Portrait Of The Artist In Plain Words

Japanese master Haruki Murakami paints a far-fetched but serene picture of the act of creation.

- Maggie Trapp

In Haruki Murakami’s new novel, Killing Commendatore, an unnamed 36-year-old portrait artist spends nine months living alone in an elderly artist’s vacated house atop a mountain overlooking a nearly deserted valley. The book’s nameless narrator is separated from his wife and disillusioned with his portrait-painting career. But he finds himself enlivened and inspired as he settles into the home studio formerly occupied by prominent painter Tomohiko Amada.

But, this being a Murakami novel, the seemingly straightforward setup gives way to a story that’s part-uncanny mystery, part-unsettling magical realism, part weight philosophical reverie and part-understated realistic fiction comprising scenes in which characters spend lots of time listening to Puccini and Thelonious Monk records while preparing food.