• Almost Transparent Blue
• Ryu Murakami

Almost Transparent Blue is a brutal tale of lost youth in a Japanese port town close to an American military base. Murakami's image-intensive narrative paints a portrait of a group of friends locked in a destructive cycle of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

The novel is all but plotless, but the raw and often violent prose takes us on a rollercoaster ride through reality and ha Almost Transparent Blue is a brutal tale of lost youth in a Japanese port town close to an American military base. Murakami's image-intensive narrative paints a portrait of a group of friends locked in a destructive cycle of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

The novel is all but plotless, but the raw and often violent prose takes us on a rollercoaster ride through reality and hallucination, highs and lows, in which the characters and their experiences come vividly to life. Trapped in passivity, they gain neither passion nor pleasure from their adventures.

A Lab on Fire - Almost Transparent Blue /unisex/ Taken to calling it calm, you sit for a moment in the sunlight. Is there a mfx1450 driver for mac. The air around you shifts slightly, a strand of hair out of place, the rubbish scuttling past.

Yet out of the alienation, boredom and underlying rage and grief emerges a strangely quiet and almost equally shocking beauty. Ryu Murakami's first novel, Almost Transparent Blue won the coveted Akutagawa literary prize and became an instant bestseller. Representing a sharp and conscious turning away from the introspective trend of postwar Japanese literature, it polarized critics and public alike and soon attracted international attention as an alternative view of modern Japan. 'I put the thin fragment of glass, dripping blood, in my pocket, and ran out into the misty road. The doors and windows of the houses were shut, nothing was moving. I thought I'd been swallowed by a huge living thing, that I was turning around and around in its stomach like the hero of some fairy tale.'

Almost Transparent Blue A warning to any potential readers of this book. There is explicit, graphic sex in the first half of this novel. If you are prudish about group sex, alternative sex, or say 'I put the thin fragment of glass, dripping blood, in my pocket, and ran out into the misty road. The doors and windows of the houses were shut, nothing was moving. I thought I'd been swallowed by a huge living thing, that I was turning around and around in its stomach like the hero of some fairy tale.' Almost Transparent Blue A warning to any potential readers of this book. There is explicit, graphic sex in the first half of this novel.

Almost Transparent Blue

If you are prudish about group sex, alternative sex, or say sex involving a foot that will be seared into your memory for the rest of your life you should avoid this novel. If you have issues with rampant drug use and drug/alcohol induced vomiting you should avoid this novel. The first cool thing about this novel is the fact that it was published in 1976 almost a full decade before came up out of his own drug induced haze to write the novel. I read Ellis and I read, and later and enjoyed them to varying degrees.

I'd heard of the other Murakami, but his books were somewhat elusive to me in the 1980s. So finally here in 2012 I read this book and discover that if I had read this book back in 1985 I would have laughed at the feeble attempts of the 'brat pack' to write 'edgy' novels.

I wonder did Ellis read this book before he wrote? This book kicks you in the nuts and as your falling to the ground you catch a knee to the chin that stands you back up so Murakami can slug you a few more times before letting you fall into bloody heap wishing you could reach that syringe full of smack just beyond your blood dripping reach. Our characters get into an altercation with a security guard. They break his arm, but they don't stop there. By the time they are done he is a mess.

The blood smeared and dripping over the lower half of his face was a black mask. The veins in his forehead bulging, he tried to pull himself along by his elbows. Perhaps seized by some fresh pain, he mumbled, lay on his side, his feet trembling. His vomit-covered belly heaved up and down. There is a lack of humanity running through this novel. The main characters are horrible to everyone including each other.

Ryu Murakami

Ryu, the main character and also the stand in for the author, does show some real tenderness towards his friends, but not without some sensual benefit to himself. There is a lack of soul, not in the religious sense because that is all silly nonsense (as if my life force can be bartered with), but in the lack of substance in these characters. I read a book several years ago, part of a trilogy of which only two parts have been published, by a guy named. In one of the two books, memory escapes me, he talks about these 'soulless' creatures walking the Earth, the offspring of 'Angels' and human females. They lack a soul because they are not exactly human, but they are able to assimilate with their soul carrying brethren. They lack that important part of humanity that allows us to really care about each other. I think we've all met people that resemble that description.