nyt on murakami: the greatest writer of his generation to never win a nobel prize. but he's rather too western

murakami has become one of my favorites because of the always surprising nature of his work, a mixture of fact and fantasy.

perhaps like graham greene he too will never win a nobel prize. 

and i am reminded of my favorite unsung writer, ov vijayan. he was arguably the greatest writer in the world of his generation, a magical realist, fabulist, and political cartoonist of unparalleled merit, who was blackballed by the comrades as he in later life rejected the idiocy of nehruvian stalinism and became a transcendentalist. vijayan invented magical realism before marquez, with his 'the legend of khasak'; and each of his books was fundamentally different. even in translation into english, his work retains its pellucid clarity.

murakami's 'little people' remind me of vijayan's beautiful short story 'the little ones'. also, some of vijayan's own translations of his work into english are better than the original malayalam (eg. 'the foetus' with its forbidding victorian language and imagery): like murakami, he too might have imagined some of his work in english first and then written it in his own language. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/the-fierce-imagination-of-haruki-murakami.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&src=twrhp&adxnnlx=1319191770-0lbvRwqBqJdf3A8eI92ggQ&pagewanted=all

i love murakami's work, but i deplore his rejection of all things japanese and his embrace of all things western -- like jazz and the like. i love the very traditional and japanese work of his fellow-writers like yukio mishima, junichiro tanizaki, yasunari kawabata -- all masters of the art of the novel.