While we have been reading several of Murakami's works along with other works that he was inspired by, I have always wondered how he would rank his favorites books. After all, he is a total avid reader. While I was doing research for my presentation on Murakami recently, I was looking up recent news about Murakami and found several articles talking about Murakami's five favorite books. Some of them don't surprise me, but some of them I have never heard before.
Without any surprise, one of his favorite books is The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. After reading both The Long Goodbye and A Wild Sheep Chase, the influence from Chandler is undeniable. Murakami says that Philip Marlow is a fantasy in the eyes of Chandler, but he is real in the eyes of Murakami. He said himself that he has read The Long Goodbye five or six times because he like's Chandler's writing style so much. It was an amazing experience for me to read both Chandler and Murakami's books at the same time and be able to see the similarities and difference between two great novelists.
Another one of Murakami's favorite books is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like many, many other people, this is also one of my favorite books. Murakami thinks that he wouldn't be writing that kind of literature he is today if it wasn't for Fitzgerald's novel. He would choose The Great Gatsby as the book that means the most to him. From our discussion in class on Friday, we read Drive My Car and talked about the influence and similarities with The Great Gatsby. For example, both works feature a yellow car. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby drives flashy yellow Rolls-Royce to show off his wealth and catch the attention of Daisy. But in Drive My Car, Kafuku drives and rides a Saab 900 Convertible which is not as nice as a Rolls-Royce. We only know that Gatsby drives a yellow Rolls-Royce, but Murakami always supplies manufacturing details of his characters' cars which is an important detail I didn't know till recently. The attention to detail here is fascinating. I believe this has something to do with the Japanese culture as well because Japanese society cares about details. When talking about certain people on the news, the ages of those people will always be revealed. In the US, that is not common at all.
Moving on, Murakami also names The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger as one of his favorite books. Murakami explains how when he was young, he enjoyed dark and disturbing stories, so it was the perfect book for him when he was seventeen. He remember it as being funny, but it was dark and strong. In this class, we read "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger. In my opinion, I thought this short story was incredibly disturbing with the pedophilia I was getting from the story. I don't think this is my type of genre, but I can see how Murakami was influenced by Salinger. In the excerpts I read of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Zoo Attack and Sputnik Sweetheart, I felt strong themes of darkness in the stories that disturbed me quite a bit. It is interesting to read different Murakami stories as the themes can change so much.
The last two of his favorite books are The Castle by Franz Kafka and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Murakami read The Castle when he was 15 and remembered it being an incredible book that gave him tremendous shock. The book felt so real and unreal to him that his heart felt like it was torn into two. It is said that Murakami's The End of the World narrative has much in common with The Castle. I look forward to reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World in the upcoming week. Next, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky was one of the great novels Murakami read and he believes that Dostoevsky kept getting bigger and greater with his writing as he wrote The Brothers Karamazov in his late fifties. Many readers have said that 1Q84 is Murakami's version of The Brothers Karamazov as it is a book filled with anger and violence. I have yet to read 1Q84, but it is on my reading wishlist.
It is amazing to see how influenced Murakami can get from his favorite authors and books. It is easy to spot similarities in the writings, yet Murakami still has his own flare in his writing. I definitely think I will be reading more of Murakami's writings outside of this class and hopefully all his favorite books too.
Links: https://lithub.com/here-are-haruki-murakamis-five-favorite-books/
Sonia
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