As the World(s) Turn

Well, today I finished Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.  I really liked it a lot, but as is the case with many of his books, it left me a tad confused about uh, lots of things.  The story line is this:  a nameless data processor gets caught up in some crazy capers driven by an old loopy scientist.  Turns out the old guy’s been messin’ with his mind – literally.  So the book alternates between the real world and a world constructed in the guy’s consciousness.  It’s pretty nuts, and it didn’t all quite come together for me in the end, (but it was close.)  It kind of made my head hurt trying to figure out exactly what was going on in some places, but that’s okay.  Thinking is good.

So, in the world constructed in his consciousness, the guy lives in a seemingly perfect peaceful little town.  But at a cost, as his ’shadow’ (the manifestation of his true self) tells him:

…the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either.  No joy, no communion, no love.  Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

So the guy and his shadow spend the book trying to escape from mind world.  But lo and behold, the old scientist has other plans.

Maybe I’m just dumb, but I wasn’t totally sure what happened in the end.   I think in a few days it might come together for me.  But even if it doesn’t, it was still a good read.

So next, I’m going  to get started again on For the Love of Animals.  Maybe Larisa might have finished a book by the time I finish this new one.  Don’t worry, L, it’s a long book.

Samara

It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.

Right now, I’m about 1/3 of the way through Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.  Not surprisingly, I’m a bit confused by the plot right now, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not lovin’ it!  The book alternates between two different places/times, although it seems like some of the characters are the same.   As always, Murakami has created some compelling characters to play out his fantastical plot:  a data processing guy with a weakness for chubby ladies, a wacky old scientist who collects skulls, and who’s experimenting with the removal of sound from the world, and his cute chubby niece with a tendency to ask rather personal questions to strangers (“Are you well endowed?”)  I have no idea what’s going to happen, but that’s one of the things I love about Murakami.

Shit, it even has unicorns!

In further ‘blizzard’ developments, I mooched The Satanic Verses from someone on Bookmooch today.  Sweet!

Murakami Comes Through!

While I may have been just a little underwhelmed by A Wild Sheep Chase, I decided to add Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami to my reading list off the cuff.  Apparently this was the book that launched him to worldwide superstardom, and I now understand why.  It’s quite wonderful.  However, it’s different from all the other books by him that I’ve read in that there’s no weird supernatural stuff going on (you know, like sheep possessing people and trying to take over the world, etc.)  It’s just an old fashioned love story:  Boy meets best friend’s girlfriend.  Best friend commits suicide.  Boy and girl fall in love under the specter of best friend’s death.  Girl goes insane.

Man, I totally loved it.  Murakami writes about the dark stuff embedded in the nature of human existence – death, loneliness, alienation from society – and yet it’s so fun to read.  I don’t want to ever to run out of things to read by him.  Better start pacing myself a little better.  Norwegian Wood is now on my Murakami alter of greatness with The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and After Dark, and pretty much everything else I’ve ever read by him.

Here’s a snippet:

…I bought a newspaper at the station but when I opened it on the train, I realized I had absolutely no desire to read a paper and in fact couldn’t understand what it said.  All I could do was glare at the incomprehensible page of print and wonder what was going to happen to me from now on, and how the things around me would be changing.  I felt as if the world was pulsating every now and then.  I released a deep sigh and closed my eyes.  With regard to what I had done that day I felt not the slightest regret;  I knew for certain that if I had it to do all over again, I would live this day in exactly the same way again.

Yeah.

Sheep Thrills

So I’m a huge fan of Murakami.  I’ve never read anything by him that I didn’t really like.  That being said, this was not my favorite book of his.  I mean, it was a good read, it was diverting, but it doesn’t rank among my all time favorites, like The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, After Dark or Kafka on the Shore.  For some reason, the different elements of the story just didn’t come together for me at the end.  I won’t give away the plot, since this is on Larisa’s list (not that that means she’ll read it, with her list-busting shenanigans and all….)

Still a lesser favorite Murakami is still better than most  books out there on a good day, so I’m still glad I read it.

So now I anxiously await L’s take on it….

Samara’s Weekly Reading Update: Good things come in threes?

Generally I like to read 2 or 3 books at once.  Well, not all at once, but you know, switch between several as I read.  So I’ve started 3 on my list and below is a summary of my impressions thus far:

1.  In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan:  when I first started reading this and he started going off about the ‘lipid hypothesis’, I was like, Oh, boy – major snooze-fest.  But since it’s on my list, I didn’t immediately post it on Swaptree – I plowed on.  And it’s gotten much more interesting.   The section I’m reading now is about the so-called ‘Western diet’ – its origins and why it’s not good for people, even Westerners.  I believe the last section of the book which I’m close to approaching, has his recommendations about what one should eat, and I think that should be interesting too.  I’m about halfway done.

2.  Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard:  again when I first started this, I was a tad skeptical.  My first thought was, This is just like the movie – I’m not going to get anything out of this at all. But again, I soldiered on, and it’s actually gotten better too.  The movie always struck me as painting a little too rosy picture of life in Japanese-occupied China during World War II.  I mean, Rape of Nanking, anyone?  But the book seems quite a bit darker.  Which suits me just fine.

3.  So after the slow starts to these 2 above-mentioned books, I just had to go for something that I had no doubt would be good.  So I reached for A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami, an author whose imagination and wit never let me down.  (If only I knew Japanese and didn’t have to read in translation – I can only imagine how much more amazing his works could be.)  So he hasn’t disappointed.  I haven’t gotten too far in this, but I know it’ll be pretty awesome.  This is on Larisa’s list too, so I won’t go into the plot or anything, so I don’t ruin it for her.

So I’m planning to be done with one of these in the coming week.  At that time, I’ll post again.

Samara