M Salazar

A weird one. Demian is a very imperfect book. Some passages can be tedious or uninteresting; it is very much a product of its time, and often made me roll my eyes. But I cannot deny that there is a slumbering power within these pages - it's a book I'll often think about in my own struggle to be born, to come home.

on a less serious note, Demian is literally just Griffith from Berserk (pre-Eclipse), and Hesse is just the German Murakami(or, more appropriately, Murakami the Japanese Hesse).

Creo que las primeras dos partes podían haber sido mucho más cortas. El libro de verdad me enganchó mucho en el tercer acto. Entiendo como fungió de inspiración para Murakami et al. Creo que me sirvió que por casualidad he estado viendo otros medios japoneses(shogun, lol) que me hizo considerar más las normas culturales del país y así tmb entender mejor por qué todos los personajes se niegan a ser directos y me cagan. Bellísima edición como siempre de Impedimenta.


(spoiler)
por cierto: qué chingados tienen los japoneses con triángulos amorosos suicidas?

Finding something good. Losing something good. Losing again. Changing. Believing in something, something that warms the clump of frozen dirt near your heart. Not everything is lost to the river of time.

Really liked this book. Usual Murakami complaints (“she breasted boobily...”), usual Murakami tropes (threesomes, bifurcating realities, self-insert main character), but also more of the same things that make him shine.

Definitely not perfect. In my opinion, not tight enough. Could be shorter and more focused. I loved the scenery, though. Thought Sara was okay and liked what she meant for the story and Tsukuru's character arc, but I felt her scenes were a bit out of place sometimes. Ich konnte sie einfach nicht wahrnehmen.

I also read Novelist as a Vocation recently, and I absolutely did get how this is a return to something he began in Norwegian Wood. I don't think it's a coincidence these are his most grounded novels.

Anyway, it's good. One of his best. Murakami is hard sometimes because I'd love to recommend him more, but sometimes you just have to read him a lot to be aware of and filter out his bullshit. But it's really good.

Also, Ursula Gräfe elevates his stories in German so much. She is such an incredible translator. I don't think I've ever preferred an English translation of his work.

5 things i want to say about this book
1. I fucking love this guy's writing style. i would read a book of his about watching paint dry.
2. He should be in fucking prison. Someone needs lock this mf up expeditiously. his self insert main characters' descriptions of and interactions with female minors are, at best, concerning...
3. All the female characters want to have sex with the MC. Lol. Not complaining about sex in his books, it's a big part of what they're all about, and sex can very well be a great catalyst for feelings, realizations, changes in stories. But, lol.
4. He really got bored with his own plot not even halfway through - the book literally abandons its starting premise and cast of characters. Nothing leads anywhere. Like going out for a drive. Going nowhere. Just taking a stroll.
5. issues notwithstanding, i still think this is a banger. had fun reading.

Muy bueno, lo disfruté bastante. Es definitivamente un page turner. Pero hay algo que no me termina de convencer. Claro, estoy muy feliz de que este libro se hizo, y creo que totalmente vale la pena leer. Y claro que hay mucho poder en la prosa directa que narra la historia. Es una historia que merece ser contada. Me recordó un poco a Chinua Achebe.
Pero creo que deja poco espacio para el lector. El primer acto me gustó mucho, el final es perfecto, deja la puerta abierta para algo genial. Y el tercero también toma la narración en una dirección más interesante, pero si opino que el libro pierde un poco de su magia en el desarrollo del medio. Es uno que tendré que releer en unos años.
A ver si gana el booker prize.