Category: Haruki Murakami

Links: Collectors

by Mark Athitakis, posted in Aleksandar Hemon, David Foster Wallace, Donald Ray Pollock, Haruki Murakami, Jeffrey Eugenides, Kindle, Raymond Carver, Russell Banks, Saul Bellow, William Styron

Naoko Mayuzumi, who’s generously compiled a bibliography of Haruki Murakami‘s Japanese translations of American writers, recently wrote in with news of a new translation, based on Remembering Ray: A Composite Biography of Raymond Carver. The page has been updated accordingly.

This blog isn’t available on the Kindle. The main reason I’m not signing up is that I think that free is a perfectly fine price to put on what I what I’m slinging here. But it’s not the only reason.

Telegraph classical music critic Michael White considers the recent death of composer Nicholas Maw by pulling out a 2002 feature on Maw’s opera based on William Styron‘s Sophie’s Choice, with some comments by Styron.

Jeffrey Eugenides thinks that Saul Bellow‘s Herzog is a great cure for writer’s block, but given that it’s going to be a while before he finishes a follow-up to Middlesex, it’s probably best to take his advice with a grain of salt.

Critical Distance, an new effort to create a repository of thoughful reconsiderations of recent American fiction, launched yesterday with founder Dan Green‘s essay on Russell Banks‘ Affliction. I’ll have more to say on this project soon-ish.

The summer issue of Bookforum is available online, including an interview with Aleksandar Hemon.

If you’re looking for a group summer reading project, your ship has just come in.

Knockemstiff author Donald Ray Pollock gave thanks for the $35,000 prize he received at the PEN Literary Awards earlier this week. “It was good timing,” he said. “I’m getting ready to get out of grad school and there are no jobs right now.”

American Made

by Mark Athitakis, posted in F. Scott Fitzgerald, Haruki Murakami, J.D. Salinger, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer who’s deeply influenced by American ones—it’s telling that his upcoming memoir of distance running is titled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. So it’s not that surprising to hear that in recent years he’s been translating a host of American classics, including The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Long Goodbye, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (Miss Brolly reports on stumbling over a copy of that last book.) Speaking with the Mainichi Daily News (which is apparently running a week’s worth of interviews with the author), Murakami calls out Raymond Chandler for special attention:

“Chandler’s writing style really grabbed me,” he says. “There’s something special about his writing. For years, I’ve always wondered what it was. Even after I’d translated him, though, I’m still wondering what it is that makes him special.”

Murakami’s strong interest in the secret behind that writing style was also evident in the long postscript he wrote for his translation of “The Long Goodbye.” In the afterword, Murakami writes: “Chandler’s creativity lies in the ‘ego set like a black box.'”

If there’s a listing somewhere in English of all the books that Murakami has translated, I can’t find it. But a quick Google shows that his love for American pop culture is evident: He’s translated a book on Pet Sounds and Mikal Gilmore‘s Shot to the Heart.