{"id":44507,"date":"2018-10-09T10:33:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T14:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=44507"},"modified":"2018-10-09T10:52:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T14:52:21","slug":"killing-commendatore-by-haruki-murakami-translated-by-philip-gabriel-and-ted-goossen-in-christian-science-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/killing-commendatore-by-haruki-murakami-translated-by-philip-gabriel-and-ted-goossen-in-christian-science-monitor\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen [in Christian Science Monitor]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"‘Killing Commendatore’ is the latest evasive, magical, utterly unique novel by Murakami<\/strong><\/p>\n

A famous painter succumbing to dementia living out his final days in a posh care facility. A wealthy, middle-aged white-haired man who lives alone in a mountainside white mansion. A motherless schoolgirl whose father is mostly absent being raised by an aunt since she was 6. An unnamed man \u2013 36, artist, newly single \u2013 becomes the catalyst that somehow intertwines these disparate narratives together.<\/p>\n

Like many of inimitable Haruki Murakami\u2019s anti-heroes, his newest protagonist is quite the music aficionado, cooks efficiently and often, drinks whiskey, has complicated relationships with women, and observes his experiences from … well … an unusual perspective \u2013 because, as in all of Murakami\u2019s novels, the world is unpredictable, hardly logical, and yet somehow strangely believable.<\/p>\n

Welcome to Murakami\u2019s Killing Commendatore<\/em>, seamlessly translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen who have become his preferred Anglophonic emissaries. At over 700-plus pages, it\u2019s (thankfully) another intriguing, time-challenging tome you can\u2019t wait to finish anticipating that all \u2013 most? enough? \u2013 of the puzzling pieces will align, while simultaneously wishing you might never reach its conclusion, dreading the end of another indescribable Murakami odyssey. That said, Murakami\u2019s recent announcement of his withdrawal from the finalist nomination for the alternative to the Nobel Prize in Literature<\/a> in order to concentrate on his writing could mean less-than-usual, in-between-titles waiting time.<\/p>\n

But back to Murakami\u2019s latest no-name narrator, who initially explains, \u201cthese events took place some years ago,\u201d promising \u201cto do [his] utmost … to set down a systematic, logical account.\u201d Back then, he was separated from his wife of six years, and after a peripatetic couple months, he settled into a rented mountain home, remote but within driving distance of Tokyo. The \u201ccozy cottage\u201d belonged to famed nonagenarian Japanese-style painter Tomohiko Amada, now installed in \u201ca high-end nursing home\u201d; his son Masahiko, an art school friend, offered the narrator the empty house as the \u201c\u2018perfect environment for painting. No distractions whatsoever.\u2019\u201d Promises, promises.<\/p>\n

A career portrait painter, the narrator called his agent (from the city of Murakami, no less) after leaving his wife (she announced without preamble, \u201c\u2018I don\u2019t think I can live with you anymore\u2019\u201d) that he would no longer accept portrait commissions. In the Amada home, he lives \u2013 at first \u2013 quietly and self-sufficiently, supporting himself teaching adults and children at the local art school. Soon after moving in, he discovers a painting in the attic, the titular “Killing Commendatore”: \u201cI couldn\u2019t know it at the time, but that one painting changed my world forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hidden for decades, Amada\u2019s stupendous canvas will reveal long-buried secrets linking Mozart\u2019s Don Giovanni<\/em>, pre-World War II Vienna, and the horrors of Nazi Germany. Its characters will come to life, providing guidance as well as a beseeching request to murder. It will inspire (prod) the narrator to paint again, even agreeing to produce a portrait for near-by neighbor, Wataru Menshiki, whose his family name Menshiki means \u201cavoiding color,\u201d so fitting for a near-recluse who lives in a white mountain fortress. Menshiki and the narrator\u2019s artist-and-subject studio time will engender a tenuous bond, eventually sending the pair searching for a ringing bell in the middle of the night. They\u2019ll discover an abandoned pit (not unlike Murakami\u2019s many other fictional wells), which will prove to be both prison and portal. Menshiki will confess that he chose his hideaway because of its proximity to another neighbor, Mariye Akigawa, a junior high schooler who might be his biological daughter. Mariye\u2019s mother, who died from an allergic reaction to hornets, was Menshiki\u2019s one true love; curious but detached, he prefers to observe Mariye, content with the possibility rather an actual declared relationship.<\/p>\n

As entertainingly evasive as always, Murakami allows for some mysteries to be solved, while others remain in limbo. Avoiding absolutes, his playful slyness pops up throughout. He uses meaningful names, for example, to infer more probability than mere possibility: Menshiki\u2019s given name, \u201cWataru,\u201d means \u201ccrossing the river,\u201d while Mariye\u2019s family name \u201cAkigawa\u201d (which, ironically, could be a misnomer given her uncertain parentage) means \u201cautumn river.\u201d Their meeting occurs, naturally, in the fall, and the overlapping \u201criver\u201d is meant to connect them, but that the river water is always a moving, dividing force also implies the improbability of decisively knowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose,\u201d the narrator eventually concludes. Murakami fans will immediately, gleefully recognize that sentiment here \u2013 as with all his fiction \u2013 as he once more explicates the seemingly impossible with such thorough, exacting conviction to make believers of us all.<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: “‘Killing Commendatore’ is the latest evasive, magical, utterly unique novel by Murakami” Christian Science Monitor<\/em>, October 9, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2017 (Japan), 2018 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Killing Commendatore’ is the latest evasive, magical, utterly unique novel by Murakami A famous painter succumbing to dementia living out his final days in a posh care facility. A wealthy, middle-aged white-haired man who lives alone in a mountainside white mansion. 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