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Killing Commendatore

A novel

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Killing Commendatore

Written by: Haruki Murakami
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
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About this listen

 The epic new novel from the internationally acclaimed and best-selling author of 1Q84

In Killing Commendatore, a thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious thirteen-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art—as well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby—Killing Commendatore is a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers. Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction
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Beautiful writing. Wonderful story that keeps you captivated. Perfect narration. I’m sad that the journey is over and will definitely listen to this book again.

Outstanding

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Amazing book to listen to.
Loved the narrator performance and voice. Kirby is really a talented narrator.

Good book, even better narrator!

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My first audio for Haruki, read most of his stuff. I loved it! Kept me interested all the time. And those girly voices Kirby unfounded talent! LOL

Another great attention keeper

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Menshiki was the unanswered question for me in this one. The man in the White Subaru Forester somewhat less so. The protagonist, his wife, his friend, his boss, Mariye, her aunt and Tomohiko Amada were all either familiar characters from prior books or reasonably understandable. Loved the back story on Tomohiko and the whole schtick about the actual painting and the magical realism unleashed in true Murakami style. A little disappointed by the ending which seemed to fizzle out a little, especially as the author had telegraphed part of it at the beginning (why did he put his own spoilers in?).
The narrator for me was not the best, certainly not as good as the team in 1Q84. He was not good on female characters, not very good on clearly defining the lead characters e.g. protagonist has an American accent, Menshiki speaks like a Japanese person using English as second language but other than that they didn't feel inhabited and it just felt like a reading out loud. The thing, above all, that really drove me nuts though, was his pronunciation of the word shone (as in rhymes with gone) as "shown".

Charted territory

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I thoroughly enjoyed this Novel by Murakami. It’s the first title I have listened to on audio and I have read most of his other work. Not my favourite book of his, but it’s in the top 5 for sure. It took me about 6 chapters or so to get into the book, but then I was hooked into the worlds woven by Murakami. On to the next ..

Crushed it in 5 days

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