Haruki Murakami

Japanese novelist and one of Tamir's favourite authors, who brought him back to fiction. Grant thinks he is wildly overrated, 'the Stephen King of Japanese literature', and dislikes his magic realism.

Where it appears 7

the forbidden wonderland of murakamiEp 10 · with Salih Yayar
Japanese novelist at the center of the whole episode. Discussed: his late start as a writer at 30, the jazz club he ran with his wife, his reclusiveness and rare English interviews (BBC), his 4am writing-and-running routine, his love of Jung, and his use of genre structures. A short clip from a rare early-1990s interview opens the episode.
Listen at 0:47 Read it in the transcript
portal to the unknownEp 9 · with Nevena
Japanese novelist and a favorite of Tamir's. Tamir closes the episode with a passage from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and points to Murakami's recurring device of the well.
ghosts of griefEp 5 · with Mia Cosco
Tamir's favorite author (or at least top three); his novel about being ghosted by friends illustrates that grief isn't only about physical death.
the realm of dreamsEp 4 · with Samantha Chung
Japanese novelist and Tamir's favorite author. Tamir says Murakami's books are drafted like dreamscapes (no clean endings, illogical, eerie, magical realist), which is why they shifted something in him when book-club fiction hadn't.
Listen at 13:48 Read it in the transcript
how to win at pinball & lifeEp 3 · with Ian Coll
Japanese novelist and one of Tamir's favorite writers; his novella Pinball, 1973 supplies the episode's central metaphor, and a Dance Dance Dance poster hangs behind Ian.
the antidote to madnessEp 2 · with Grant Shipway
Listen at 1:16:50 Read it in the transcript
don't pretend you aren't confusedEp 1 · with Tyler Dorchester
Tamir's favorite author ('the GOAT' for him), discovered through a pandemic book club. Tamir has given Tyler 1Q84 and Novelist as a Vocation, and uses Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki as the episode's central mirror for being ghosted by friends.

Connections

Magic Realism

Created

Words spoken

Everything was unchanged... and at the same time everything had changed.Haruki Murakami · Ep 9 · 59:37
It's not easy to live in Japan as a loner. And I'm a loner, you know, I'm an individualist.Haruki Murakami · Ep 10 · 1:39

Influenced

Referenced by

References

Mentioned alongside

Murakami wrote at the kitchen tableTamir Barzilai · Ep 2 · 1:16:50
Tamir recounts that Murakami, at 30, ran a bar and after getting home late at night would sit at his kitchen table for two hours writing by hand, producing Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball…
Abandoning the cat at the beachSalih Yayar · Ep 10 · 1:11:07
Salih relates Murakami's memoir of his father: the family left their cat at the beach, drove home, and found the cat already waiting there, inexplicably. Salih takes this as Murakami's real…
Murakami story as homeworkSamantha Chung · Ep 4 · 13:48
Within hours of meeting Samantha at his studio, Tamir gave her Murakami's 'Sleep' from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman as homework due the next week. She took it as a sign from the universe…
Salih finds Killing Commendatore at 30Salih Yayar · Ep 10 · 7:09
In April 2018, stressed and just past 30 after years of rushed business travel, Salih used a birthday bookstore voucher from his family. On a bright spring day he opened the prominently…
Discovering Murakami in a pandemic book clubTamir Barzilai · Ep 1 · 50:03
In early 2020, still reading heavy classics like the Odyssey, the Ramayana and Siddhartha, Tamir joined a book club so he wouldn't control the picks. When Murakami came up, he chose…
Murakami helped Salih cope with threatening peopleSalih Yayar · Ep 10 · 1:37:46
Salih says certain people in his life felt like threats, and turning them into Murakami-style metaphors made them much easier to cope with. Reading Murakami also changed his habits: he now…
A book club pulled him back to fictionTamir Barzilai · Ep 2 · 1:23:15
Tamir, a software entrepreneur with a shelf of non-fiction, joined a book club in 2020 to read fiction. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World made him feel transported, with…
Book club turned Tamir to fictionTamir Barzilai · Ep 4 · 19:20
About four and a half years earlier, during COVID, Tamir joined a book club and set his non-fiction aside. Most of the novels were 'pretty cool' but changed nothing; Murakami was the one…
Murakami shrugs at Kawakami's questionsSalih Yayar · Ep 10 · 42:44
In a long conversation, Mieko Kawakami asked Murakami pointed questions about his female characters. Salih recalls his breezy reply ('Oh, I never thought about this... I just write it…
Murakami's epiphany at the ballparkTamir Barzilai · Ep 10 · 33:05
Tamir retells how Murakami, who ran a jazz bar with his wife, had a flash of inspiration at 30 while watching his favorite (and long-losing) baseball team, which went on to win the league…
Tamir's first-edition collectionTamir Barzilai · Ep 10 · 2:27
Tamir owns every US first edition of Murakami's books, in paperback and hardcover, and buys first printings when he can.