Chapters 1-7 (end: pg. 60)

I overshot the mark, weirdly, tonight when I set forth on completing this long-overdue reading assignment. Not sure where the rest of you are, but I thought I'd go ahead and purge, while it's all still fresh. But just to warn you, I'm going to be talking about pages 1 through 60, and don't want to "spoil" anything for anyone -- though it's still early enough not to be giving too much away, I think.

OK, so, I'm pretty engrossed. It's a compelling story, if an unlikely premise. A 15-year-old runs away from home to ... read all day at a library? This tends to a characteristic of fiction writing that generally turns me off: when the plot is clearly based on the author's fantasy of herself in this other world. That's obviously, I think?, what motivates fiction writers, to recreate herself or her* environment/planet/world -- sort of like a daydream, to the gazillionth power. Because everyone's fantasy of themselves is superpowered (figuratively and sometimes literally), I tend to find fictional lead characters difficult or impossible to relate to and, occasionally, condescending. And even embarrassing. It's like being exposed to someone's sex fantasy.

So maybe Haruki Murakami imagines his 15-year-old self as a quiet, emotionally controlled, superior intellect; maybe he actually was, at 15, exceptionally in control of these things or maybe, of course, this is purely a fictional conjuring of an exceptional 15-year-old. (I doubt it.) Either way, come on. Why leave town to go to the library. Fine, it's a really, really, really nice library, but ... still. I'll stop, from here on out -- disbelief suspended. Besides, we're only 60 pages in. Who knows what else "Kafka" is after?

I was interested in and sort of confused by the prophetic (via bolded text) verse in the beginning, and also "the boy named Crow." I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about both. This inner dialogue -- particularly with respect to "the boy named Crow" -- I know this is kind of a shallow question or observation or whatever, but are we dealing with a personality disorder or some kind of metaphorical situation dealing with spirits and self-doubt and all that? I'm still waiting to settle on one, or let the book settle it for me. (But I find it curious that there are two voices in his head. Prophecy, I can deal with, but what's with the whole separate character who is always named as being named Crow. Weirdsies!)

The flashback sequences with the teacher and the 16 kids who collapse mysteriously, and the B-29, are giving me bad anxiety about Hiroshima/Nagasaki karma. I know, I know, I know that sounds retardedly self-interested and superstitious, but seriously -- we dropped fucking nuclear bombs on two cities. If we did it to them, why wouldn't anybody do it to us? OK. That is not the point of the story, I know. But I'm just saying I'm thinking about it as I'm reading about the teacher and her half-starving students digging for mushrooms on the hillside. I can totally see how people in this country get all flipped out and start building bunkers in their backyards. And voting for Sarah Palin. (.... asrjackjasciosjfsiojeoclKSMca....sorry, had a stroke there)

The part about God splitting everyone in half -- that we used to be male/male, female/male and female/female but God split us up and we've been looking for our other halves ever since -- that's fascinating. After I write this I'm going to Google what he's talking about. I like that there's some ancient apocrypha out there that's gay-friendly. Especially since our lead character here seems sort of gay to me. Bi, actually. He's clearly interested in the chick he met on the bus. But he also seems interested in the bangs-swept librarian dude in the button-up.

I'm also wondering how you guys are feeling about the setting. I've not read much Japanese lit (or any, that I can recall -- mortifyingly) and so I'm interested in "Kafka"'s taste in music. Prince and Radiohead. Unfortunately, I'm not so familiar with Japanese culture. I do know that many American celebrities/trends are popular there -- but I guess I'm surprised Duke Ellington is one of the things a 15-year-old might supposedly pick up on. (Then again, I do know that Murakami has written extensively about jazz in other publications, and so I've got that informing my thought process here, too. This all comes back to the fiction-writer-imagining-himself-as-this-other-super-human-character thing I was talking about before.)

I should come clean. I read the bulk of these pages in the bathtub, drinking wine. I'm a little "buzzed." So this is all written sort of "off-the-cuff." I think bookclub discussion is traditionally centered on more focused analysis. I'm just shooting off at the mouth, just like EMINEM!!, and spilling my thoughts on the subject right now, as I'm thinking about them. I suppose I'm not buried enough in the plot to have any firmed-up opinions on what I think is going on and what I think it means. But I do think I've talked enough about it all.

Though, I do have one more thing to "throw out there," which is the "significance" of (Franz) Kafka I had already expected to appear here as a major component to the story. I've read the three they've so far discussed: The Trial, "The Metamorphosis," and "The Penal Colony." I'm gonna chew on (character) Kafka's fixation on "The Penal Colony" for a bit longer. But so far, he's described the torture/death machine in that story as (Franz) Kafka's "own device for explaining the kind of lives we lead. Not by talking about our situation, but by talking about the details of the machine." I wonder if you've read these stories, and if so, if you've read them more recently than I have. It's been a good four or five years for me, and my memory of "The Penal Colony" isn't so clear as to be able to comment on whether the dots he's connecting here -- lives we lead + details of the machine -- actually do connect. I do remember the description of the machine we're talking about being so disturbingly grotesque, brutal and violent that it was hard to read. So maybe that, in itself, is the point he's making: that life is disturbing, grotesque, brutal, violent.

In which case, Tuuli, you must hate this book.

xoxo girls, sorry if this is ramble-y; I'm a little buzzy buzzed and silly.





*I've noticed that when female writers write about "people" in general terms, and come across a "one" scenario, where a "he/she" might be used, they defer to the pronoun "she," so as to -- again, I think? -- simply use the pronoun "she" to work for both "he" and "she," the way many other writers use "he" in the same way. I like that.

Launch Partay

I called our blog the Uniquest Blog Ever because, as you know, the word "unique" is frequently erroneously paired with modifiers such as, for instance, "very" or "really," when in fact the truth is that something is either unique or it is not. I thought saying uniquest would be really funny. Like REALLY funny. OK blog your hearts out.

SNYDER OUT