Hard Boiled Wonderland is excellent, as is just about anything else Murakami has written.
Don't know the others, and I'm a little surprised to not see any Oe.
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Anonymous2009-08-11 23:04
Are the plots as stupid and predictable as japanese manga/anime?
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Anonymous2009-08-12 15:41
"Masks" is a good read, Enchi is a smart woman and a strong writer. I haven't read "Kusamakura" but Soseki's writing in general is pretty good. And of course Murakami is Murakami.
I'm kinda disappointed in the lack of Oe as well. Also, no Mishima or Kawabata? tsk tsk
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Anonymous2009-08-12 16:30
>>8
Only if you're racist enough to conflate real literature with stupid nerdy shit like cartoons and comic books just because they're Japanese.
Racism has nothing to do with it, I'm not going out on a limb to think that something prevalent in multiple Japanese mediums might be true for another form. Anime and Manga were just two examples, it also seems like a trend in their television and film. The only Japanese novel I've read is Botchan
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Anonymous2009-08-13 5:29
>>11
Stop the bullshit, dude. You're a little bitch behind a keyboard and nothing more. Your mental illness will never be accepted and you're going to die alone and forgotten and not even your family will miss you.
You're an impotent little coward who's too fucking stupid and deranged to realize that you're sick in the head.
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Anonymous2009-08-13 12:01
>>12
Oh. I probably would have responded with something else, but that's fine.
LOL 1/10 on the trolling, too obvious. I'm sorry I offended the weeaboos. A simple "jappo-lit isn't as stupid as half the shit that comes out of gooksville" would have been fine though. Enjoy the racism.
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Anonymous2009-08-13 19:32
>>14
What? Why are you referencing a PBF comic? That doesn't even make any sense, especially since it's a nonsense word.
>>16
What? I'm sorry, I'm not going to get all your catchphrases as I don't really read the other boards. They're mostly a waste of time (just like this one)
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Anonymous2009-08-15 17:46
o_o
>this thread
also, thanks for the help, i'll look forward to enchi soseki and murakami
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Anonymous2009-08-16 20:09
Murakami is probably the most boring author in the history of the world. I read 2/3rds of Wind Up Bird. The entire book is just one boring, plain, uninteresting unemployed man spending his entire day answering boring phone calls and looking for his cat in the backyard. Completely uninspired and not worth the time.
Who was it wrote The Ark Sakura? Very cool, but I can't remember the author. I especially liked the worm that could subsist entirely on its own excrement.
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Anonymous2009-08-21 17:46
Kobo Abe wrote "The Ark Sakura"
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Anonymous2009-08-28 3:30
Can anyone recommend some good Japanese horror literature?
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Anonymous2009-09-27 12:41
Since this thread is already on the topic, what are the top 3 books I should read to be introduced to Japanese literature? No Murakami please, I've already read quite a bit of him.
Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids, by Kenzaburo Oe should be one of them.
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Anonymous2009-09-29 19:59
Murakami is actually pretty cool. You spend a lot of time inside his characters' heads, riding along as they narrate and by the middle/end oh his longer books, it almost feels like you've met a pretty cool guy...nevermind that it's not real. Plus, Murakami has a way of getting really weird, really fast and having it sneak up on you, which can be fun.
Yeah, I love how he paints this regular, mundane world, with these average characters, and then will throw in something surreal somewhere in the middle of all this normality.
Except End of The World and After Dark, which are both pretty weird from the start.