Editors Reads Verdict
A rich, unhurried Murakami — part Don Giovanni, part Japanese fairy tale, part meditation on art and representation — that rewards the patience it demands.
What We Loved
- The art-world setting gives it fresh material
- The mythological underpinning (Don Giovanni, Idea figures) is handled with subtlety
- The mountain retreat setting is beautifully atmospheric
Minor Drawbacks
- At 700 pages, slower than his best long novels
- The middle sections can lose momentum
- Less emotionally urgent than 1Q84 or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Key Takeaways
- → Art as both subject and structure — what a painting can contain that reality cannot
- → The pit in the woods as Murakami's descent-into-the-underworld motif
- → Mozart's Don Giovanni as the novel's hidden spine
| Author | Haruki Murakami |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Knopf |
| Pages | 704 |
| Published | January 1, 2017 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Magical Realism |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Committed Murakami readers; readers interested in art and representation |
After his wife tells him she wants a divorce, the narrator — a portrait painter who has spent years producing technically accomplished but spiritually empty commissioned portraits — abandons Tokyo and drives north until his car stops. Eventually he settles in a house in the mountains above Odawara that belongs to the famous Japanese-style painter Tomohiko Amada, now in a nursing home with dementia. In the attic, wrapped in brown paper, he finds a canvas that Amada apparently completed and immediately hid: a Japanese-style painting depicting a scene from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, titled ‘Killing Commendatore’.
A mysterious bell begins ringing from a sealed pit behind the house at two in the morning. The narrator opens the pit. What emerges is an Idea — a two-foot-tall figure dressed as the Commendatore from the painting, a metaphysical entity that has crossed from the realm of concepts into physical form.
Killing Commendatore is the most art-saturated of Murakami’s novels — a meditation on what artists actually do and what they give up when they do it for money, filtered through Japanese-style painting, Mozart, and the mythology of descent and return. Long and unhurried, it is best read in the spirit of the mountain retreat at its centre: without urgency.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Killing Commendatore" about?
A portrait painter, after his wife leaves him, retreats to a house in the Odawara mountains once owned by the painter Tomohiko Amada. In the attic he finds a canvas of an obscure Japanese-style painting titled 'Killing Commendatore'. Soon a mysterious bell begins ringing from a sealed pit in the woods, and a faceless figure called the Idea emerges to set the narrator's world in motion. Murakami's most art-focused novel.
Who should read "Killing Commendatore"?
Committed Murakami readers; readers interested in art and representation
What are the key takeaways from "Killing Commendatore"?
Art as both subject and structure — what a painting can contain that reality cannot The pit in the woods as Murakami's descent-into-the-underworld motif Mozart's Don Giovanni as the novel's hidden spine
Is "Killing Commendatore" worth reading?
A rich, unhurried Murakami — part Don Giovanni, part Japanese fairy tale, part meditation on art and representation — that rewards the patience it demands.
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