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The Japanese author is one of the favorites for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.Have you read any of his books? I am reading Dance, Dance, Dance at the moment.
In this propulsive novel by the author of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World and The Elephant Vanishes, one of the most
idiosyncratically brilliant writers at work in any language fuses
science fiction, the hard-boiled thriller, and white-hot satire into a
new element of the literary periodic table.
As he searches for a
mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Haruki Murakami's protagonist plunges
into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread in which he
collides with call girls; plays chaperone to a lovely teenaged psychic;
and receives cryptic instructions from a shabby but oracular Sheep Man.
Dance Dance Dance is a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride
through the cultural Cuisinart that is contemporary Japan, a place where
everything that is not up for sale is up for grabs.
The book that I would like to recommend today is a different one though. Norwegian Wood was first published in 1987 and it sold more than 4 million copies.
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in
Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman,
but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best
friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the
loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures
and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into
her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a
fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.
The book has 173 5-star reviews on Amazon.
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