Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, Unique and Intoxicating.
Review: A personal all-time favorite, Ryu Murakami is a gifted writer/director and he proves it here. I could not recommend this book any higher it's interesting story, confident and original writing style remains in tact after translation. The characters, oddly complex, amazingly human, and unforgettable. A powerful title from one of the greats in modern literature. Grabs your attention and holds it until the brutal climax. Also try: Kenzoburo Oe, Banana Yoshimoto.
Rating: 
Summary: it's a pretty messed up book
Review: Even though it's filled with violence, destruction, and [stomach turning] passages, I surprisingly enjoyed reading "Coin Locker Babies." It is the life story of 2 babies, Kiku and Hashi, who were abadoned in train staion coin lockers. They grow up together and then eventually go separate ways, both living rather messed up lives, but through it all they are searching for something to set them free. With intriguing characters like a beautiful girl with a pet crocodile and an action-packed plot depicting men's desire to destroy and men's will to live all at once, this book will keep you thinking and entertained even if you get grossed out from time to time.
Rating:
Summary: dark times
Review: First off, whenever I read a review of something that says "I wish I hadn't wasted my time with this" I have to wonder -- it's just a book, right? you spent a couple of days with it, off and on, you're still alive with no ill effects. This book didn't hurt or scar you for life -- a pretty fatuous statement, all told. But I digress. Coin Locker Babies is brilliantly stark and mixed-up. Reading it makes me regret that my Japanese skills are way too weak to attempt a novel. Ryu Murakami is underappreciated in the US, thanks, I imagine, to the warped complexity of this book and the mediocre translation of 'almost transparent blue.' It's a shame we don't get to read more of his work. I spent a week or so over this book in 1999, listening to a lot of joy division and ruminating over evangelion videos during a harsh pittsburgh winter. You may find this book enhanced by a dark frame of mind. Like the back of the book reputedly says (I don't have it handy) you may well like this if you got a kick out of mike leigh's naked. I love that film, and this is a great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Reads Like a Novelization of a Bad Cartoonish Action Movie
Review: I bought this book because the premise of the babies abandoned in lockers sounded interesting. Aside from a few good moments it was a big disappointment. The writing was bland and most of the time simply stated action that was going on, like someone describing a movie they are watching. It makes sense that on the back cover the book is endorsed by Roger Corman and Oliver Stone, and is compared to Mike Leigh's Naked. This book would be much better as a movie, and would waste less time. At times when the author does try to write, the book uses descriptive language that sounds forced, like he was trying too hard to be transgressive, subversive, hip, and exciting. To be fair, the bad writing might be partly a result of translation. Translation however cannot be blamed for the book's other larger failings. The story just wandered, like the author made the story up as he went along. There were a lot of promising themes which could have been developed but weren't, for example an adolescent-Nietzsche-ish embrace of the world as violent Will: that the world is dog-eat-dog, and that that is really cool. Unfortunately the book is so disjointed and incoherent that any possible ideas are lost beneath mindless action scenes. Every paragraph some new pointless adventure pops up, a fight breaks out, or a plate of food is thrown at a wall. I actually felt physically tired while reading it all. The minor characters are completely indistinguishable. I regret that I spent two days of my life reading this book, since there are so many wonderful books out there. I can only hope that I may use my misfortune to do some good by helping others to avoid my sad fate. Try Haruki Murakami instead; he's a wonderful writer.
Rating:
Summary: Ultimately uplifting
Review: I put off reading this book for a long time because I thought, from reading the cover, that I knew exactly what it was going to be like; snide, hip and cynical, and hopelessly depressing. It is all of those things to a degree, but it's amazing in that despite its relentless depiction of casual violence, squalor and destruction, Coin Locker Babies still manages to be deeply human at every turn. Sympathy is developed first of all for the main characters, who seem completley justified in their bitterness and eccentricty; the book first follows their twisted yet idyllic childhood with their foster parents on an island. The foster parents, painfully ordinary people, are treated with much more tact than I expected. At different points, the mother and the father each express regret that they failed to be better parents; the moments are touching and redeeming. The psychology in this book, though spotty at times (because some of the characters are just so bizzare), is accurate in that the signficance of it is considered. While Kiku and Hashi might be dramatic and larger-than-life, their dependance on each other and on their foster parents, and their complicated attitudes towards the mothers who left them to die, keep showing through. The relationship between the bisexual Hashi and his wife is also very convincing; that between Kiku and his girlfriend less so, though. The author also doesn't neglect scenery, or the small, basically irrelevant details which add charm to a narrative. There's a host of loveable minor characters, the best of them convicted murderers, who become in time as sympathetic as Hashi and Kiku. In the end, also, the message is tentatively optomistic, holding up the decree YOU MUST LIVE in the face of disaster. This is one of the most complex, engaging and endearing contemporary novels I've come across, and shows that there may be hope even for this frenetic, disillusioned generation.
Rating:
Summary: haunting
Review: it must be 7 years already since i picked this book up at kinokuniya, shinjuku. it still haunts me. that if anything is the sign of a truly great work of art.
Rating:
Summary: GRIPPING , SUSPENSE, EXTREME DRAMA !!!!
Review: My review of this book is much like that of Steven Erickson which would be that the story line from beginning to end always reminds you of the pain and drama. You never loose the pain!!!
Rating:
Summary: One of Murakami's finest novels from his 70s period.
Review: Of the 3 books of Murakami's translated into English, this one truly stands out as a sparkling accomplishment. As with all of Murakami's writing, metaphors both immediately clever and extended spring from every page. The translation is superb, catching perfectly the mile-a-minute, kick-to-the-head prose that has defined this country's perception of Murakami. While you wait for his other 30 books to be translated, this remains one of his finest, a brutal allegory of great literary prowess.
Rating:
Summary: shiny things
Review: Reading Murkami Ryu's "Coin Locker Babies" feels like being a kid digging around in dirt and uncovering something shiny.
The mood is dark and disturbing, and you'd be perfectly justified if you decided you couldn't handle it and put the book down. Of course, if you -can- handle it, you're well rewarded, because Murakami is a genius with his prose. Somehow he manages to take the omniscient 3rd person narrative style many contemporary authors deem "too impersonal" and give it a unique mix of sardonism and lyricism.
The story itself, too, will surprise the heck out of you; even if you're expecting something wild Murakami will yank the feet out from underneath you. The only problem I have with this book is the frankly awful translation. Of course, I have nothing against Stephen Snyder, but it's my opinion that he thought he had a duty to Americanize and slang-ify the prose, something which was not only unnecessary, but plain out wrong. Unlike some of the other reviewers, my knowledge of Japanese is rather extensive, and while I couldn't read "Coin Locker Babies" without a dictionary for all the kanji compounds such as "biochemical" and "psychoanalytical", I feel that I can tell a poor translation from a good one. Unless you've actually read passages from the Japanese original, you won't notice anything's wrong. However, if you pay attention, Snyder takes huge liberties with the text, changing sentence structure and length, and even adding or omitting words seemingly at random. For example: during the passage where Tatsuo is knocking Kiku for being an athlete, he imitates a jock cheer: "Go Team!". I see absolutely NO reason for Snyder to change this from the original Japanese "Fight Fight Fight!" He does this kind of thing throughout the -entire- novel. Overall, the effect is that Murakami wrote "Coin Locker Babies" mainly in slang. This isn't the case at all. In fact, his Japanese borders on formal at times. Translation aside, it's still a good novel in English. And if you don't care about the subtleties of Japanese, it's a 5 star book. Murakami-san ganbatta.
Rating:
Summary: shiny things
Review: Reading Murkami Ryu's "Coin Locker Babies" feels like being a kid digging around in dirt and uncovering something shiny.
The mood is dark and disturbing, and you'd be perfectly justified if you decided you couldn't handle it and put the book down. Of course, if you -can- handle it, you're well rewarded, because Murakami is a genius with his prose. Somehow he manages to take the omniscient 3rd person narrative style many contemporary authors deem "too impersonal" and give it a unique mix of sardonism and lyricism.
The story itself, too, will surprise the heck out of you; even if you're expecting something wild Murakami will yank the feet out from underneath you. The only problem I have with this book is the frankly awful translation. Of course, I have nothing against Stephen Snyder, but it's my opinion that he thought he had a duty to Americanize and slang-ify the prose, something which was not only unnecessary, but plain out wrong. Unlike some of the other reviewers, my knowledge of Japanese is rather extensive, and while I couldn't read "Coin Locker Babies" without a dictionary for all the kanji compounds such as "biochemical" and "psychoanalytical", I feel that I can tell a poor translation from a good one. Unless you've actually read passages from the Japanese original, you won't notice anything's wrong. However, if you pay attention, Snyder takes huge liberties with the text, changing sentence structure and length, and even adding or omitting words seemingly at random. For example: during the passage where Tatsuo is knocking Kiku for being an athlete, he imitates a jock cheer: "Go Team!". I see absolutely NO reason for Snyder to change this from the original Japanese "Fight Fight Fight!" He does this kind of thing throughout the -entire- novel. Overall, the effect is that Murakami wrote "Coin Locker Babies" mainly in slang. This isn't the case at all. In fact, his Japanese borders on formal at times. Translation aside, it's still a good novel in English. And if you don't care about the subtleties of Japanese, it's a 5 star book. Murakami-san ganbatta.
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