While reading Metamorphosis and Murakami's Samsa in Love, I was a little struck by how obviously Murakami's writing style differs from others. Even when translated across different hands, we find the same traces of detective-like thinking, clipped sentences, and atmosphere which, while similar to hard-boiled classics, seems to separate itself on an entirely different plane of view. I think the most face-palm moment I experienced was when reading to the description of "Gregor Samsa's" erection in relation to the hunchback - of course Murakami wrote this, I thought.
The almost unapologetic narration of all aspects of human life in practice, interjected with thoughts and tangents about seemingly anything that is present in the scene is, as far as I've read, prevalent in every single one of his works, to the point where sometimes I wonder if they are really different novels rather than the same continous story with the same overarching themes. It seems that some works inspired by his writing also try to emulate this style of narration, while others don't even bother. For example, with the film adaptations inspired by The (Second) Bakery Attack, it was again very obvious which was which. The Japanese film leaned fully into those philosophical tangents and oftentimes surreal nature of mundane life (choosing donuts can't be that deep), and created a world in which viewpoints and ideas could be called into question and changed. Conversely, the American film did none of this, at least not overtly intentionally - they took the general plot (robbing a fast food restaurant) and visually developed that, but neglected to portray deeper discussions into the curse itself, implications of Wagner, et cetera.
This is all to say that I'm intrigued by Murakami's ability to separate himself from the pack of writers so easily, for it to be apparent even to a more passive reader like myself.
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