Hi readers, it's Sasha. I am here to talk today about the book I've been most
excited about this year and it is the brand new novel by Haruki Murakami:
Killing Commendatore. So this is out on the 9 October and it's published by Harvill
Secker. This book is the one I have been waiting for him to write. So it's
about this artist who very early on in the book, his wife properly leaves him
and he finds himself renting a property at the top of this valley that belongs
to an old artist called Amada. And within this property he finds a
hidden painting that Amada I don't think ever intended for anyone to see.
And from that point you just need to get out you Murakami bingo cards
because there's a bit where someone goes down a pit, I don't think there's
any cats that turn up but there's jazz and there's like casual
drinking you know classical music, excessive smoking. And it's just
everything you want from a Murakami novel. This book had two translators
it was Philip Gabriel and Ted Goosen. And they have done such a fantastic job. It's
almost a 700 page book and it's not like - it's not one of the Murakami's
easiest books. The themes are just really out there and if you thought
1Q84 was a bit weird this one just completely goes to town. When I read
that last page I found myself just numb and it was a book that will stay with
you. So with Killing Commendatore I found this book really similar to Kafka on the
Shore and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to a certain extent. The main character,
the artist, he's an easy character to get on with and you get his
like sense of what he's doing and like why he just is
in this mad situation. And the characters that start like surrounding him are
just some of the weirdest ones that Murakami has just drawn up to date, it's
really, really good. And it reminded me quite a bit of David Mitchell's work, so
if you've read any David Mitchell like Cloud Atlas and more so like Bone Clocks
where it's got that eerie sense just getting at you in the background.
It's almost like this is the book that Murakami was gearing up to write, like
everything else was practice before then. So I finished Killing Commendatore
about two weeks ago and I still haven't been able to get into a book since. It's
sort of ruined other books for me this year so it's definitely my book of the
year. I don't think I'm going to read anything else that's gonna knock this
one out of the water. This isn't one which is just for
Murakami fans. I think if you haven't read any Murakami before, I wouldn't
necessarily start with this book, I'd go for something more like Norwegian Wood
or Colorless Tsukuru. But this is definitely, it's gonna be more a kind of
gateway drug if you haven't read any of his because it's so out there and
I just think it's one of those books where if you haven't read any of
his - save it, save this one, because once you read it, it's a tough act to follow.
So, that is Killing Commendatore. This book is out on the
9 October. It'll be in every Waterstones and I
hope you enjoy it as much as I have. See you next time.