Kate♡'s Reviews > Killing Commendatore

4.75/5stars

*DISCLAIMER: I was sent a free finished copy of this book by the wonderful people at knopf publishing but they did not ask for a review in any format, I'm just obsessed with Murakami and this was my most anticipating book of the last like 3 years soooooo

HERE IS MY VIDEO REVIEW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnXa0...

- Probably one of Murakami's best CRAFTED books - the writing was absolutely wonderful and there were so many lines I want printed on a frame and hung in my home, a well as the plot and how intricate and complex the interweaving narratives are was amazing.
Examples of beautiful quotes:
* "Look deep enough into any person and you will find something shining within. My job was to uncover this and, if the surface is fogged up, polish it with a cloth to make it shine again. Otherwise the darker side would naturally reveal itself in the portrait." (page 15)
* "It's like I'd been born with a blind spot, and was always missing something. And what I missed was always the most important thing of all." (page 31)
* "When you're locked up alone in a cramped dark place, the most frightening thing isn't death. The most terrifying thought is that I might have to live here forever... in order to survive, a person has to overcome that fear. Which means conquering yourself." (page 271)
* "Saturday was another fine clear day. No wind to speak of, and the fall colors in the valley sparkling in the sunlight. Small white-breasted birds hopped from one branch to the next, deftly pecking the red berries. I sat on the terrace, soaking it all in. Nature grants its beauty to us all, drawing no line between rich and poor." (page 341)
* "Gradually I began to feel a stranger to myself as well. I placed my hands on the table and studied them for a while. These were my hands no doubt... but this morning, for some reason, they didn't look like my hands at all." (page 455)
* "This is your coffin. You cannot move forward. You cannot move backward. You will lie buried here forever. Forsaken by humanity in this dark and narrow tomb... soon it would cover me, as I lay there in the impenetrable dark, unable to move. I would no longer be the person I was." (page 579)
* "It sounded as if someone had grabbed hold of a corner of the world and was trying to peel back its skin" (page 587)
* "In this real world of ours, after all, nothing remains the same forever." (page 669)
* "This is my life, sure, but in the end almost all that happens in it may be decided arbitrarily, quite apart from me. In other words, although I may presume I have free will, in fact I may not be making any of the major decisions that affect me." (page 671)

- That being said, I do think this book lost the classic Murakami dream-like feel many of his similar novels have, which isn't necessarily a BAD thing but probably why it wasn't a full 5 stars for me because I enjoy that "not really know whats going on" feeling I got from 1Q84 and Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I found this was probably the best wrapped up of his stories too, though i had SOME questions they aren't ripping me apart like 1Q84 was at the end loll

- THAT being said,t his book was no less WEIRD than Murakami's previous novels. This had a LOT of strange things happening right from the first page and had me questioning Murakami's sanity at parts and wanting to crack open his skull and check around inside his brain to figure out where the hell he gets his ideas from

- This was QUINTESSENTIAL Murakami - there is a joke in the Murakami circle about the "murakami bingo board" and I think this book would satisfy nearly the entire board. Murakami is becoming self aware I swear, cause this had every Murakami trope I could imagine lol, some examples but definitely not an extensive list made from said Bingo Board:
*mysterious woman
*unexpected phone call
*Running (through the woods)
*Precocious Teenager
*Cats (owls???)
*Secret passageway
*Cooking (fuckin duh gotta get that spaghetti yo)
*Dried up well????
*Old Jazz Records REPLACED BY Old Opera Records
*Unusual Name
*Something vanishing
*Faceless villain
*Feeling f being followed
*Historical Flashback
*Weird sex
*Moons

- The biggest thing that set this apart from other Murakami was the narrator - while he remained nameless in typical murakami fashion, he was different from many of his other narrators. It was a breath of fresh air, kind of how I felt when I first read about Hajime in South of the Boarder. While this narrator remained mid-thirties and divorced with a feeling of uselessness and nowhere to go like normal, this time he was a PAINTER with nowhere to go! WOAHH MURAKAMI CHANGING IT UP YO! but no, for real, it actually made a difference! This narrator felt like he had much more passionate and therefore felt a bit more real. He also just simply seemed smarter than say Toru Okada, and also a little self-aware? He actually questioned the strange things that were happening to him and acknowledged how weird they truly were.

- Speaking of being a painter, the painting parts of this book truly made this a unique experience of reading (it reminded me a bit of "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" which I read earlier this year which was also about painting). While I'm not the biggest fan of reading about music and other arts like that, weirdly, I enjoy reading about painting and painters? I also think it made Murakami's writing really shine with his descriptions of the paintings, and its where the dream-like feelings were able to come out a bit in this book

- I really enjoyed the character of Menshiki I found him to be absolutely fascinating

- I DIDN'T particularly enjoy the character of Mariye, I found her to be a carbon copy of May from WUBC or the female in Dance Dance Dance, which I guess I'm just getting a bit bored of 13 year old girls talking about their boobs to 30 year old men they don't know, idk yo

- Nameless Narrator's girlfriend was the true MVP character though lets get real, she had the most brains and was weirdly SO helpful. Some of the only questions I had left were about her and her daughters

- One part I suppose I didn't understand in this book was a scene toward the end of the book. (view spoiler)[ I didn't understand why Mariye recounting her time she was in Menshiki's house hiding had to be SO LONG. it was literally 40 pages of this book and yes I understand we found out some very important stuff about Menshiki's character and life but also DID IT REALLY NEED TO BE THAT LONG? DID I MISS SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT??? (hide spoiler)]

- I weirdly think this would be a good place to start with Murakami??? even though its his newest, its weird enough to be like "wow this is the weird shit that people talk about with Murakami" but also doesn't leave a TON of questions and can be easily understood

Overall I REALLY enjoyed this, but it was just missing SOMETHING (possibly the dream-like feeling? possibly maybe I missed the feeling of having dozens of questions at the end? possibly something else?) that made me not give it a full 5 stars. But 4.75 is basically the same, yo, and this will be on my favorite books of the end of the year - BELIEVE IT.