Killing Commendatore (Murakami) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it.… He builds his self-contained world deliberately and faithfully, developing intrigue and suspense and even taking care to give each chapter a cliffhanger ending as in an old-fashioned serialized novel.… When you’re under Mr. Murakami’s trance you’re likely to keep flipping the pages.
Wall Street Journal


More of Murakami’s magical mist, but its size, beauty, and concerns with lust and war bring us back to the vividness and scale of his 1997 epic, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
Boston Globe


Eccentric and intriguing, Killing Commendatore is the product of a singular imagination..… Murakami is a wiz at melding the mundane with the surreal.… He has a way of imbuing the supernatural with uncommon urgency. His placid narrative voice belies the utter strangeness of his plot.… The worldview of Murakami’s novels is consistent, and it’s invigorating. In this book and many that came before it, he urges us to embrace the unusual, accept the unpredictable.
San Francisco Chronicle
 

Wild, thrilling.… Murakami is a master storyteller and he knows how to keep us hooked.
Sunday Times (UK)


Yes, there are mysterious portals, a strange world, a journey and a quest, but these elements are relatively minor in both scale and import in a novel that is more concerned with utterly human concerns, including aging, love, parentage, marriage, and what it means to be both a man and an adult. The fantastic elements are just a part of the narrator’s journey, the meaning and significance of which emerge only gradually for reader and narrator alike.
Toronto Star


[Killing Commendatore] marks the return of a master.
Esquire
 

No ordinary trip; get ready for a wild ride.
Entertainment Weekly


[A] meticulous yet gripping novel whose escalating surreal tone complements the author’s tight focus on the domestic and the mundane.… Murakami’s sense of humor helps balance the otherworldly and the prosaic, making this a consistently rewarding novel.
Publishers Weekly


While readers are kept guessing at what it all means, Murakami takes his time, slyly amusing us as he goes along. Verdict: Those familiar with the author's inventive writing will certainly devour this, as will readers seeking challenging and thoughtful fiction. —Stephen Schmidt, Greenwich Lib., CT
Library Journal


[A] sprawling epic of art, dislocation, and secrets.… requir[ing] heroic suspension of disbelief on the reader’s part. Altogether bizarre—and pleasingly beguiling, if demanding. Not the book for readers new to Murakami but likely to satisfy longtime fans.
Kirkus Reviews