I am very much a layman when it comes to literature, but I want to say that Kawabata's writing has an awe-inspiring quality to me - I've never been as engrossed reading stories that, if I were to summarize, would barely have any plot; and have felt so satisfied by the end, even when they usually stop before any major changes.

You can definitely feel his mastery in the art of telling a story, not just the art of creating a story itself. I feel Murakami unfortunately lacks the former, even though he has taken with the latter.