2008/07/24
しゅわー ( )

Civilization is transmission. When it comes to pass that things that should be expressed and transmitted get lost, civilization itself comes to an end. Click... Off.

I believe that the word should in Murakami's quote above from his book Hear the Wind Sing aka Happy Birthday and White Christmas makes this statement obviously subjective. And with that I question whether this book should have been written. Civilization would certainly have continued without it and indeed it did in the western countries (I'm assuming here) because this, his first book, was never published outside of Japan (again assuming again).

Written in the first person, a person with no name, the story follows this no-name person during a couple of weeks or so of his summer vacation while back in his hometown from Tokyo university. He drinks beer with his friend Rat, reminisces about past girlfriends, and sparks up a relationship with a new girl with nine fingers. Then he goes back to school. And thus civilization is saved by this nameless person chronicling his two weeks in a small town near the coast. Thank you. I like civilization, just wish it could be more civil.

The book did have great moments as does most of Murakami's books (ummm... assuming again since I haven't read ALL of his books). And if I continue with this review it will be longer than the book itself. It's short. Only 130 pages. And those pages are only 4 inches by 6 inches.

Here's a short conversation from this short book with his new nine fingered girlfriend...

'Last year, I dissected a cow.'
'You what?'
'I slit open the belly, but all I found was a handful of matted grass in one of the stomachs. I put the grass in a plastic bag and took it home with me. Put it on my desk. Then whenever something went wrong, I'd just stare at that lump of grass and think. Why do cows chew and chew and regurgitate and rechew this disgusting stuff over and over again?'

Fun read. A few good moments. Nothing spectacular. It is his first. Civilization is declining. ( )

Murakami has disallowed this translation of his early work to be distributed in America, ostensibly because he is not as proud of it as his other work. As an avid Murakami reader, though, I found it to be (though admittedly less skillful than his future endeavors) more honest, plain, simple, sincere. He explores many of the same themes of human nature and place in contemporary life, and like Pinball, 1973 and Norwegian Wood, the protagonist is of college age, which is timely for me personally as well. The edition is also extremely useful to me as a Japanese student, as it has much of the original language printed in the back for reference. ( )

Hear the Wind Sing is the first novel by Murakami, which was published in 1979 but never released in the US (I bought my copy from a Japanese bookseller on eBay). This book and the subsequent one, Pinball, 1973, which I'll read next, serve as preludes to his third novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, which is available outside of Japan.

The narrator is a 29 year old man, but the story takes place several years before, when he is a college student on his summer break. The action centers around him and his friend The Rat, who both appear in A Wild Sheep Chase, who spend an inordinate amount of time in J's Bar. He also has a quirky and short relationship with a young woman who works in a record shop, who he finds passed out on the floor of the bathroom in the bar.

As compared to his later writing, the characters are sketchily portrayed, and the story seems to jump around in short, aimless fragments. It wasn't a bad read, but I'm certainly glad that this wasn't the first book by Murakami I picked up. ( )

Kaze no Uta wo Kike is Murakami Haruki's first novel. I'm glad I didn't read this first, because I may never have read anything else of his. It's okay, but I was just kind of bored. Apparently there are two other books (Pinball something and something with sheep in the title) that make up this trilogy (though they also stand alone? This one does, anyway), but I doubt I'll read the others. I have a couple of his later books (English translations), so I will read those, and hopefully they'll be as good as The Elephant Vanishes. Actually there were some stories in The Elephant Vanishes that were similar to this. Just really stories about nothing, and while that works okay for a short story, I don't think it works very well for a novel, even one that's only 150 pages). ( )