Allez Al Okay, never picked up on that. I like what I read by Murakami. I was particularly impressed by the last book I read by him, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage.
Please consider the following a general observation and not an attempt at a forum fight over your remark about Murakami.
I got in the habit of reading Goodread reviews of books I finished and picked up on contributors often dismissing a book, writer or complete ouevre for the treatment of female characters. A lot of snarkiness. It seems fashionable to write off an author for being a creepy old (white?) dude drooling over girls.
There's a moral component to this that rubs me the wrong way. I don't think pointing out that something is 'sexist', necessarily makes you a good person nor a good critic. So why bring it up? What is the point?
Furthermore, fiction is art. It's important to distinguish between the art and the artist. I remember an essay by Kurt Vonnegut in which he wrote about Louis Ferdinand Céline that he was a great writer as well as a man with despicable political ideas. The latter don't necessarily come through in his fiction although one who wants to find it probably can.
In a way I feel like this whole thing is an insult to fiction. Fiction can be about anything in any way. (Indirectly) dictating how a writer should write is disrespectful. If you don't like an author, don't read him or her. Simple as that, right? This political correct perspective on literature can only lead to a one-dimensional literary landscape in which every book will be 'good' and therefor fucking boring. I prefer the seedy margins of literature over the haughty classics, but maybe I will read War and Peace someday...
Instead of writing the above I could just have said that some of the 'reviews' on Goodreads suck, which should hardly be a surprise, but what's the fun in that?
