Anyone here read Ryu Murakami? Is he any good?

File: image.jpg (83KB, 467x700px) Image search: [Google]

83KB, 467x700px

>>8502511
Overrated. Like Japanese films, it LOOKS like a novel but there's really no content. It's pure imitation of American or European models without anything inside, like a replicant out of Philip K Dick.

I've been wanting to read Almost Transparent Blue, but haven't had any luck finding it in a book store. Will cave and buy it online eventually. Any anon that can tell us more about his work?

Anyone who claims he's the "better Murakami" is only running on the confidence that not enough people have read Ryu to know that's horseshit. Not that Haruki is a great author, but he at least has a unique sense of style instead of Ryu's edgy sex and death shit slapped on top of truly mediocre unoriginal stories.

>>8502535
The whole point is that replicants do have something inside them dummy

i was actually more impressed with Tao Lin's essay on Almost Transparent Blue than the novel itself. i don't know, i just can't get interested in post-beat tales of disaffected youth on drug-induced sexual escapades.

i'd like to read some of his other work though.

>>8502511
pulpy and overly violent. tries to shock the reader with blood and gore