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Our narrator K has been friend-zoned by young would be novelist Sumire. He takes her lack of sexual interest in him very graciously however and is always there for her even when she has a habit of calling him in the middle of the night to ask him bizarre esoteric questions. Sumire in turn becomes infatuated by a lovely business-woman, Miu, 17 years her senior who offers her a post as her executive assistant. This new job and relationship takes Sumire around the globe and away from K until the ni
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One of Murakami's shortest novels, this is also one of his most moving (right up there with Norwegian Wood). A triangular love story of another of Murakami's nameless male protagonists, his friend whom he is also in love with but she doesn't reciprocate, Sumire, and Miu, a Korean businesswoman who loves Sumire as Sumire also loves her, even though Miu cannot quite bring herself to reciprocate. As with many of Murakami's stories, the plot is deceptively simple, and its magical-realist denouement
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I like Murakami but it does seem like he writes the same characters over and over, and they never develop very much. Here we have the familiar nice, unassuming guy living a lonely life punctuated by occasional hookups with his older, married girlfriend, and the sense that real life is happening in a parallel universe that he never reaches but other people (especially the younger woman he's in love with) do.
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Classic Murakami. Compelling characters involved in a narrative that is simultaneously emotionally real and fantastic. Haunting.
Jan 02, 2022
Diane
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
20th-century,
1001-done,
bipoc-author,
lgbtq,
surrealism,
1001,
japanese,
translated,
2021-reads
May 13, 2011
Charisma
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books,
2006-edition
Jan 18, 2012
Haaze
marked it as to-read
Jan 05, 2014
Rebekah
marked it as to-read
Jun 17, 2017
Yvonne
marked it as to-read
Dec 05, 2017
Kai Coates
marked it as to-read
