Media & Reviews

If you've been to this blog before, chances are that you've encountered a post about my favourite author Harkui Murakami. Since I'm only recently exploring the domain of audio books, I tried (and blogged about) the audio book from his book the Wind-up bird Chronicle. I was disappointed, the voice was monotone and boring, and the different characters were mostly all mimicked by that one reader. That sucked, so somewhere in the last quarter I lost interest. Now I tried the novel Kafka on the Shore. What a difference! I was not aware that a reader can change the impression you'll get so much! And I tried thinking about why that is. It wasn't only the fact that that first voice was boring, and that the recording was not done very profesionally. It was something more: The fact that I had a preconception about what the voice for such a book should sound like. It was nothing precise, more of a spectrum of voices, and that first one did not fit. I realized that when I read books, somewhere in my mind I create a voice for that character, for that story, and it's circumstances. When I read a book that's playing in Japan, I somewhat hear what it sounds like (ok, it helps that I've actually been there). That context is important, and I imagine if other people are just as schizophrenic about that than I am, this can be a serious problem to audio book makers. Well anyhow, the Kafka on the Shore is well made and has a nice narrator, so it is possible after all!

Here's a nice try if you want to get started on Murakami's works and are too lazy to visit your local library. I personaly haven't read it yet, will firt print it out. As this book is out of print, the publishers appearently allowed free online distribution to the PDF, which I find very nice indeed! It was actually his first published book to be translated into English, while being his second novel. And by the way, if you happen to have one copy of this book at home, you might just want to send it to me. Alternatively, you can sell it on Ebay, prices start around 500$ and go up to 3'000$...

Haruki Murakami's Pinball 1973