Lady Chatterley’s Brother The first ebook in the new TQC Long Essays series,  called “an exciting new project” by Chad Post of Open Letter and Three Percent. Why can't Nicholson Baker write about sex? And why can Javier Marias? We investigate why porn is a dead end, and why seduction paves the way for the sex writing of the future.
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As you can see above, Knopf has unveiled the cover of Haruki Murakami’s forthcoming, massive novel, 1Q84. It’s quite a pretty cover. To mark the occasion, Knopf’s blog has an informative conversation with uber-designer Chip Kidd on how he built the cover . . . continue reading, and add your comments
If you’re one of the Murakami people out there, Amazon now lists 1Q84 for Oct 25 (though sans cover). . . . continue reading, and add your comments
For those without a whole lot of cash to pitch at some dealer on eBay, you may get your chance to read Pinball, 1973 sooner than you think.
Haruki Murakami’s major works have long been available in the United States, but the author has refused too allow distribution of his first two novels, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973, both of which are narrative precursors to A Wild Sheep Chase, well-known to readers in English. According to CNN Go,translations for the first two were released by the Japanese publisher Kodansha as English study aids. They went . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Scooped up by Knopf, as expected. Interestingly, the article only mentions the first 3 volumes, and as we all now know there'll be more, but I'd doubt that the rest wouldn't go to Vintage/Knopf as well.
Also interestingly, English-language readers will have to buy this one in at least two separate volumes. Murakami-lovers will recall that, though The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was similarly published in a serial format in Japan, U.S. readers got it all in one lump sum. Not this time:
Harvill Secker and Vintage are delighted to have acquired an ambitious trilogy from the . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Didn’t realize there was a third volume in the works:
Shinchosha Publishing Co. put up posters Monday in 25 stations in the greater Tokyo area advertising a third volume in Haruki Murakami’s best-selling novel “1Q84.” Murakami is currently working on the story, aiming for a release next summer, sources said. Sales of the first and second volumes, which hit the market in late May, have sold more than 2.2 million copies in all. The ads, posted in stations including Tokyo and Yokohama, say, “We will continue receiving invaluable things from the story.”
Another review of 1Q84, rather substantial.
I can’t remember the last time a foreign-language book was covered as thoroughly in English upon publication as 1Q84. We’ve already seen The Guardian report on it, this long review, and Murakami discussing it in a recent interview.
From the most recent review:
To a certain extent, 1Q84 is the simple love story that Murakami suggests, centered on the image of the jazz standard “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” But, of course, the book includes an array of other themes, some handled better than others. Murakami’s word choices, . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Between the widespread use of the Internet and Murakami’s huge reputation in English-speaking countries, it seems like 1Q84 is the most-widely-covered-upon-publication non-English title ever. Well, whether or not, here’s more:
“1Q84″ begins with a female protagonist, Aomame, descending an emergency staircase to an alternative reality. Though oblivious at first of having accomplished this feat, she starts to notice tiny peculiarities such as an adjustment in police firearms. Observations at odds with her memory add up and Aomame becomes increasingly confused. Yet she is, for no particular reason, easy to relate with — a fact that becomes unsettling . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Via the Literary Saloon I see a two part interview with Murakami dealing with his recent work, including his new novel, 1Q84.
Q: For the first time in one of your full-length novels, the narrative is given in the third-person. However, an intimacy close to that of a first-person narrative is maintained, and the young people in it are beautifully depicted. This made me realize once again that, even though you have been writing novels for the past 30 years, your work is still literature about early adulthood.
A: As they age, . . . continue reading, and add your comments
The Guardian reports that Haruki Murakami’s gigantic new novel, 1Q84, is rooted in George Orwell’s novel 1984:
Murakami has now admitted that he had “long wanted to write a near-past novel similar to George Orwell’s futuristic novel 1984″ and that this was one of the inspirations for the book. Another was the series of interviews with Aum victims which he conducted following the 1995 gas attacks, and published as Underground.
Underground takes the form of a series of interviews conducted in the wake of the gas attacks on Tokyo’s subway system in 1995. Therein, . . . continue reading, and add your comments
That's the Israeli version of Kafka on the Shore. More here and here.
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Recommended Books DeLillo's major work before White Noise is probably his most underrated novel. Its all right here--the politics of paranoia, terrorism, the unnamable--set in an evocative, timeless Greece.
The most bizarre Abe novel I've yet read, which is indeed saying something. About a subclass of Japanese men who go around wearing boxes from the waist up (and then use them as domiciles in the evening), the book is also an experiment in perspective shifts, a highly unstable, metafictional first-person narrative, and an exploration of voyeurism, consumerism, and aberrant sexuality.
Charting the path to three gunshots--the one that killed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the one that disabled his Islamic extremist assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri, and the one that led to Vincent Van Gogh’s one hundred years earlier--Olsen tells three separate stories that resonate with one another on numerous levels: the logic of extremism, the role of the dissident in Dutch society, the limits of tolerance, the purpose of the artist, the feeling of the most important five minutes of your life. Read my interview with the author.
Creatively structured, well-executed epic novel of rural South Africa from 1950 - 2000. Takes on a lot and lives up to it magnificently. Highly recommended.
A book that's an interview about the book you're supposedly holding in your hands. Creative, potent, and full of life. Just what metafiction should be. Read my post on it.
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On Joining Oulipo by Accident
The Names by Don DeLillo (1982)
The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1973, English 1974)
Head in Flames by Lance Olsen (2009)
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2006, English 2010)
The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas (2006, English 2009)
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