By Samuel J.P. Shaw. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Because of technical difficulties and prescription-induced lassitude, I’m providing Mr. Shaw’s essay in PDF format. If the consensus is overwhelming to have it again in HTML format, arrangements can be made.
November 27th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
amazing. my favorite author and my favorite band, together at last! i haven’t read the entire article yet (it’s longer than i thought!). however, i am a high school english teacher and i am going to show my students this, and encourage them to make their own connections between books and music. thank you so much for posting it. and perhaps i will comment more when i read the entire thing.
November 28th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
i thought i should get back on here and say that i HAVE read the entire article now. i loved it. i shared it with my students, to show them two things: how to write about literature by comparing it to something that is not literature; and how to structure an essay using sub-headings. great lesson for high schoolers. a couple of students were quite excited at the idea of using their favorite music to talk about literature. now, they just have to think about how to do it with Italo Calvino’s “if on a winter’s night a traveler” …..
March 28th, 2007 at 6:46 am
I really enjoyed reading this essay. Partly because I was reading it while sitting on a bench on what was probably the second real spring day (feeling the warmth of the sun is a pleasure you tend to crave during the long winters here in Finland), partly because I found it really interesting, and as far from being pretentious as possible. Whenever I’ll write a piece of academic writing (which is in fact what I should be doing right now…), I want to convey this casual - dare I say “free” - spirit.
I don’t really know Radiohead. OK Computer is indeed one of my favourite records, and I listened to Hail to the Thief and Kid A a couple of times, but still I don’t feel I have ever really got into them deeply, the way you do with a book. But after having read this essay, now I just feel like going home and putting on Kid A again.
My two favourite novels by Murakami are The Wind-up bird chronicle and Kafka on the shore, and this is where I actually turn back to the essay and hope to contribute something relevant - if only my thought on his world and his - well - optimism; I’m not sure what the crucial difference between “Romantic” and “romantic” is here, but I agree that he is indeed one, deeply and passionately romantic that is, at least in these two novels, while being a realist at the same time. And this is why it’s so powerful and engaging, in my view; in the end you have to be a realist because you have to pay the rent and feed the cat, but it’s good to know that there is another world where the Noborus are fought - and beaten - by humble heroes like Toru; and it’s good to know that you only have to open Murakami’s books to get lost in this world.
Big words, and I’m not sure if they make too much sense either. Thanks still for this play of thoughts.
April 29th, 2007 at 3:54 am
[...] Robert, care este acum “chief of finding cool things on the internet”, mi-a dat asta intr-o seara. Desigur, Murakami si Radiohead in acelasi eseu ar putea sa arunce universul in neant, [...]
June 1st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I’m not exactly a Radiohead afficionado, but I certainly enjoy their music. I can’t attest to know much about them, but I really enjoyed and appreciated this article. I’ve always loved the way Murakami has peppered his works with pop-culture and manages to use it as a means of furthering the narrative of his stories. Y’know, I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed reading this. It was well worth handing a paper in late for.
July 30th, 2007 at 5:22 am
dIs artIcLe suxx! radiohead r0xx0r!
And there’s my impression of an idiot. Honestly, wonderful work. I’ve never heard of Murakami, but I’m a big fan of Radiohead. Reading this makes me want to search Amazon for a Murakami book.
I applaud you for having the guts to actually dissect Radiohead’s music (there’s gotta be at least a dozen layers of skin on it, not to mention a few layers of flesh and bone). I’ve spent some time in the past writing music reviews/articles, but I’ve never had the patience to go as in-depth as you have on this piece. Kudos!