[desertblues]

Well, I finished all the stories. In almost all of them there are surreal elements, as is usual in Murakami’s books. Also most people in it are lonely; estranged from their family, hopelessly in love, divorced, fatherless or left their home. Some of the stories have a hopefull ending though. Some thoughts on the stories.

UFO in Kushiro left me with a shiver: ““But really,” she said, “you’re just at the beginning.”…
Landscape with flatiron is a bleak story about death. There is this forlorn artist who can only paint if he uses something else to stand for it, and a young girl that thinks about death. A sad ending.
All God’s children can dance has a funny side. The boy who’s mother tells her child Yoshia that he’s the son of God. Yoshia has the gift of dancing; dancing to be one with the universe.
Thailand is my favorite story.
Satsuki and Nimit are sympathetic characters. The allusion to jazz: I’ve read that Murikami used to have a jazz-café.

Spoiler:

Satsuki has dedicated her life to regret and (self)hate. Nimit finds her a healer of spirits. It has a hopefull ending.
Battling with a snake in a dream has something mystical, I find. I like the idea of a deep sorrow being turned into a stone. In my country, when having a problem, one can say that ‘ this problem is like a stone in my stomach’.

Superfrog saves Tokyo is a curious story. The protagonist lives in two worlds: his normal world and the world of the Frog where a mystical battle with a Worm is fought. BTW, I found a link to an article about the death of earthworms in Japan, just before an earthquake.http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpre...2-north-japan/

Spoiler:

Mr. Katgiri is an honest, upright man, and that is what is needed for saving Tokyo from the wrath of the Worm of the earth.
'That’s fine, Mr. Katagiri. It’s better that you don’t remember. The whole terrible fight occurred in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there that we experience our victories and our defeats. Each and every one of us is a being of limited duration: all of us eventually go down to defeat. But as Ernest Hemingway saw so clearly, the ultimate value of our lives is decided not by how we win but by how we lose. You and I together, Mr. Katagiri, were able to prevent the annihilation of Tokyo. We saved a hundred and fifty thousand people from the jaws of death. No one realizes it, but that is what we accomplished.'

So; a happy ending

In Honey Pie there’s a little girl who has nightmares and a writer......could there be aspects of Murakami himself here?

Spoiler:

I want to write stories that are different from the ones I’ve written so far, Junpei thought: I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love. But right now I have to stay here and keep watch over this woman and this girl. I will never let anyone—not anyone—try to put them into that crazy box—not even if the sky should fall or the earth crack open with a roar.'

@Bookpossum:I started reading Murakami with IQ84. A few impressions while reading

Spoiler:

At page 200.
I find this story strange: in the sense that the persons in it seem to be alienated from the world they live in. That is; if this is the world they live in.
It is written in a crisp style, which adds a certain distance from the reader. All things that happen are like a tightly woven fabric.

page 400 now.
I'm liking the book more and more, because it puzzles me. Obsessive, but absent, parents seem to be a constant, demolishing factor in the life of the protagonists. It seems as if they are manipulated; by other people, by their reaction on their past and by something in their own soul. In how many ways can one be cruel?

It has a sense of doom behind it all. The end of the world is near. The atmosphere in the book reminds me of the film 'Melancholia' of Lars von Trier.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/

page 500.
This book is getting creepier: the little people are scary. The roller-coaster of violent things has got more speed now. The religious aspect of the story is getting stronger as well. It connects nicely, perhaps a bit too pat, with the omniscient narrator, who seems to know all. This story reeks of an obsession for perfection, which affects both narrator and protagonists.Very interesting and irritating at the same time.

After this I read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the end of the world, which I can recommend. A quote from the book

Spoiler:

"Yes, we all had shadows. They were with us constantly. But when I came to this Town, my shadow was taken away.
"You cannot come into Town with that," said the Gatekeeper. "Either you lose the shadow or forget about coming inside."
I surrendered my shadow.
The Gatekeeper had me stand in an open space beside the Gate. The three-o'clock afternoon sun fixed my shadow fast to the ground.
"Keep still now," the Gatekeeper told me. Then he produced a knife and deftly worked it in between the shadow and the ground. The shadow writhed in resistance. But to no avail.
Its dark form peeled neatly away.
Severed from the body, it was an altogether poorer thing. It lost strength.
The Gatekeeper put away his blade. "What do you make of it? Strange thing once you cut it off," he said. "Shadows are useless anyway. Deadweight."
I drew near the shadow. "Sorry, I must leave you for now," I said. "It was not my idea. I had no choice. Can you accept being alone for a while?"
"A while? Until when?" asked the shadow. I did not know.
"Sure you won't regret this later?" said the shadow in a hushed voice. "It's wrong, I tell you. There's something wrong with this place. People can't live without their shadows, and shadows can't live without people. Yet they're splitting us apart. I don't like it. There's something wrong here."
But it was too late. My shadow and I were already torn apart.
"Once I am settled in, I will be back for you," I said. "This is only temporary, not forever. We will be back together again."
The shadow sighed weakly, and looked up at me. The sun was bearing down on us both.
Me without my shadow, my shadow without me.
"That's just wishful thinking," said the shadow. "I don't like this place. We have to escape and go back to where we came from, the two of us."
"How can we return? We do not know the way back." "Not yet, but I'll find out if it's the last thing I do. We need to meet and talk regularly. You'll come, won't you?""

And of course Norwegian Wood, which Hamlet53 recommends is very good.