Sayaka Murata Book Club

I think two weeks works great! I actually anticipate getting a bit behind this month due to some overlapping bookclubs, ski trips, and being busy with work. If I somehow find myself without enough to read I have plenty of manga to finally tackle.

That will also hopefully help out @softlyraining and @AmomentOfMusic! (also we might need some help breaking this tie if either of you cares to cast a vote)

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Think we’re ready to call the poll?

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I’ve not seen @NicoleIsEnough yet. But perhaps they are not reading with us this time?

Hey, thanks for thinking of me! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

I’ve decided to not continue with reading Murata books for the time being. The reason is twofold: Firstly, there are soooo many good books out there that I want to read, and I can’t read them all! :tired_face:
Secondly, I found Murata’s stories to be somewhat repetitive topic-wise. Also, the way she deals with these topics is interesting, but I don’t feel that it’s helping me … hmmm … learn and generate new worldviews and ultimately develop as a human, maybe? (I’ll write more about this in my post about 地球星人, so I don’t want to anticipate myself too much here.) I definitely don’t regret having read her books so far, but I feel that now is the time to move on for a bit.

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Ah, shame to lose you, but of course our paths will cross in other book clubs! I definitely understand your reasoning.

In that case we are ready to call it! 消滅世界 will be our next pick. Thanks to everyone who voted.

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And here’s the home thread! I’ll have to think about a suitable emoji. Open to suggestions! :grin:

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It looks like I’ll not join you for this one, some stuff got in the way and by the looks of it, I might not have as much free time anymore in the next few weeks/months. The original plan was to read two books, but now I still wanted to read at least one and I just decided to go with 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん. However I’ll probably rejoin you for the next Murata book.

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Unfortunately I may have to back out of this one as well… 薬屋のひとりごと has proven much more of a time commitment than I expected and I’d like to see it through to the end. I’ll also be fairly busy and unable to access the forums for a few weeks in the coming months, so I wouldn’t be as participatory in discussion as I would like to be anyway.

Depending on how things go I might be able to try and catch up later, but at the very least I can hopefully join in for the next one!

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In the unlikely event that somebody lives in or near Munich, Germany and would like to listen to a talk about 殺人出産: https://www.japan.uni-muenchen.de/veranstaltungen/abstracts_kolloquium_sose_2022/abstract_saladin/index.html
Unfortunately it is not streamed, as it seems :frowning:

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Looks like there’s a new Murata translation coming out this summer!

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Happened to come across this introduction of Murata’s books on a booktuber channel: 大好きな村田沙耶香作品を紹介します - YouTube

I liked the tidbit that she is known in author circles as クレイジー村田 and these guys joking if that’s the name of her スタンド :smile:

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I am wondering if we should have a hiatus. Readership has dropped off a fair bit since we started this book club and I am personally also ready to take a break from Sayaka Murata’s books in order to have more time to read other authors. I am not sure how everyone else is feeling though. Feel free to chime in!

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I’m on the same page. I still enjoy her writing (for all that I didn’t like 消滅世界 :sweat_smile:), but I’d like to take a bit of a break as well.

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I’m not quite ready to dive back into Murata yet but I also don’t want to miss the next pick either, so a hiatus sound perfect! I am itching to read some of Murata’s non-fiction though—maybe we could pick and choose from となりの脳世界 in the interval?

I’m thinking of exploring some Murakami later this summer if anyone wants to get an informal thing going—probably either 1Q84 or Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I’m a bit jealous of the folks in the ABC experiencing Kafka on the Shore for the first time.

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I don’t mind time off, either. I still want to read しろいろの街の、その骨の体温の in the near future but definitely feel like taking time to read something from a different author would be a welcome change (and there’s enough I’m interested in haha) :smiley:

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I still have your promise on that one, right? :wink:

nah, just kidding
I’m up for reading the second part of book 1 together with you but only after Kafka is over because I don’t want to read two Murakami books in parallel :sweat_smile:

Sorry, but… nope :sweat_smile:

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I have a buddy who was looking to read Wind Up Bird with me, but he hasn’t fully committed yet. I will definitely end up reading both eventually though!

And why a no to Wind Up Bird? Was it you who mentioned a certain phobia that would not go well with it?

:joy::joy::joy: I’m sorry

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I personally am really invested in a project for the next 3 months (trying to get a certification, and I have lab access for 90 days), so I don’t really have time to participate until middle October. So I am all in for a hiatus :smiley:

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Off-topic Murakami talk

Yeah, so that phobia is definitely a factor, not gonna lie. Although I think I could try to overcome it little by little… but another point weighs much more for me: Last year or so I watched an interview with Ursula Gräfe, the German translator of Murakami’s works, and she recalled how she talked to another Murakami translator (don’t remember which language, though, maybe Italian??) and there is this one scene where a person is skinned, I think (and probably alive? forgot the details) and the other translator said she could not translate this scene when she was alone, and on top of that she had to get drunk before working on it, because it was so horrible. I mean, translating of course has a whole other level of intensity to it compared to just reading, but still.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Murakami’s way with words! His descriptions are so vivid and suck me straight in. Also I don’t really take offense in depictions of sex or violence, as long as they serve as a vehicle to carry a message across. But I’m not exactly a fan of excessive violence, especially not of the disgusting kind. So I would rather explore some other authors instead, I guess :blush:

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More off-topic on Murakami (sorry):
I’ve read most of Murakami’s books that are available in translation, although none of them recently. I remember that I enjoyed them, that there was some element that made me want to keep reading, a constant mystery, and that said mystery was never really resolved, even at the end of the book. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what any specific book was about - I don’t remember a thing, apart from 1Q84 which was the most recent one. I keep seeing people mention horrible scenes from his books and I’m shocked - how is it possible that I have no memory of such scenes? I almost certainly need to reread at some point… :thinking:

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