The wonder and magic of Hiroshi Murakami

You might want to mark down this day somewhere, because I'm going to give you a tip that might make your life much more enjoyable. Sadly, it's nothing life changing like how to pick Lotto or how to lose weight while eating everything (I wish). But this little tip has certainly made my life immensely more enjoyable, and I'm hoping you'll enjoy it as well.

It all started when I decided that one of my life's goals is to visit every major city that starts with the letter T. Why T you ask?

Well T is a very cool letter — just a simple horizontal and vertical line. That's good enough for me.

So I started my quest by going to Toronto and thoroughly enjoying it. Toronto is a world-class city that is vibrant, clean, and full of fun things to do. Can't wait to go back.

The next big T city I want to visit is Tokyo, which is going to be tough since I don't like to fly but I'll figure something out. From what I've read, Tokyo is another beautiful city rich in culture. Looking forward to that trip immensely.

Thinking about Tokyo got me noticing things related to Japan, including  ads in magazines for author Haruki Murakami. I read a lot and I have a reading list a mile long, but something clicked and I decided to give him a try. Good move, because he is really, really good. This is where my tip comes in.

If you've ever:

— Been in a big, crowded city yet felt totally alone;

— Had your heart broken, leading to intense, almost physical pain;

— Wondered what 16-year-old girls think about;

— Experienced a devastating loss;

— Awakened from a dream and had a hard time telling if the dream was real or not;

— Felt that women look best in a simple dress with little or no makeup;

— Had trouble finding meaning in your work;

— Felt like sitting in a deep dry well or a silo all by yourself, just to think; or

— Wondered why calculus is easier to comprehend than relationships —

then you will like reading Haruki Murakami very, very much.

Listen, this guy is the real deal. His latest book sold one million copies in its first month in Japan alone and has been translated to over 50 different languages. When it comes to good old-fashioned books in this day and age, that is just off the charts.

The thing about reading a Japanese author like Murakami is by necessity you have to read a translation. There are always tough choices translators must make — ask any Biblical scholar.

Often you're not sure if you're getting the right nuances as the author intended. In addition, one of Murakami's books was too long when it was translated, so entire chapters were omitted and others were rearranged. That's too bad for us but it is what it is and these books are still awesome.

Here are the Hiroshi Murakami books I've read so far:   

— "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage": This is his latest blockbuster, about a guy who in high school had four close friends, two guys and two girls. These five did everything together and were inseparable.

Then one day the four won't take his phone calls and start to avoid him totally, with no explanation or apparent reason. From this simple premise comes a book that deeply and exquisitely explores the vagaries of the human condition.

I found it absolutely marvelous. Now I'm not an English major or a literary critic, so I know this is kind of crude, but to me he's like a combination of Kurt Vonnegut's sharp satire and knack of pointing out the silliness of so many things, with Andy Rooney's uncanny powers for observation, along with the sheer narrative power of Ernest Hemmingway. That's pretty good for a guy you are reading through a translator, I think.

— "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle": This one is about an ordinary guy whose wife leaves for work one morning and never comes back. Along with that, we have a missing cat, clairvoyance, World War II flashbacks, and a lot of solitary dreaming and thinking.

After reading this one, I seriously thought about digging a well in my backyard to go sit in and contemplate, but our water table is too high and I'm not a very good swimmer. This is a spellbinding book with a lot of dream sequences (or are they dreams?). A great read.

— "1Q84":  This is a sprawling, very ambitious, tome over 900 pages long set in a world close to our own but with two moons. The year is 1984 (and Orwell is indeed referenced), but it's a Questionable 1984, hence "1Q84." This one has dreams and cults and religion and much more.

While it's terrific I wouldn't recommend this as your first Murakami book since it's so long and there's just so much going on. Still, the two main characters, Tengo and Aomame, are so intricately envisioned that they stayed with me for weeks after I finished the book. That's how powerful Murakami's writing is.

— "Norwegian Wood": A 17-year-old commits suicide, leaving his girlfriend and best friend to pick up the pieces. This is the most personal Murakami book I've read so far, in the sense of how deeply he explores the most intimate feelings of each character. A very emotional and beautiful work.

— "Wind/Pinball: Two Novels": An interesting way to get into Murakami very easily is this new translation of his first two novels that was just released this year. Even in these early works, you can sense the seeds of greatness.

In the introduction, he tells about being at a baseball game and realizing, literally at the crack of the bat, that he could be a writer. He also tells about starting out by writing in his very limited English, and then translating that back to Japanese. He thinks this process allowed him to find his unique writer's voice. However he found it, it's very lucky for us that he did.

I've read some reviews of Murakami's work and there's the constant comparison to Kafka because of the recurring theme of alienation in modern society. I can see that, but until he has a character wake up as a giant insect, I prefer to think of his work as uniquely his own.

What other Japanese writer has had this kind of success in the West? No matter who you compare him to, he's still a great read, and that's all that really matters to me.

There has been a book about de-cluttering by a Japanese writer on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks and weeks ("The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo), so, in that spirit I've been taking out the Murakami books from the library instead of buying them.

There is often a long wait for his books since they are popular, so when the library finally calls I get real excited, drop whatever I'm doing, and run down there. Then it's no TV or even music until I read the whole book cover to cover.

There are around a dozen Murakami books and I can't wait to get to them all. You gotta love your local library.

I wanted to pick out just one Murakami sentence from the thousands I've read at this point to give you an example of the sheer beauty of his writing, so I chose this one, from his short story "Kino": "Like dry ground welcoming the rain, he let the solitude, silence, and loneliness sink in."

That sentence just takes my breath away; simple, exquisite, and beautiful. If I could write like that, I wouldn't have to spend all day playing around with computer databases, that's for sure.

Of course, nothing is perfect in life, and I do have a couple of nits to pick with Mr. Murakami. You know how Woody Allen basically plays the same character in each of his movies?

In the several Murakami books I've read so far it seems like the narrator is just about the same guy: a simple, quite, contemplative young man thrust into some ordinary and some quite extraordinary situations.

Also, in each book the word "concrete" is used way too much, as in "Can you give me a concrete example?" or "Can you say it in a concrete manner?" I'm wondering if this is due to the translating. Despite these couple of things, Murakami's books are terrific.

Oh, one more thing — Haruki Murakami writes about people, and people like to have sex, so there are quite a few graphic and steamy scenes in these books. That doesn't bother me but if you have a thing about that don't say I didn't warn you!

It's only in there because that's what that characters call for and it adds to the stories in a good way. In fact, his female characters are so alluring that, if I ever got to meet the somewhat reclusive author, one of the first things I'd ask him is which one of them he'd date if he could.

So there's your tip. If you're looking for a good read (and why wouldn't you be?) try Haruki Murakami. You won't be disappointed.