novels beautifully as the protagonists usually are based on his life to some extent.

speaking of his life, here's a little pic of the old guy:

The novel at hand THE WIND UP BIRD CHRONICLES is Murakami's longest novel, and I must say it is the only one of his which gets a liiiitttle bit tired in the middle. The plot follows some odd events in a 30 yr oldish man named Toru Okada. He is on the receiving end of a fair amount of loss in the beginning of the novel. His cat, his job, and his wife all go missing and the events that unfold because of these missings fill out the rest of the novel. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that the novel also jumps back and forth chronologically as a second plot about the mongolian empire intertwines with the aforementioned plot. It is a very readable book, but also ( i found) quite complex.

Murakami's novels usually breakdown in 2 categories: some have fantastical elements such as talking cats, and the others are all too real in terms of the not only the scenarios, but the way the emotions come off the page and affected me as a reader. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles leans more to the fantastical side... not so much as Kafka on the Shore, but moreso than Norwegian Wood.

This is a good novel to start on if you want to become a Murakami Fan. However, keep in mind that its a long book. I also wouldnt stop here... i mean... i'd read them all, and actually i have... twice... but here are a couple other titles i suggest if you either (A) loved it and want more, or (B) found it too strange and want something a little different.

NORWEGIAN WOOD
SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE SUN
KAFKA ON THE SHORE.

lastly, what makes murakami a great element of this recommendation site is, his work is choc full of specific recommendations of his own... i would wager that every 20 pages or so he cites a specific work of music or literary work - and each of those references, if you take the initiative to follow up with further exploration turn out to be great recommendations as well

here's a sampling of his references:
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/murakami/site.php

so... i realize that the actual talk about THE WIND UP BIRD CHRONICLES was breif... and i sidetracked a bit.... but its a beautiful book and is worth the money and the time invested. I can't thanks Mike enough for bringing it to the table.