Complete and utter cult
I was interested to read this article the other day, as I'm currently halfway through Haruki Murakami's epic 1Q84 (the first book of it anyway). The bit that particularly struck me was that some reviewers apparently have a beef with him for only being interested in playing to his own fans rather than trying to win new converts to the great intellectual cause: "Murakami, now 62, has ceased being a novelist and has entered the dangerous world of literary phenomenon, a cult figure himself." On the surface, this would appear to make Murakami the literary equivalent of Radiohead, who now make esoteric electronica designed to appeal to a set few who - by implication - have outgrown hoary old concepts like choruses and hooks. Or perhaps Stewart Lee, who instead of telling jokes prefers to endlessly deconstruct them for his audience of delighted fellow pseuds. But the world of novels operates in reverse. Murakami is a great writer who can combine high quality wi...