Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words

by Jay Rubin

Book Overview

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,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0099455447
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Vintage UK
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.6" x 1.0" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

A Must for Murakami Fans

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

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

Great info for the Murakami fan

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.

The reader from the dolphin hotel is right and wrong

This book is about 50% Rubin's analysis of Murakami's work, about 30% biographical, about 10% about the translation work and differences between Japanese and English, and about 10% "interview style" where we get a few inside details on The Man Himself. This much is true: Anyone expecting a lot of information about The Man Himself should be a little disappointed. The book bills itself as granting more info than it does. I suspect this is out of Rubin's own deferrence to Murakami's privacy. He treads delicately on the info of the author's life in the biographical sections and when we do get a smattering of Murakami's own words about himself (and it's rare), it feels like nuggets culled from stray emails rather than from a sustained closeness of the translator to his author-friend. That's a shame, but it doesn't mar the book, which is a real resource for English readers without a real roadmap of his lesser works. Knowing which stories I need to seek out is so much easier, and understanding the significance of Murakami's first two novels is much better illuminated than before-- given their basic unavailability in print in English.For me, Rubin's translations are my favorites. I simply have to disagree with the reader from the dolphin hotel. The touch that Rubin gives to his translations is very delicate and appreciated. I too have had a chance to peruse Binrbaum's NW translation, and although I can't find it directly lacking in any way, I simply prefer the Rubin version.I really wish Rubin had gone a lot further into understanding what it takes to translate Murakami. This is the area in which he has very unique knowledge compared to the rest of us and he only rarely tells us much about it. Sure, there is a subtext in this book about what it is like to translate certain things, but it was not enough.I rec this book highly to any Murakami fan, especially those that liked HBW & TEOTW and TWUBC --- Rubin dwells on these books plenty (in addition to NW, which sort of goes without saying ... if not for re-translating NW, Rubin would not have the credibility to get this book into print). This volume may have its flaws, but I think a career summary of HM comes at the right time, and Rubin is a good man for the job.

Sheep, INKlings, and Shoko Asahara

I'm a poor graduate student, so I usually wait for a book to come out in paperback before I purchase it. With this book I made an Exception. I started reading Haruki Murakami only little over a year ago, but I have read all of his books thathave been released in the United States. _Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words_ is written by Jay Rubin who translated Haruki Murakami's massive novel The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and other works by Murakami. Rubin gives the reader a closer look at the man and the writer Haruki Murakami. The reader learns a bit about Murakami's background, not too much, but the reader sees where Murakami got some of his ideas. The readers learns a little about Murakami back in the 70s when he and his ran his Jazz club "Peter Cat," and how Murakami wrote his first two novels Kaze no uta o kike and 1973-nen pinball at thekitchen table after a long day of chopping onions among other things. Rubin does a fine job delving, but not too deeply into Murakami's novels and short stories, several of which have not been translated into English yet. We also learn a bit of how Murakami lived at Princeton and in Cambridge, and also of his meeings with American writers. A good book for all Murakami fans.