Falling Superflat

September 4, 2019 / by Jon Braun

When a writer’s fame becomes bigger than his or her publishing house, the essential influence of the editor all but disappears. Take the case of JK Rowling, whose first Harry Potter book (The Philosopher’s Stone, 1997) clocks in at 223 pages for the UK edition; growing in size along with the series’ popularity, the final instalment (The Deathly Hallows, 2007) is nearly triple that, at a whopping 607 pages.

But quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, and trimming the fat is necessary for writers whose egos transcend the reader. Unfortunately, Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, Killing Commendatore, suffers from this malady and it’s hard to see the appeal of 681 pages of rambling, rehashed themes.

Also a prolific translator and a writer of short stories and non-fiction, Murakami’s first novel since 2013’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage blends magical realism with historical fiction (Vienna during the Second World War), opera and art references, and so many of the author’s well-worn motifs that just a few minutes of a Murakami-themed drinking game would put you under the table. Without revealing too many spoilers, don’t be surprised to discover a mysterious woman, a faceless villain, sibling trauma, a dried-up well, a secret passageway to another world, numerous cringe-worthy sex scenes… it all makes for a greatest-hits album minus any semblance of original spin.

A nameless Tokyo-based portrait painter is suddenly divorced by his wife; she cites a dream she had six years before. After a road trip to clear his head, he moves into the remote mountain home of his friend’s father, a famous painter who is battling dementia in an elderly home, and discovers a previously unseen work that depicts the opening murder in Don Giovanni; things take a turn for the strange as the Commendatore from the painting comes alive. Meanwhile, a wealthy neighbour with potentially ulterior motives commissions a portrait, and together they explore the source of a mysterious bell that seems to be coming from the well behind the house, which may be a portal to the underworld…

There are nuggets of brilliance to be found throughout (“The world is full of lonely things, but not many could be lonelier than waking up alone in the morning in a love hotel”), but the journey to get there isn’t rewarding, even for die-hard Murakami fans. With too many disparate ideas and themes, long, drawn-out descriptions of little impact, and a lack of character development, it just feels slow – and the payoff is underwhelming, to say the least. To appropriate a term ordinarily invoked of his famous artist namesake, Takashi Murakami, the work feels “superflat”.