![]() ![]() But this is not something you can take for granted. It is written in the first person form (that’s what the title means: “I” – the nominative form of the pronoun) and it could be that the narrator, “I”, is the author, Murakami. To find out why, I asked, What is it about?įirst Person Singular could be about Haruki Murakami’s youth, his career as a writer, and his love life. I felt that, while it had plenty of mysteriousness and was dreamlike/nightmarish-like, it was sometimes simply incomprehensible, messy, so to speak. My first impression was that I was bothered by First Person Singular I felt there was something strange about it but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. ![]() ![]() Start by asking a question – What is it about? The same must be said of Murakami – I have to look at this novel within the parameters of my limited exposure to Japanese literature. But I can only ever read these works in translation and, not being Japanese, will probably never grasp the subtleties of the characterization, settings and cultural references. ![]() I have read a few Japanese authors and poets in translation, classics by Murasaki Shikibu and Matsuo Bashō, but mostly the work of post-WWII authors like Yukio Mishima and Natsuo Kirino. Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami (Translated into English by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen)Īfter I read it, I wondered if my lingering dissatisfaction with it was due to Japanese fiction conventions, the narrative itself, or the translation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |