Ryu Murakami Forum

Ryu Murakami

Forum

I ran across this book in the library and I could not put it down. Does anyone know any more about this author and his background in Japan?

>>By coinlockerbaby (Thursday, 13 Nov 2003 05:26)

the murukami I know is different from this one. My murukami wrote Nrwegian woods, which is supposed to be a big modernist classic in japan..

>>By dionysus (Thursday, 13 Nov 2003 05:55)

ryu murakami wrote coin locker babies and one more that i konw of, called almost transparent blue. it's about junkies in 60's tokyo. pretty good, but nothing new to fans of burroughs or say, bukowski, except that it's in japan.
norwegian wood is haruki murakami, who also wrote the great wind-up bird chronicle.
of the two, murakami haruki is i think by far the greater novelist. norwegian wood was a publishing sensation in japan, and he's in translation everywhere.

>>By jakey (Thursday, 20 Nov 2003 19:51)

A Japanese Bukowski? This I've gotta read.

>>By goddog (Saturday, 22 Nov 2003 06:25)

i have just finished reading coin locker babies myself. strange yet hypnotizing. I would recommend reading Almost trasnparent blue. Ryu Murakami (Not to be confused by another Japanese author Haruki Murakami) also released 'In miso soup' which is currently out in japan, scheduled to be in store early 2004. i just released he also directed "Audition" (shudder) has anyone seen this? does anyone still get nightmares from it?

>>By anime grrl (Sunday, 28 Dec 2003 05:45)

ditto anime grrl. i just finished coinlockerbabies myself.....literally a few moments ago....very impressed with its sporadic moments of quirkiness and the details not told in the story....like the bombing of tokyo with datura......how dya reckon it was done? sounded very 28dayslater to me....spechially hashi's emergence from the mental institution into datura-city.

damn....i had a copy of inmisosoup in my hands only yesterday in tokyo....not realising it was unreleased elsewhere i put it back on the shelf. tomorrow's trip to the bookstore (er, not in tokyo) will no doubt be a fruitless affair now. yesterday i did, however, walk away with haruki's norwegienwood and an anthology called monkeybrainsushi (from which ryu murakami is sadly absent). any readers of it? i will probably read the anthology first, whilst waiting for an answer to this question: is norwegianwood the best way to enter haruki murakami's work....or should i opt for something else first? (windupbirdchronicles certainly caught my eye as the one to start with.......). sorry for mixing up my murakamis here, but anyone have any suggestions?

>>By footprint (Wednesday, 31 Dec 2003 12:31)

OK, still on Haruki, not Ryu. In answer to your question, footprint, I can't recommend which to read first, Norwegian Wood or Wind up bird chronicles, because they are very different. Of the two I think Wind up... is much better, it is quirky and surreal, whereas Norwegian... is a much more straight forward, though beautifully written love story. Apparently lots of his fans were quite disappointed with Norwegian wood.

>>By Dibs (Thursday, 1 Jan 2004 21:42)

I'm late into this discussion but I believe that Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the best Haruki Murakami book if the reader favors something with more surrealism and humor. Norwegian Wood was disappointing to many of his fans because it had the least of those elements (which is what they had come to look forward to from him). It dealt with more ordinary themes.

Ryu Murakami is similar to Haruki only in that he shares the same last name and a penchant for surrealism. Ryu's novels have a much finer prose style as far as attention to detail and Coin Locker Babies especially obviously took a great amount of talent and work to create. But Ryu's subject matter and style is primarily for the younger generation while Haruki remains the great Japanese crossover writer for all ages.

>>By quinnk (Wednesday, 19 May 2004 08:47)

anime grrl -

Actually, Takashi Miike is the director of "Audition," which is based on a short by Ryu Murakami.

>>By defacto (Wednesday, 15 Dec 2004 23:11)

The discussion board is currently closed.