I'm intending to pick it up when my local store next has it. I think I might finish reading Dance Dance Dance first, though.
I read The Elephant Vanishes year ago; actually, I think it was the second book I'd read by Murakami, the first being The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, and since then I've read most of his little shelf. On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning is still one of my favourite short stories. Here's a download link. I stand by my opinion that 1Q84 is nothing more than a huge disappointment, though.
Alright. You've convinced me. I've been reading more lately, getting off the computer and out of the house and just reading, and these seem short enough to squeeze in before I need to resume reading 2666. What should I read first? Once I read it I'll have to go back and read your other post on the translating process, since I really didn't get it the first time around.
Ooh, hurrah! Normally I'd suggest 1Q84, but if you're looking for something short then that's way out of the question. Depending on how long you want to be reading, I'd suggest Sputnik Sweetheart (a day-long read, perhaps? Just over a hundred pages) or Norwegian Wood (one of his most popular, but a bit longer than Sputnik). Otherwise a collection of his short stories, like The Elephant Vanishes. The stories in there you can get through in a matter of minutes, really, and I think they'd make a pretty decent entry point to his work.
Perfect. If you think it is okay to start with The Elephant Vanishes then I'll start there. I trust your judgement, and I just read such great things about it. have a chunk of time dedicated to be by myself, alone, on the beach from 9-11 tomorrow. I'm excited to read this.
Yeah, I think it's a good place to start. Oh, boy, that sounds wonderful. I was up til 3 last night reading in the lounge - which, being on the fourth floor in an inner-city apartment with a large window, was a wonderful thing to be doing. Enjoy!
I've read: The Second Bakery Attack, The Kangaroo Communique, On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning, and The Elephant Vanishes so far and found them incredibly enjoyable. I read them yesterday morning, before getting too drunk and wild to respond on Hubski, and them again right now. I was going to continue to read the other shorts, but I felt the need to read the same ones again and see if I could glean anything more substantial from them. I don't exactly know quite what to say. The same way he describes this girl, this perfect girl, is just about the way I feel about these stories. They leave me with something but when I begin to talk about them I don't know what exactly to say. It's peculiar but the impact alone obviously says something. Perhaps if I had my AP English teacher (she was amazing) walking me through the reading I could let my mind and feelings become fully developed and realized, but for now I'm just kind of....here. The writing itself is beautiful - the words and the story are just there and are so natural - they aren't trying too hard, they aren't begging to be read, they even seem indifferent to the fact that I am reading them. They aren't trying to impress or impact me and because of this, I am even more intrigued. It reminds of of this boy in my middle school who never said anything to anyone or seemed to notice anyone's existence. He was always reading comic books (manga perhaps?) or playing with his shoelaces - he would fray them with paper clips he had pulled apart. The fact that he was so indifferent made me wonder endlessly about him, with more than a few fantasies about his life at home or what went on in his head and some odd romantic notions. I really wanted to be able to penetrate him and see what he was. This would've never been the case if he wasn't so indifferent and self-absorbed - then he would've been like the of the kids in middle school who were constantly looking for approval from everyone and everything around them. I can see exactly what you mean when you say: and... I think anyone can write a story that can entertain and perhaps fascinate for a moment - you need some characters who do something. If the actions are anything substantial enough, readers will read and enjoy it, even if it is written poorly. Good writers take the narrative and characters and write it in such a way to make make it transcend and transform into the emotions of the reader. But these require readers to make them real. To write about everything and nothing at once and to write where the words are simply themselves, sitting on a page, not caring if anyone reads or understands them is quite amazing. I think it's this that makes these so intriguing to me. Some of his stories barely qualify as a story and without skill probably wouldn't be a story at all. I think I'm going to take a walk around the internet and see what others have to say and see if reading other's essays or interpretations can help me figure out exactly what is going on. Even the paragraphs I wrote above don't feel fully realized or true yet. I'm still missing something.Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special....I don't know. I can't seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.
the stories cover the mundane, but they totally ignore it, too. they go beyond the mundane, and they don’t rely on a completed narrative
"...often, it doesn’t feel valid, like it’s a waste. it’s nice to know how beautiful this kind of writing can be."
Yes! This is exactly it, and exactly how I feel about Murakami. At first, I was really confused, and couldn't tell if I enjoyed reading his works or not, but then I became infatuated with that confusion. As much as I read and reread, it's always there, and it's surreal, because I don't feel like that with any other author or artist or musician or anyone. I love it. It's only recently that I've been able to put my vague thoughts about Murakami into words, and it only works in these mostly unstructured blog posts. As soon as I try to work them up into something different, something more planned and formal, I begin to question myself and what I say so much that it all gets thrown away. Do you mind if I use your response in another blog post? I have another one about reading Murakami and that strange not-knowing-what-to-say sort of reaction, and you're the first I've talked to who has put it in a similar way to how I react.
I think that is a great descriptor of the emotion I get from his work. This goes back to your point about being personal and impersonal at the same time. I think the surreal feeling is because you can't fully grasp or wrap your hands around the whole thing. Go for it. You can attribute it to insom and link here or just say just "your friend Taylor" if you don't want it have my username plastered all over your site. I'm not picky in the leastand it's surreal
Do you mind if I use your response in another blog post?