I'm completely thrilled and impressed to see how many people have read Murakami. I haven't read his Wind Up Bird Chronicle and now will have to get to it soon. Fruitful, I only met with him for about one minute after a reading/discussion event he did in New York City. I attended a lot of lit events at the time I was living around there. I had also majored in Japanese in college, so I told him I read "Norwegian Wood" (which at the time was not translated) and he seemed to be touched by my efforts.
(Our family is also big Miyazaki and Ghibli fans as well!)
Fruitful, I haven't kept up with a lot of the newer Japanese writers like Banana Yoshimoto. One novel I did find impressive, and which has been translated, is "Out" by Natsuo Kirino. But the disclaimer is that it's overall a very dark novel and there are some graphic descriptions, more of the aftermath of violence than of violence itself (if I remember correctly). It's about some female co-workers on an assembly line who band together and help out one of the women, who's killed her husband after he violently beat her or something. Especially when you consider it's been written by a Japanese woman, it's extremely hard-edged and deals with criminals, blackmail, covering up crime, body dismemberment, etc...very compelling read.
Oh, and I read Norwegian Wood and it was extremely moving and beautiful. I haven't read that much Murakami, but this is one of his earlier works and I suspect its theme is very different from stuff he wrote later on?
On a completely different note, on the plane back from a trip to Berlin I read "Alone in Berlin" by Hans Fallada. (I think UK editions have a different title--"Every Man Dies Alone." I'll just take a quote straight from amazon.com: "(the book) is inspired by the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, who scattered postcards advocating civil disobedience throughout war-time Nazi-controlled Berlin. Their fictional counterparts, Otto and Anna Quangel, distribute cards during the war bearing antifascist exhortations and daydream that their work is being passed from person to person, stirring rebellion, but, in fact, almost every card is immediately turned over to authorities. Fallada aptly depicts the paralyzing fear that dominated Hitler's Germany, when decisions that previously would have seemed insignificant—whether to utter a complaint or mourn one's deceased child publicly—can lead to torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo. From the Quangels to a postal worker who quits the Nazi party when she learns that her son committed atrocities and a prison chaplain who smuggles messages to inmates, resistance is measured in subtle but dangerous individual stands."
Especially considering that it's based on a true story and very real (and recent) historical reality, the novel was incredibly haunting and emotionally intense. It's also a time period and scenario I knew basically nothing about (I'm Jewish and so have read almost too much about the Holocaust, but this was a completely different angle--the day-to-day anxiety and paranoia of life under the Nazis, where any wrong step could place someone in grave danger.)
