Sixty-Nine

I was worried by the first page, with its lazy misogyny, but it soon became clear that this was the rites of passage story of an immature boy, posturing with his attitude to women. After a couple more pages, I warmed to the protagonist. This is a slight book and, thankfully, not in the same violent vein as In The Miso Soup or Audition. I could hear the main character's voice and imagine the events easily, and it made me feel nostalgia for an era that existed before I was born. It reminded me of Submarine and From Up On Poppy Hill.

This is a semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age story about a year in the life of a 17-year-old boy from a rural town in Japan. It’s an important year, being the last one of high school and leading up to university entrance exams, but Kensuke Yazaki is quite bored by it all. It’s 1960 so change is in the air but Ken, as he prefers to be called, only has one thing on his mind: Girls! Overhearing a remark by Kazuko (aka Lady Jane), darling of the school, Ken comes over all political activist and sets about organising an anti-establishment demonstration by barricading the school and daubing slogans all over the place purely to impress her. His actions manage to catch her attention but he knows he’ll have to up the ante if he wants to show more be taken seriously so, with his two best friends Adama and Iwase, arranges a local festival with Lady Jane to star in a play that Ken will direct and co-star along with her.

This is definitely much lighter in tone than the works I’ve previously read of the other Murakami and is quite humorous in parts. Despite his faults, and there are many of them, Ken is a likeable protagonist. The background is well drawn with many pop-culture references of the time being used to set the scene and provide quite a playlist of music to listen to. This is a fairly short novel (just shy of 200 pages) and is a very easy read. show less

This is a sparkling book about Kensuke Yazaki, a teenage boy in Japan in 1969 who really did not like attending school. Together with friends Amada and Iwase, he planned to barricade his school and then stage a protest play. This was all done whilst in the midst of a pervasive and heavy crush on Yazaki's "Lady Jane", Kazuko Matsui.

Although geared to a young adult readership, this book was a delight to read. It was light-hearted, reminiscent of the late 60s, and not malicious or offensive in any way.

How did any of us get through that era? It was a tough time and a wonderful time. I loved this journey back into that era, but also being able to see it through the perspective of a teen in Japan as opposed to the young adult I was in the show more United States at that time. show less

Một cuốn sách của tuổi trẻ, gửi đến tuổi trẻ, viết về tuổi trẻ.
Nên là chẳng có nội dung thông điệp cao siêu gì, chỉ là 1 năm trong cuộc đời của 1 gã trai, năm 1969.
Với nhân vật phụ là vài cô gái xinh đẹp, vài đứa bạn khùng điên, phông nền là một phố thị buồn chán, và cao trào nếu có là vài cuộc nổi loạn nho nhỏ. Điểm xuyết đó đây là thơ ca nhạc họa và vài bộ phim dị dị cho tụi nó làm màu với nhau.
Ôi tin mình đi, chuyện chẳng có gì, chỉ là 1 năm trong cuộc đời thôi mà.

I saw a film today, oh boy

A coming-of-age novel. Man how I hate those generalizations, but that's what it is. The year is 1969. Yazaki is a senior in high school. He listens to Hendrix and read Camus. He aspires to be a rebel and a cool dude. To impress a Lady, Lady Jane, he barricades the school and wants to create his own festival.

It wasn't that I didn't read a lot myself, of course. The complete Sartre; Proust's Remembrance of Things Past; Joyce's Ulysses; the World Classics and Masterpieces of Oriental Literature series published by Chuko Books; Kawade's The World's Great Thinkers and Sacred Texts of the World; the Kama Sutra; Das Kapital; War and Peace; The Divine Comedy; The Sickness unto Death; The collected Works of John Maynard Keynes; The Complete show more Lukacs; The Complete Tanizaki...I knew the titles of all these books by heart. But the works I really loved and actually read and underlined in red ink were the great comic-book serials "Joe Tomorrow," "The Way of the Dragon," "Muyonosuke the Ronin," and "The Genius Bakabon."

There were no icepicks, no exploding neck goiters, no greasy fat perverts, or no women with piercing fixations. Coming from Ryu, this was a bit of a disappointment. Ryu without an icepick is not a Ryu. show less

Love Ryu Murakami's work. This was good but placed next to his other work I have to call it weak. However, Ryu Murakami's "weak" is better than some author's "good".

This book concludes my 5 book marathon of Japanese authors. During this stretch I read two other books by Ryu Murakami and this one couldn't have been more different. There weren't any ice picks, murders, sex or graphic violence to be found in this book. Murakami shows that his talent does not lie solely in the violence and insanity of Piercing and In the Miso Soup.

It is a story of a boy's 17th year set in 1969. It is filled with the usual coming of age tropes but never comes off as stale and is brought to us from a Japanese perspective. It was heartfelt, entertaining and a worthwhile read. If you are interested in seeing the softer side of Ryu Murakami than this is the book for you.