12/01/2014 Updated 7/22/2026
Haruki Murakami is easy to read and easy to understand. After reading so many Haruki Murakami books I can say the following about his books. These themes are repeated often. A young girl is killed mostly likely strangled by a man who is never brought to justice. A man voluntary locks himself in a enclosed space to experience sensory deprivation. A man is boring and uninteresting with low esteem who’s wife or lover leaves him. A older man comes to help or interact with a younger man. He is not the father, but a father figure who makes up for the failure of the real father. An older man hooks up with a younger women who is an airhead who fails to understand him.
If you want to really understand Haruki Murakami you need to read his nonfiction book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”. “Haruki Murakami rises at 4am to write for five or six hours before a six-mile run and a swim.” His self punishing regimes made me feel sorry for him such as running more then 100 miles in one day for a marathon.
IQ84 2011 English version is a masterpiece. I read this one first and I recommend it be read first. It does not tie into any of his other earlier books.
The Dolphin Hotel is a place in the book Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami.
There must be a link between the Japanese killing dolphins and the hotel. See “Whale Whores” an episode of South Park in which Japanese show up to kill dolphins. Some Japanese People eat dolphins but there are many Japanese People who are against the practice.
I feel eating dolphins must be similar to eating a chimpanzee, since they are not fish and are very intelligent. It is almost like cannibalism to eat a greater ape. Bad luck will happen, upon staying at a Dolphin hotel in Japan due to the killing of the dolphins. I think this must have been Haruki Murakami point in picking this name for the supernatural hotel in the book.
In the book the Boxman by Kobo Abe the main characters dreams he has become a fish. We all evolved from fish.
I found there is a Dolphin Motel in San Diego that was around before the book was written. The Motel started in the 70s, I am not sure of the exact date. The motel looks like a nice place. I would stay there. I like the neon dolphins signs. Updated: The Dolphin Motel is out of business. See the website for the Hotel on the Wayback Machine link provided. Original Website hyperlink defunct but was dolphin-motel.com/motel.html
Kafka on the Shore has terrible narrator. I should try again with a print version or find an AI narrator. I hate it when they use an non Japanese accent voice on a Japanese book such as on Kafka on the Shore. Eleven Labs provides an excellent AI voice for with a slight Japanese Accent. I have used it before and I love it.
One of his more newer books is a book of short stories called Men without Women. In the story one of woman recovers her past life in which she was a lamprey. A lamprey is a fish that sucks the life out of another fish or a person who drains everything they can from another person, but provides no benefits in return.
Spoiler Alert for the book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
I could not believe the ending of Colorless. The whole book leads up the question of does a woman love him or not, and then the book finishes with the question unanswered. I wondered if maybe the character happened to fall asleep then die when he was asleep so he could not answer the phone.
This post updated in 2026. I have stopped reading Haruki Murakami so I can not comment on the quality of his newer works. The first story in “After the Quake” a book of short stories is also one of my favorites.
Macy Makes Magic 