I have been enjoying the short stories of キノの旅 for some time (finished 6 volumes) but I feel that their quality has degraded as the volume number increases.
Can anybody recommend any magic realism books (preferable of short stories, but will read longer ones) that are similar in difficulty to kino-no-tabi?
I do love Murakami, but I made my goal of learning Japanese to read him,in Japanese, so I want to save his books as I way to say “I have finally reached the goal” when I read him–if that makes any sense.
3 comments
I believe the series コーヒーが冷めないうちに could be a good fit for you. There are four volumes so far, each with about four stories that are all set in a café. Here’s where the magical realism comes in: visitors can travel through time in this cafe, as long as they sit in a specific seat and don’t let their coffee get cold.
There is some difficult vocabulary in these books that someone around N3 would definitely need to look up. However, there’s also a lot of repetition and the books are written a bit like a screen play, with lots of dialog that makes it very accessible.
I also enjoy magic realism literature (both in English and Japanese).
You could try the short stories by Hiromi Kawakami (川上 弘美). She’s influenced by modernist/post-modernist western literature, like magical realism. While her writing is a bit more advanced than キノの旅, one of her stories is featured in the bilingual reader, [Read Real Japanese Short Stories](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2308179).
All of the stories in the reader have page-by-page translations, a dictionary of all the words used in the stories in the back of the book, plus audio narration so you can practice your listening skills.
Kawakami’s story, 神様, is the first story in the book, so it’s actually one of the easier stories (the 2nd story by Otsuichi (乙一) is the easiest). 神様 is about a woman describing her unusual picnic outing with her new neighbor, a very polite talking bear.
The writing style might through you off at first (lots of である sentence-enders instead of です) but you’ll get used to it. Its unusual use adds a dream-like whimsical tone, which slightly mirrors the quirkiness of the reserved, old-fashioned speech used by the bear, but it’s one of the reasons why I like Kawakami’s work. She likes to play with language, in similar manner as many Western avant-garde authors.
It can be a bit hard to get into at first, but stick with the story because I think grammar-wise it wasn’t that hard. There will be lots of new words though, but you can refer to the in-book dictionary. Also read the introductory chapter in the reader which suggests various reading strategies when reading the short stories (like not trying to get too hung up on unknown words in the first read-through).
If reading 神様 feels too challenging, you could first read the Otsuichi story (the 2nd story in the reader). It’s very short even for a short story, and the writing is more conventional and simple. It’s about a man reminiscing about an odd encounter he once had at a children’s playground. (If you like the Otusichi’s story, it’s from his *Zoo* short story collection, which I also enjoyed, if you like mystery/horror stories.)
After you finish Otsuichi’s story, then you can back and go try Kawakami’s 神様 story. That’s what I did.
If you like 神様, then you can try her [神様 short story collection](https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/川上-弘美/dp/4122039053/), from where this story came from.
Actually, you could try reading her popular novel, [センセイの鞄](https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/%E5%B7%9D%E4%B8%8A-%E5%BC%98%E7%BE%8E-ebook/dp/B097R4TX2B/). It might be a challenge, but it might be doable for you, if you read it along with the [English translation (known as Strange Weather in Tokyo)](https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Hiromi-Kawakami/dp/1783785799/), which was also well received. There will be a lot of new vocab but it’s a relatively short book. Whenever I got stuck, I’d check the translation in the English version of the book.
Try reading the first page or two, and you’ll see Kawakami’s penchant for playing with language which sets the unique tone of the book. The main narrator begins with how her sensei likes to spell “sensei” in Japanese a certain idiosyncratic way.
I also recommend the コーヒーが冷めないうちに as recommend by u/dokushoclub .
Good luck on your goal in reading Haruki Murakami. That was one of my goals too and it felt good to eventually accomplish it. Many of his short stories aren’t as hard as you might think. One of the first stories I read in Japanese by him was “Drive My Car” from his *Men Without Women* short story collection. Once you read it, you can then watch the Japanese film adaption of the story, and you should be able to understand a lot of the dialogue.
FYI, a very short essay by Murakami is the first essay in the [Read Real Japanese Essays](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2308180) bilingual reader, so you can try that whenever you feel you’re ready. Obviously it doesn’t feature magic realism, but it does have many of the traits of Murakami’s fiction writing style. The way he describes his own thoughts is similar to how the some of his characters in his stories think.
In general, I found the *Read Real Japanese Essays* to be easier to read than the short story reader since because writing style is more straightforward, and doesn’t use the figurative / descriptive language used in the short stories, but I enjoyed both readers a lot and it made the transition to reading adult-level books easier.
Murakami is actually pretty easy relatively so you could probably just jump right into his stuff lol. Keep in mind anything native you read will be difficult and require a bunch of lookups because you just don’t have the vocabulary yet.
One of the first books I read when I was around that level was 夜市 by 恒川 光太郎. It’s two short novellas that are thematically linked but unrelated in one book that have sort of an magical realism 異世界 type feel. Not really horror per se but dark fantasy. A step up from what you read but doable. The audiobook is also well read, and I find it helps a lot to listen to what you read. It’s also just a really good book.