I Still Love Haruki Murakami

I always enjoy reading Haruki Murakami's books. Well, I may still have several books to go before I completely finish reading all his works. But so far, no matter how weird they are, no matter how inconclusive their endings turn out to be, and although I understand the points argued by so many people who dislike, even hate, Murakami's books, I still love Haruki Murakami and consider him one of my favorite authors.

Unlike the majority, I didn't start with Norwegian Wood, and up to now I still haven't read Norwegian Wood (another confession) (yet I have read quite a number of his books anyway). Instead, I started by reading the most gigantic and ambitious book of his, 1Q84. Strangely, I got along just fine with this book and its lonely protagonists as well as their respective past and longing and problems, weird sex scenes, massive descriptions of almost everything, occasional (frequent?) drops of (most of them Western) music or literature references, and not to mention the whole strangeness and quirkiness of it. Mostly the otherworldly experiences. They are there, and they just happen - but not accompanied by a generous amount of explanation. Some are left hanging, and like I said before, often inconclusive.

Well, this kind of thing also happens to his other books, such as Sputnik Sweetheart or Kafka on the Shore. It's like a trademark. There's this character who goes over to another world, and he/she might/might not make it back to the real world. More cat town experiences (this cat town story is mentioned in 1Q84, telling a tale of a man who drops off at a station, and he lands in a town of cat and spends some time there, frightened yet curious of its inhabitants, and he misses the train back home. No train comes to that station afterwards, and he's trapped forever in the cat town). In other word, trapped in another world entirely different than the one we reside.

Besides the existence of and journey to another world, Murakami's books are famous probably of its in-depth exploration on human longing, their incapability and limitations, troubled relationships, finding and searching for lost thing and identity... well in a way you could say that it's kinda depressing.

But I don't know. I do find that journey, although not all aspects are thoroughly understood, fascinating.

I enjoy the weirdness of the story, and I don't quite understand why. It's strange, because I understand, more easily, why Murakami's books annoy some people, how they say it makes them feel depressed because of those lonely protagonists, or that it is simply boring and the surrealistic of it is plainly frustrating. Or the way the unsolved riddles are just... unsolved. Or that because his one novel resembles his previous novel a lot, and the raw plot is just overused (1Q84, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Kafka on the Shore, Sputnik Sweetheart)...

Well, Murakami plays a lot with symbolism and analogy. Foretelling, and sometimes a view or philosophy of life is infused into his characters' dialogues - and this, I could say with confidence, is one of the best qualities in his novel. It is just interesting to read them, in a prose so easily understandable yet heavy in weights, in relation to the context of the story itself. Honestly, they can be thought-provoking - and although people may find it tiresome to go through that kind of book, especially when the book is also incorporated with too-detailed yet unnecessary description of honestly unnecessary, non-essential things - I still love every bit of it.

Yet, I don't swallow everything. I may agree or blatantly disagree with his characters and their views, their arguments and reasoning, and the roots of senses their decisions are derived from. But then again, it is always in my nature to be interested in what people have to say about life - their philosophy of life, their opinions, their experiences and how those experiences shape them in person and quality. 

Which is why I always take my time when I read Murakami's books. I don't read his books consecutively - one's finished, then I'd pick another one. No. I read other books: fantasy, adventure, sci-fi, etc. - and it would be months before I decide to buy and read another book of his. Another strange thing is, in between, I would simply miss it. I would simply miss reading Murakami's prose (that doesn't happen with other authors, I wonder why) and when I don't have a new Murakami book, I'd pick his short stories or reread his quotes instead.

This being said, I don't know if later I would end up detesting Murakami (let's say, after I read all his works including other nonfiction books he writes), but let's just see.

Presently, I love his works so far.