My Reaction to Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance 

How are you doing mr Jason . Thank you for your wonderful cultural channel. We appreciate your great efforts as foreigners subscribers as overseas students want to increase our cultural level improve our English language as well literature lovers too. It’s great you mention author around world . International literature. When we are kids we watched cartoon Tom Sawyer , Heidi, dubbed into Arabic. Any way I gathered main theme of novel and author biography briefly here it’s Haruki Murakami ( born in 1949 ) he is Japanese writer . His novels and short stories have been bestsellers in Japan and internationally . His works translated into 50 languages having sold milion copies of outside Japan. He has received numerous awards including gun 70 prize for new writers, world fantasy award , international short story award , flanz kalfa prize and Jerusalem prize . His notable works Norwegian Wood . The wind up bird , Kafka onshore , men without women, chronicle . Novel dance dance plot summary journey with narrator as he seeks to find Kiki, past lover throughout his experiences , narrator metaphorically shovels and dances with various characters. Best wishes for you your family friends.

Hi Jason! Great video - concise, very informative! Good point, to put reading into perspective. A new name for me to explore - Lethem, sounds really interesting. Now, I wonder, what do you make of another - "the better" - Murakami: Ryu? I've read only one of his novels, In The Miso Soup, and found it fascinating, not at all flat. I'm planning to read more. What about you?

Totally agree.

really enjoyed watching your reaction! i picked it up last month, and honestly i lost track of the plot halfway. the characters were flat, i agree wholeheartedly, and the attempted romance between yumiyoshi and the narrator was...lacking. my favourite character was gotanda (despite his blandness). i enjoyed reading his character for some reason i cannot yet place. i did quite enjoy the phrase the narrator keeps using throughout, though. 'shovelling cultural snow', was it? i'd like to reccomend another japanese author to you, if you'd entertain that. her name is mieko kawakami, and i've read two of her books. really enjoyed them! you should check out 'heaven' by her. i really enjoyed the simplicity of it.

Your reaction is very interesting, in particular at the end when you put your reading of Murakami's novel into perspective, time and space. Something I've never thought about before, but reading in a certain place, at a certain time in one's life must have an impact on a reader's appreciation of a book. I share your point of view re Murakami's success. Not deserved, and as a writer is overrated, as there's nothing extraordinary, deep or brilliant in his writing in my opinion. Thank you very much for sharing other, and hopefully better, recommendations. Only read by Jonathan Lethem Fortress of Solitude and liked it a lot.

In defense of murakami hes pretty self depricating in the book. Theres a whole page devoted to self satire. The young girl yukis father "makamuri" (maybe not the correct name) is a washed up has been of a writer whos lost his way as of late. If you can find the page its quite a funny read. I think with this he was trying to free himself up and avoid being pidgeon holed following the sucsess of the more conventional norweigeb wood. Anyway taste is taste and i get the criticism. I go to murakami to be enveloped in a world rather than a plot i guess.

Dance Dance has all the worst aspects of Murakami at their rawest form, he certainly improved later, but not by much. He's overrated and honestly a "starter author" as I and many friends and youtubers I watch liked when we just started reading, but soon grown out of. Also, so nice to know you are a Lethem fan, Chronic City is one of my favorite novels.