Skip to main content

Never Enough Murakami...

They say you're too much of a crazed Haruki Murakami fan when you order from Japan his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing. I guess now you can count me in as one of those crazed fans... I just got my copy yesterday.

It's a very small book, measuring only 4.25" x 5.75". This spoils my Murakami collection a bit though - I collect the UK editions - but I don't care! It looks so cute! How typical of those Japanese! Have you seen the new Picador Shots! books? It's as small as a Shots! book. But instead of costing RM7, this one costs RM50...

Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 are the only two novels by Murakami that haven't made it into the West. Though translated by Alfred Birnbaum and published by Kodansha for Japanese students studying English, Murakami has stated that these two early efforts by him were weak and not fit to be republished.

And while the English translation of Hear the Wind Sing continues to be reissued in Japan, Pinball, 1973 hasn't and most likely won't be any time soon. This has resulted in any available copy being sold for up to US$500 by people taking advantage of its rarity. That's just crazy... especially when you can find a PDF of the book floating around on the net.

My solution to the Pinball problem - though highly unethical and undoubtedly illegal - has been to take the PDF, reformat the text, and print it into a book using Lulu. Problem solved.

I'm planning on marathoning through the whole Murakami "pantheon" that's available in English, which is why I've been making all this effort. I had planned earlier to start chronologically from A Wild Sheep Chase, Murakami's earliest novel published in English, but as it was the sequel to Pinball, 1973 and Hear the Wind Sing, I felt that reading it first would lack some context.

I might start my Murakami Marathon in December after the chaos of NaNoWriMo has settled down. Can't wait.

(For a review of Hear the Wind Sing, click here.)
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous19/10/06 9:59 pm

    murakami was highly recommended by someone to me but for the life of me i can't find it anywhere! i'm obviously looking at the wrong places.

    i have to say i like your stuffed cow at the top of your blog! i'm mad about stuffed cows as well. anything cow or cow print, actually.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun20/10/06 9:33 am

    Murakami's usually in Asian or General Fiction. Good luck!

    Great to meet a fellow stuffed cow lover! I think I'm too mad over them... there's two on top of the monitor at work, another on the walls of the cubicle, one in my car, and even more hanging around in my room... truly a mad cow disease! :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ed17/9/07 8:56 pm

    Sorry, The linkshare that you posted isn't working. Do you know another?
    Or someway of obtaining the pdf?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ted Mahsun18/9/07 9:50 am

    Try here.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amanda23/5/12 10:21 am

    Hi I found your blog when I googled for "Hear the Wind Sing Singapore". I'm an avid Murakami fan and I've to say, getting a copy of it is like embarking on the Holy Grail for Murakami! May I know how you got hold of your copy for such a low price?

    Also, I'm glad I finally found someone who collects the UK editions like I do! I prefer the white covers as compared to the colorful US ones, they look much neater on my bookshelf too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ted Mahsun24/5/12 3:40 pm

      Hi Amanda! I got my copy on eBay for about SG$20. But that was back in 2006. Prices might have changed since then.

      I did a quick glance on eBay and it seems to have gone up.

      The UK covers are nicer, right? But they changed the paperback sizes since Kafka on the Shore and now my shelf doesn't look as nice anymore! :-/

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time! The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it. All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame. On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day cover...
5 comments
Read more

REVIEW: Confessions of an Old Boy by Kam Raslan

Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life. Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now. I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this ...
5 comments
Read more

An Ipoh Ghost Story.

When I was growing up in Ipoh in the 90s, the only good bookshops around were Mubaruk's, which specialised in textbooks (and still does), and Novelhut, the second-hand bookstore that used to be in Yik Foong (and maybe still is there, but I haven't checked in years since I prefer going to their Ipoh Parade outlet when I'm in town). There was also a pretty good bookstore in the Parkson Grand in Ipoh Parade which could have been a Berita outlet, but I don't remember. This was in the days before they expanded Ipoh Parade into what it is today. (And temporarily causing the Convent school next door to consider moving.) I recall this because I was thinking of when exactly I started reading "serious" fiction, trying to pinpoint the years when I moved from young adult/fantasy/sci-fi books into non-genre fiction. I still can't remember, but it brought back memories of a book I bought from a short-lived bookshop in Old Town. Mum had brought me there, because she must...
6 comments
Read more