{"product_id":"killing-commendatore-isbn-9780525520047","title":"Killing Commendatore","description":"The epic new novel from the internationally acclaimed and best-selling author of \u003ci\u003e1Q84\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eKilling Commendatore,\u003c\/i\u003e 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 \u003ci\u003eThe Great Gatsby\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKilling Commendatore\u003c\/i\u003e is a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers.\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eWashington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Library Journal, LitHub, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews \u003c\/i\u003eBest Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Murakami] is as masterful as ever at building an intricate narrative and keeping his audience in suspense. \u003ci\u003eKilling Commendatore\u003c\/i\u003e is both a testament to the transformational power of art and a cautionary tale on the dangers of exploration.” —\u003ci\u003eHouston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A spellbinding parable of art, history, and human loneliness.” —\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Expansive and intricate . . . touches on many of the themes familiar in Mr. Murakami’s novels: the mystery of romantic love, the weight of history, the transcendence of art, the search for elusive things just outside our grasp.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Eccentric and intriguing, \u003ci\u003eKilling Commendatore\u003c\/i\u003e is the product of a singular imagination. . . . Murakami is a wiz at melding the mundane with the surreal. . . . He has a way of imbuing the supernatural with uncommon urgency. His placid narrative voice belies the utter strangeness of his plot. . . . The worldview of Murakami’s novels is consistent, and it’s invigorating. In this book and many that came before it, he urges us to embrace the unusual, accept the unpredictable.” —\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Beguiling. . . . Murakami is brilliant at folding the humdrum alongside the supernatural; finding the magic that’s nested in life’s quotidian details. . . . His prose is warm, conversational and studded with quiet profundities. He’s eminently good company; that most precious of qualities that we look for in an author. We trust him to get us entertainingly lost, just as we trust that he’ll eventually get us home.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Exhilarating. . . . Only in the calm madness of his magical realism can Murakami truly capture one of his obsessions, the usually ineffable yearning that drives a person to make art.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Another intriguing, time-challenging tome you can’t wait to finish . . . while simultaneously wishing you might never reach its conclusion, dreading the end of another indescribable Murakami odyssey.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it. . . . What can't be denied is Mr. Murakami's irresistible storytelling ability. He builds his self-contained world deliberately and faithfully, developing intrigue and suspense and even taking care to give each chapter a cliffhanger ending as in an old-fashioned serialized novel.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “No other author mixes domestic, fantastic and esoteric elements into such weirdly bewitching shades. . . . Just as he straddles barriers dividing high art from mass entertainment, so he suspends borders between east and west.” —\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Wild, thrilling. . . . Murakami is a master storyteller and he knows how to keep us hooked.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[\u003ci\u003eKilling Commendatore\u003c\/i\u003e] marks the return of a master.” —\u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “More of Murakami’s magical mist, but its size, beauty, and concerns with lust and war bring us back to the vividness and scale of his 1997 epic, \u003ci\u003eThe Wind-up Bird Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e.’’ —\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “No ordinary trip; get ready for a wild ride.” —\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A perfect balance of tradition and individual talent. . . . Murakami dancing along ‘the inky blackness of the Path of Metaphor’ is like Fred Astaire dancing across a floor, then up the walls and onto the ceiling.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Spectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003ePrologue\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday when I awoke from a nap the faceless man was there before me. He was seated on the chair across from the sofa I’d been sleeping on, staring straight at me with a pair of imaginary eyes in a face that wasn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe man was tall, and he was dressed the same as when I had seen him last. His face-that-wasn’t-a-face was half hidden by a wide-brimmed black hat, and he had on a long, equally dark coat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I came here so you could draw my portrait,” the faceless man said, after he’d made sure I was fully awake. His voice was low, toneless, flat. “You promised you would. You remember?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yes, I remember. But I couldn’t draw it then because I didn’t have any paper,” I said. My voice, too, was toneless and flat. “So to make up for it I gave you a little penguin charm.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yes, I brought it with me,” he said, and held out his right hand. In his hand—which was extremely long—he held a small plastic penguin, the kind you often see attached to a cell phone strap as a good-luck charm. He dropped it on top of the glass coffee table, where it landed with a small \u003ci\u003eclunk\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m returning this. You probably need it. This little penguin will be the charm that should protect those you love. In exchange, I want you to draw my portrait.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was perplexed. “I get it, but I’ve never drawn a portrait of a person without a face.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy throat was parched.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“From what I hear, you’re an outstanding portrait artist. And there’s a first time for everything,” the faceless man said. And then he laughed. At least, I think he did. That laugh-like voice was like the empty sound of wind blowing up from deep inside a cavern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe took off the hat that hid half of his face. Where the face should have been, there was nothing, just the slow whirl of a fog.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI stood up and retrieved a sketchbook and a soft pencil from my studio. I sat back down on the sofa, ready to draw a portrait of the man with no face. But I had no idea where to begin, or how to get started. There was only a void, and how are you supposed to give form to something that does not exist? And the milky fog that surrounded the void was continually changing shape.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’d better hurry,” the faceless man said. “I can’t stay here forlong.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy heart was beating dully inside my chest. I didn’t have much time. I had to hurry. But my fingers holding the pencil just hung there in midair, immobilized. It was as though everything from my wrist down into my hand were numb. There were several people I had to protect, and all I was able to do was draw pictures. Even so, there was no way I could draw him. I stared at the whirling fog. “I’m sorry, but your time’s up,” the man without a face said a little while later. From his faceless mouth, he let out a deep breath, like pale fog hovering over a river.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Please wait. If you give me just a little more time—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe man put his black hat back on, once again hiding half of his face.“One day I’ll visit you again. Maybe by then you’ll be able to draw me. Until then, I’ll keep this penguin charm.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen he vanished. Like a mist suddenly blown away by a freshening breeze, he vanished into thin air. All that remained was the unoccupied chair and the glass table. The penguin charm was gone from the tabletop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt all seemed like a short dream. But I knew very well that it wasn’t. If this was a dream, then the world I’m living in itself must all be a dream.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe someday I’ll be able to draw a portrait of nothingness. Just like another artist was able to complete a painting titled Killing Commendatore. But to do so I would need time to get to that point. I would have to have time on my side.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301089726693,"sku":"NP9780525520047","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525520047.jpg?v=1767730729","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/killing-commendatore-isbn-9780525520047","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}