Reception
The original Underground (sans Aum interviews) was seen by some critics as being "one-sided," a view that Murakami himself shared, leading to his publishing The Place That Was Promised. Despite this possible bias, the original Underground sold 270,000 copies within two months of its Japanese release.
Reviews of the English translation were largely positive and enthusiastic, despite a severe cut in the number of commuter interviews included in the work—from 62 in the original to 34 in the translation.
Read more about this topic: Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack And The Japanese Psyche
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)