Tokyo Decadence
|
Tokyo Decadence:
translated by Ralph McCarthy |
A cream-of-the-crop selection of Murakami’s brilliance and piercing wit.
This collection shows sides of Ryu Murakami that even avid fans may not be expecting.
The intriguing, somewhat disturbing stories that Topaz was based on are included here, as are three entertaining and revealing portraits of the artist as a young man back in the Transparent Blue period of the late sixties and early seventies. We hear tales told by four very different individuals living in eighties Tokyo, each with his or her own problems but all with a thing about a certain pro baseball player, and we meet a brokenhearted young woman who finds an unexpected moment of love in the nineties and a single mother who stumbles on a ray of hope in the hard times of the noughties.
Mixed in there somewhere are three linked stories about desire and obsession, with the timeless, seductive rhythms of Cuban music in the background.
From Run, Takahashi! (1986, 走れ！タカハシ)
- Whenever I Sit at a Bar Drinking Like This (カウンターで飲んでいる時、いつも思うのだが、バーテンダーというのは何と崇高なのだろう)
- I Am a Novelist (私は小説家である)
- It All Started Just About a Year and a Half Ago (あれはちょうど一年半くらい前のことだった)
- Each Time I Read Your Confession (調書を全部何回読んでも、わからん事がある、どうしてお前はあの女を殺さなかったんだ？)
From Topaz (1988, トパーズ)
- Topaz (トパーズ)
- Lullaby (子守唄)
- Penlight (ペンライト)
From Ryu’s Cinematheque (1995, 村上龍映画小説)
- The Last Picture Show (ラストショー)
- The Wild Angels (ワイルドエンジェル)
- La Dolce Vita (甘い生活)
From Swans (1997, 白鳥)
- Swans (白鳥)
- Historia de un Amor (或る恋のものがたり)
- Se Fué (彼女は行ってしまった)
- All of Me (わたしのすべてを)
From At the Airport (2003, 空港にて)
- At the Airport (空港にて)
