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Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words | 
 enlarge | Author: Jay Rubin
Publisher: Random House UK
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 272587
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0099455447
Dewey Decimal Number: 809
EAN: 9780099455448
ASIN: 0099455447
Publication Date: January 1, 2005
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Condition: Condition: Near new: unread (may have publisher's mark or minor shelfwear).; bkcsd
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Product Description
As a young man, Haruki Murakami played records and mixed drinks at his Tokyo Jazz club, Peter Cat, then wrote at the kitchen table until the sun came up. He loves music of all kinds—jazz, classical, folk, rock—and has more than six thousand records at home. And when he writes, his words have a music all their own, much of it learned from jazz. Jay Rubin, a self-confessed fan, has written a book for other fans who want to know more about this reclusive writer. He reveals the autobiographical elements in Murakami's fiction, and explains how he developed a distinctive new style in Japanese writing. In tracing Murakami's career, he uses interviews he conducted with the author between 1993 and 2001, and draws on insights and observations gathered from over ten years of collaborating with Murakami on translations of his works.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Rubin - a fine editor, but too often pale as a writer October 8, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Jay Rubin is the English translator for such Murakami releases as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood and after the quake. In this book, he brings some interesting insight from Murakami into the novels that have captured such a level of interest in the US. While most US Murakami fans probably only first learned of this author in picking up a copy of A Wild Sheep Chase (for me, it was finding "TV People" in the fantastic anthology Monkey Brain Sushi), Rubin shows us how Murakami has developed a much more thorough career in Japan and has put out not only an impressive number of translations of classics from the English (which was the way he first received any notoriety in the US) but travel writing and even has a website where fans can actually get responses from H.M. himself.
By using a nice array of tidbits from interviews and insight from Murakami himself, Rubin provides a wonderful perspective of Murakami's simple and artistic pursuits in his writing. How Murakami uses inspiration from detective novels to provide novels that have trhe rhythm and drive of a mystery, but the mysteries themselves become unsolveable ones - the influence of Murakami's own disillusionment with the protests of his youth - the influences of jazz and other popular music on Murakami's writing - how Murakami has tried to tackle different genre as his career continued. This, as well as a small treatise on the Boku-narrative Murakami uses in Japanese, one that is far more informal than the usual first-person narratives of Japanese literature (and also a good explanation for the central mystery of my attraction for Murakami's novels, that the narrators always seemed to be the same person, and in fact are, to an extent), makes this book well worth purchasing and exploring if you have any interest in Murakami's writing.
Though it is obvious that Rubin wants to keep the tone of the book informational and biographical in broad strokes rather than critical, it seems that he cannot resist the occasional foray into psychological criticism, which are typically rather empty in nature and don't carry much weight. Also, Rubin's assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of Murakami's later works sound somewhat snooty and seem off the mark.
As an editor and compiler, Rubin puts together a fascinating collection of information of Murakami's work and perspectives from the author himself that don't feel too defensive against analysis (though it would seem that Murakami himself is), and there is an interesting appendix on translation from Japanese, but as an author in this book, Rubin typically falls short of the mark. Murakami, no doubt, was intended to shine brightly in this book, but sometimes he does so more as a competent writer holding power over his admirer.
 A Must for Murakami Fans September 11, 2007
Rubin has translated much of HM's work and has met, in this highly readable book, Murakami's American readership's desire for commentary and biographical information. Rubin takes us through the when, what, and how of the stories and novels, illuminating the connections between them and HM's own opinions of them as well as many other critics' reviews and comments. This book is almost like having another Murakami work on hand--we hear interviews, get plot summaries and interpretations, and generally feel ourselves in Murakami's presence throughout. If you read HM in Japanese, you should also check out Rubin's "Making Sense of Japanese," which is similarly readable, tongue-in-cheek and sensible, useful and informative. Thanks, Rubin, for expanding our understanding of this modern master and his language and culture!
The literary phenomenon that is Haruki Murakami December 5, 2002
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
First of all, don't buy this book purely for biographical purposes, hoping to get some hidden insight on Murakami's life. It is clear that Murakami values his privacy intensely and Rubin goes to great lengths to respect that. Also, what information is given about Murakami will pretty much conform with what you probably could've assumed about him. This book, more than anything else, is a chronological literary criticism of Murakami's works up through "after the quake." Rubin does a good job of analyzing many of the running motifs and themes that occur in Murakami's books (wells, corridors, birds, and elephants, to name a few). It is clear that Rubin has a hard time being a Murakami fan and a Murakami scholar at the same time, but he seems to do a good job remaining impartial (although it is clear which books are his favorites and which are not!)My first experience with Murakami was when I read "A Wild Sheep Chase" a year and a half ago, and before I knew it I had read every major novel and short story he'd written, finishing Pinball 1973 just last week. I read the books in an order that pretty much had nothing to do with the order they were written (beware that the order that the English translations came out in is often quite different than the original order). As a result, reading the details Rubin gives behind each of the books and about the growth that Murakami experienced along the way were among the highlights of the book for me and helped to solidify the ties that hold his books together. Murakami fascinates me because he is still growing rapidly as a writer and a person and the growing pains as well as the links to his past work are found in each work if you know what to look for. Rubin spends the most time in this book discussing "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," which for me was an incredibly thrilling and frustrating book at the same time. Murakami had so many excellent storylines and so many running motifs, but many seemed to frazzle and die out by the end. Some call this piece Murakami's masterpiece, but I have a feeling that when all is said and done, this will be seen as a transitional piece: the first work where Murakami fully takes on the responsibility he feels towards the Japanese people. Murakami tackled so many issues with such brilliance (the Nomonhan Incident in particular) that I look forward to seeing where this new focus takes Murakami in the future. Some of his more recent work ("Sputnik Sweetheart" comes to mind) seem more of a step backwards than real progress, but there is no way Wind-Up Bird is a mere aberration. Perhaps more so than any other writer, we as readers have the interesting opportunity to watch Murakami grow and experiment before our very eyes. If you haven't already, definitely try to get your hands on some of the earlier novels and short stories Rubin mentions ("Hear the Wind Sing" in particular) to get an even better grasp of where Murakami has started from. If you are a serious fan of Murakami and want a better understanding of the thinking behind his works and a bit of an analysis of the works themselves (remember that as an individualist, Murakami believes his books have no one, strict interpretation!), "Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words" is a must-have companion to Murakami's works. Reliving Murakami's works through Rubin's analyses is a joy.
Great info for the Murakami fan October 31, 2002
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you're like me, you're a huge fan of Haruki Murakami, but don't know much about him other than that he's one of Japan's most famous contemporary authors. This book definitely bridges the gap. It's mostly a literary criticism of his novels and short stories, but also includes as much biographical information as the author could find. I personally learned a lot about the underlying themes of Murakami's novels, and was also gratified that someone else thought "Dance, Dance, Dance" wasn't as good as his others. The book makes it clear how Murakami has changed over time and how the characters and events in his novels are inspired by his own life.
Good Primer To Murakami's Work - But Not a Good Biography October 18, 2002
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Having been Murakami's translator for many of his best novels and stories, Jay Rubin has written a solid introduction to Murakami's work in general. There are many great insights in this book, especially dealing with the aspect of translating Murakami's Japanese itself. The most helpful of these was the differentiation of the two versions of Japanese first-person narration - boku and watashi - and problems for this kind of narration to translate properly into English. Since most Japanese literature (according to Rubin) features these first-person narration techniques and not a third-person one (a 'default' narration of western literature), Murakami's narration could seem very interior. This insight helped me understand why Murakami seemed to heavily favor such a narrative technique (which I tended to view as a monotonous trait)- it's a cultural difference, rather than a writerly one. The biographical information of Murakami is sketchy at best, though. Much of it is regurgitated pastiche of already existent info. As I was looking forward to find out about the man who wrote about such fantastic things, I was disappointed to find out the psychological probing of any kind was absent. But get this book if you don't know much about Murakami or his work - it's an excellent introduction.
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