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: it's a pretty messed up book
Review: Ryu Murakami's "Coin Locker Babies" reminded me a lot of works by Chuck Palahniuk. The nihilistic belief that all people are "unnecessary" and the anarchist belief that all things are created to be destroyed are strong themes that run through out the book. At the same time, there is a strong desire to live (symbolized by the elusive but extremely powerful sound of a beating heart) that complements and at the same time counterbalances the urge to destroy. This was my first encounter with Ryu Murakami, and I was impressed with his unique mastery of Japanese prose. I was surprised to read the Publisher's Weekly review above that attaches words like "rambling" and "whimsy" to this book ... if the translation came off that way then it is the fault of the translator. Murakami's world is a perpetual summer-hot, sticky, sweaty, the characters always hot, vivid, full of directionless energy ... anything but whimsical. I am puzzled as to the use of the word "Toxitown" to describe what (in the original) is much more soberly called Drug Island. The sections where Murakami "rambles" ... the scene with Anemone and the taxi driver stands out the most ... is entirely by design, and is carried out to great success. It is the taxi driver, not Murakami, who rambles. The structure of the last half of the book is my only real stylistic complaint: to me at least, the first half of the book (up until Kiku shoots his mother) moved along at a perfect pace, brilliantly drawing the reader into the world of Kiku and Hashi. Then the pace just seemed to die. Kiku languished in jail while Hashi entered into his own destructive phase before he is briefly thrown into a psychiatric ward toward the end of the book. In my opinion at least, Murakami would've been better served spending less time with Kiku while he was in jail and more after he escaped; alternately with Hashi, it would have been more interesting to have spent less time with Hashi as a singer and more time in the psychiatric hospital. Furthermore, Anemone and Niva all but disappear as unique, individual characters. It was almost as if Murakami started to focus in on the central themes of his story to the point that the story itself began to lose direction. The themes that Murakami introduces are interesting, again, very reminiscent of Palahniuk. Kiku and Hashi are abandoned in coin lockers in Yokohama Station soon after birth, and grow up to feel unnecessary and at the same time, feel an uncontrollable energy and rage at society itself. Almost like saying "if you don't need me, I don't need you either." The coin lockers themselves are a central image in the story, as they represent modern society at large: the concrete and metal "womb" that has no need for the person inside. I disagree with Murakami's premise that all things are created in order to be destroyed, but this is still an admittedly powerful force throughout the book. Almost paradoxically, the strong desire to live, to survive is a common theme as well. What kept me from giving this book 5 stars was simply what seemed to me to be the pointlessness and predictability of all the destruction at the end. Reading this book after witnessing the events in the world the last few years makes it admittedly hard to not feel slightly nauseated at the disregard for human life displayed by Hashi (until the end) and Kiku, in particular. None of us are born into ideal situations ... all of us are "coin locker babies" to one degree or another ... but I do not buy into the theory that in order to live it is necessary to kill and destroy, be it in the real world or in literature. Kiku and Hashi grow up, but it is questionable whether they really mature. If they don't, what was the point for hanging around with them for 400 pages other than to just experience their wild adventures and hear their philosophy? Despite this ambiguity, Coin Locker Babies was a thought provoking and well written book. Once you descend into the dark and violent world of Ryu Murakami it will be difficult to pull yourself back out again!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting perspective on life and destruction
Review: Ryu Murakami's "Coin Locker Babies" reminded me a lot of works by Chuck Palahniuk. The nihilistic belief that all people are "unnecessary" and the anarchist belief that all things are created to be destroyed are strong themes that run through out the book. At the same time, there is a strong desire to live (symbolized by the elusive but extremely powerful sound of a beating heart) that complements and at the same time counterbalances the urge to destroy. This was my first encounter with Ryu Murakami, and I was impressed with his unique mastery of Japanese prose. I was surprised to read the Publisher's Weekly review above that attaches words like "rambling" and "whimsy" to this book ... if the translation came off that way then it is the fault of the translator. Murakami's world is a perpetual summer-hot, sticky, sweaty, the characters always hot, vivid, full of directionless energy ... anything but whimsical. I am puzzled as to the use of the word "Toxitown" to describe what (in the original) is much more soberly called Drug Island. The sections where Murakami "rambles" ... the scene with Anemone and the taxi driver stands out the most ... is entirely by design, and is carried out to great success. It is the taxi driver, not Murakami, who rambles. The structure of the last half of the book is my only real stylistic complaint: to me at least, the first half of the book (up until Kiku shoots his mother) moved along at a perfect pace, brilliantly drawing the reader into the world of Kiku and Hashi. Then the pace just seemed to die. Kiku languished in jail while Hashi entered into his own destructive phase before he is briefly thrown into a psychiatric ward toward the end of the book. In my opinion at least, Murakami would've been better served spending less time with Kiku while he was in jail and more after he escaped; alternately with Hashi, it would have been more interesting to have spent less time with Hashi as a singer and more time in the psychiatric hospital. Furthermore, Anemone and Niva all but disappear as unique, individual characters. It was almost as if Murakami started to focus in on the central themes of his story to the point that the story itself began to lose direction. The themes that Murakami introduces are interesting, again, very reminiscent of Palahniuk. Kiku and Hashi are abandoned in coin lockers in Yokohama Station soon after birth, and grow up to feel unnecessary and at the same time, feel an uncontrollable energy and rage at society itself. Almost like saying "if you don't need me, I don't need you either." The coin lockers themselves are a central image in the story, as they represent modern society at large: the concrete and metal "womb" that has no need for the person inside. I disagree with Murakami's premise that all things are created in order to be destroyed, but this is still an admittedly powerful force throughout the book. Almost paradoxically, the strong desire to live, to survive is a common theme as well. What kept me from giving this book 5 stars was simply what seemed to me to be the pointlessness and predictability of all the destruction at the end. Reading this book after witnessing the events in the world the last few years makes it admittedly hard to not feel slightly nauseated at the disregard for human life displayed by Hashi (until the end) and Kiku, in particular. None of us are born into ideal situations ... all of us are "coin locker babies" to one degree or another ... but I do not buy into the theory that in order to live it is necessary to kill and destroy, be it in the real world or in literature. Kiku and Hashi grow up, but it is questionable whether they really mature. If they don't, what was the point for hanging around with them for 400 pages other than to just experience their wild adventures and hear their philosophy? Despite this ambiguity, Coin Locker Babies was a thought provoking and well written book. Once you descend into the dark and violent world of Ryu Murakami it will be difficult to pull yourself back out again!
Rating: 
Summary: a thouroughly top-notch bad book.
Review: ryu murakami's best to date, coin locker babies segues from a very strong opening to a truly odd and baffling conclusion. although not without faults, this is an exceedingly compelinng and readable book. murakami spins his tale with much literary flex, and seemingly inexhaustible attiude.
Rating: 
Summary: Best book I've read so far this year, hands down.
Review: Ryu Murakami, Coin Locker Babies (Kodansha, 1995) For thirty years, Japan has waited for someone to step up and fill the rather sizable shoes left by Yukio Mishima when he committed suicide after a failed attempt at a coup d'etat. It seems that Ryu Murakami has finally stepped up for the job. Mishima's work was singular in that it combined the beauty and spareness of haiku with random, seemingly meaningless (until one looked below the surface) acts of despair and violence. Murakami treaded these waters in such previous works as Sixty-Nine and Audition while adding his own touches to the mix; in Coin Locker Babies, Murakami has fully assimilated the spirit of Mishima while simultaneously strengthening his own voice into something that is both complete and stunning. Coin Locker Babies is the story of two brothers. Well, almost brothers. Both abandoned by heir mothers in bus station coin lockers as infants, the two are discovered and sent to the same orphanage, where they become inseparable. Adopted by the same couple, they grow up together on a southern island, but eventually return to the city to find their mothers. Along the way, one grows up to become a decadent pop star; the other, a disciplined pole vaulter. Yet the differences between the two are always overshadowed by their similarities as they progress through their lives. Kiku and Hashi are destined to become two of literature's classic antiheroes. Angry, confused, incapable of understanding how their circumstances have molded them, the two stumble through life facing misfortune after misfortune, still somehow managing to come out in front of everyone else. They juggle their conflicting emotions with aplomb, being completely irratinoal much of the time yet without ever doing anything even remotely out of character. Murakami's deftness with the depths of his characters is easily on a par with that of Stephen King of John Irving (in fact, oftentimes when reading Murakami one is reminded of the scene in Garp where the child is looking out the psychiatrists' window and counting off the number of disabled people he sees on the street below), but his ability to take a seemingly unrelated stream of events and whip them into a coherent plot within a few pages far surpasses either of them. His writing is gorgeous, if somewhat less spare than Mishima's, and infused with a constant stream of gallows humor broken only temporarily by the wordless, wailing pain that underlies every page. The various blurbs on the back of Coin Locker Babies (half from writers, half from filmmakers) praise Murakami as a Renaissance man for the new age, half cyberpunk and half manga, a mirror in which all of society can be seen. Murakami is all of these things and more (though one wonders, idly, if the reviewers have ever been exposed to Hideshi Hino); he stands, at present, as Japan's most brilliant writer whose works have been translated into English. (Now if only someone would translate Audition.) Coin Locker Babies may not be a perfect novel; it lacks that same indefinable something that keeps Kathe Koja's newest from achieving perfection. But it's close enough that it still rates five stars. *****
Rating:
Summary: One of the best intriguing books ever!!
Review: This has to be one of my all time favorite books ever have read. I haven't read a lot of books lately, and that's ONLY because none ever kept my interest as well as Murakami has. I finished this 400 page book in 2 1/2 days!! The translation from the original jps version is excellent down to the core. If you never imagined what kind of life it would have been if born from a Coin Locker back in those days (sadly enough woman did do that when they didn't want their child), this book is sure to give you a run for your money. It is like a Psychotic and gothic book at the same time. Giving you dark images that almost seem *impossible* not to imagine and make you think some off the wall thoughts. A person, like me/you can get inspired to do/for many things. One of his best if not #1.
Rating:
Summary: Just Buy the Book Already, It's Worth It
Review: To explain why this book is great is simple: Murakami uses his "narrative zoom lense" frighteningly well. His deft movements in the narrative mirror well in your mind the careful movements seen in a seasoned director's film. He grabs you, pulls you in, pushes you out, and sends you spinning across his landscape. Few authors scale your view of the events so well.
Rating:
Summary: Just Buy the Book Already, It's Worth It
Review: To explain why this book is great is simple: Murakami uses his "narrative zoom lense" frighteningly well. His deft movements in the narrative mirror well in your mind the careful movements seen in a seasoned director's film. He grabs you, pulls you in, pushes you out, and sends you spinning across his landscape. Few authors scale your view of the events so well.
Rating:
Summary: A cool read
Review: What do you call a book about abandoned babies in coin lockers, a homicidal pole vaulter, a gay, straight, then gay again Jrocker, a drug called Datura, a filipino gun maker with missing teeth, a model who keeps a crocodile as a pet, discriptive images of blood, images of sex with men and women and prostitutes all around, a "sea" voyage, matricide, murder, weird out psycho antics, and an "end" to end it all? Well, if you guessed Coin Locker Babies then you're cool. Coin Locker Babies. What can I say? I've never read such an interesting, messed up, funny, yet sad book in my entire life. All kinds of things happens in Coin Locker Babies that it's almost unbelievable. Reading about it makes me think of some weird comic book or some crazy Tarantino movie. Actually, if Tarantino made a movie about this book it would probably be pretty cool. I've never enjoyed reading a book in such a long time. It's like a 400 page comic book without pictures. I think that's what one of the reviews said about it and honestly it's true. The story is easy to follow, the desriptions are vivid and it feels like you're directing your own sort of movie about this book. I totally recommend it. It's an awesome book though it almost made me sort of sad when I finished because I so want to read more. It was like a total adventure. Then again, if you don't like reading bloody descriptions of various things and reading about psychos living in Murakami's version of a Tokyo ghetto, then it isn't for you. Otherwise... WOW... I loved it. I've never read such a long book in such a short time.
I would have given it 5 stars but because there were some trouble spots in the editing department I have to give it a 4. Otherwise, I think the book is perfect.
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