Review of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Note: The Book Stop is on vacation!  This post was written in advance.  But please feel free to comment.

This was my second book by Haruki Murakami, and it blew me away.  There’s so much in this book, I don’t know where to start. Last year I read Norwegian Wood, which was very good.  I started there because bloggers said it was an “easier” Murakami read – more linear, less weird.

Wind-Up Bird was definitely weird.  Much of this book was like reading a dream – if I could put my dreams into writing, which I can’t.  But Murakami clearly can.

The story, briefly, is that Toru Okada is searching for his wife’s beloved cat, when his wife Kumiko goes missing as well.  It appears that she’s left him, but he’s not sure, and all he knows is that he has to figure out what went wrong to get her back.  Only figuring this out seems to involve some very strange women with psychic powers, the sixteen year old girl down the street, the dried-up old well down the street, and Kumiko’s strangely evil brother.  Oh, and two World War II veterans who fought in China.  Okada goes on a strange, mystical journey to figure out what happened to his cat and his wife.

I have to say I have no idea what a lot of the book meant, but I really like the way Murakami writes and the way he thinks.  There’s something really clear and honest about it.  I may not get the symbolism, and I certainly got lost in all the Japanese/Chinese war history, but Murakami’s writing about basic human emotions, like love, betrayal, abuse, people’s need to connect with others, and the ability to feel too much or too little.

For example:

What most moved me in his letter was the sense of frustration that permeated the lieutenant’s words: the frustration of never quite being able to depict or explain anything to his full satisfaction.

This person, this self, this me, finally, was made somewhere else.  Everything had come from somewhere else, and it would all go somewhere else.  I was nothing but a pathway for the person known as me.

And my favorite:

What happens in between the time when you push the switch and the microwave rings?  You can’t tell what’s going on under the cover.  Maybe the instant rice pudding first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody’s looking and only then turns back into rice pudding.  We think it’s only natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but for me that’s just a presumption… Maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it’s all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin.

This was a huge book, something you really sink into.  And sometimes Murakami’s divergences were hard to get into (he likes his characters to tell long stories) but most of the time I was completely enthralled.  And “enthralled” is a word I rarely use about a book.

In the end, I can’t say enough about this book, nor can I adequately say anything meaningful.  I can say this: Wind-Up Bird was the rare book that I highlighted again and again (electronically, that is) because there are parts I want to experience again.

One thing about Murakami is he does seem to have strange views about sexuality, from both of the books I’ve read.  His female characters seem to be completely overwhelmed sexually, like it’s either something painful or horrific, or they can’t get enough of it.  I’m not sure if this is a weird distorted view of women’s sexuality or Murakami’s trying to make a more subtle point.  For the record, I do understand that defilement in this book isn’t generally about sex.  But I still think he portrays women’s sexuality very oddly.  Thoughts?

I really liked the main character – sometimes a character is so passive it’s annoying, but in this book, Okada isn’t really passive at all.  He’s following his instincts even when that means taking action by doing nothing (say, by climbing into an empty well to meditate).  He never stops searching, never gives up faith that he’s on the right track.

My favorite character was May Kasahara, the teenage girl down the street.  He writes her with such a unique voice, unlike the other characters who seem to blend into each other at times.  Most of the quotes I’ve used in this review come from her character.

I haven’t read a lot of Japanese writers, so at times the writing style seems very foreign – and at times not at all.  I know some of that comes from the translation, and some of it may just be cultural differences.  Regardless, I enjoyed this step outside my comfort zone, and I will definitely read more of Murakami’s books.  This may have been my favorite book of the year so far.

Review of The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

Note: The Book Stop is on vacation!  This post was written in advance.  But please feel free to comment.

If you like well-written fantasy with a strong female character, this is the book for you.  The Hero and the Crown won a Newbery Medal in 1985, which is awarded once a year to the best novel in children’s literature.  This may be a children’s book, but the writing is incredibly adult.  McKinley gives us a fantasy novel that doesn’t rely on the standard tropes and doesn’t take any easy ways out.

Aerin is the daughter of the king of Damar, but she’s never been accepted by the people because her dead mother was rumored to be a witch who enspelled the king into marrying her.  Even worse, royalty in Damar are expected to manifest some magical talents by adolescence and Aerin has failed on that front.  She’s not beautiful, not talented, and mistrusted by her peers.  Her only support comes from her father, her best friend Tor, who is the next in line to be king, and her maid Teka.

Her life becomes more interesting when she rehabilitates Talat, the old and lamed horse who rescued her father in battle but hasn’t been ridden since.  She also creates a new way of riding without stirrups or a bridle.  She and Talat heal each other.  Then, while reading a book about fighting dragons, she discovers an ancient recipe for an ointment that protects skin from dragonfire.

In the world McKinley has created, dragons are small but because of their fire, incredibly dangerous to kill.  They prey on crops and villages, and it usually takes a team of trained warriors to slay one.  And lately, the threat of dragons has been increasing.

This is an incredible fantasy novel, and a surprisingly challenging read.  McKinley writes in a complex, lyrical style, which is at times almost dreamlike.  Most fantasy isn’t “literary” but this one is.

The book mixes the expected (dragon battles) with the unexpected (her visit to Luthe and the Lake of Dreams).  As with most fantasy, Aerin is destined for more than she realizes.  But each battle is hard fought and nothing comes easy to this heroine.

This is the kind of book I would love for my nieces to read, because I know it will make them think, but also because Aerin beats most heroines for bravery and strength.  I think this is a book you could read a few times and get more out of each time.

Review of Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

I liked Gillespie and I, I just didn’t love it as much as I expected to.  It takes place in turn of the century Scotland and revolves around an artist, Ned Gillespie, and his family.  The story is told by Harriet Baxter, a single, well-off woman who meets the Gillespies and becomes their close friend.  She tells the story as an elderly woman in 1933, recounting the events of 1888, when she visits Glasgow to see the World’s Fair exhibition, and decides to stay for a while as her life becomes enmeshed in the complicated lives of the Gillespies.

This is a story with a lot of twists and turns, and I don’t want to tell you too much.  Gillespie is a talented artist but his family is struggling financially, and his wife Annie is overwhelmed by the needs of their two children, Rose and Sibyl.  Harriet has time on her hands, no family to speak of except an emotionally-distant stepfather, and income to spare, so she immediately looks for ways to further Gillespie’s career and help Annie with the family.

Harriet isn’t an easy character to warm to.  She throws her money around and seems to have no sense of boundaries.  Even though this is 1888, she doesn’t stop to consider whether spending time alone with a married man is appropriate.  She has the best of intentions and cares about her friends, and if she’s a little arrogant at times, it’s forgivable (mostly).

If you like stories told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, you’ll enjoy this book.  Harris brings subtlety and complexity to the character of Harriet.  You know you’re not getting the entire picture, and that keeps you reading.

As historical fiction, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get more turn-of-the-century art and life in Scotland.  I love that period and I especially love Scotland and the work of artists like Charles Rennie Mackintosh.  But his work, and the Art Nouveau movement, all come after 1988, which isn’t the fault of this book.  But I still wanted to learn more about the artists of that time.

I also didn’t get much feel for Scotland or Glasgow at the time, maybe because the book is told from the point of view of an English woman, whose only impression of the Scots is that they hate the English.  In general, I didn’t feel I was immersed in a specific time and place, which is why I read historical fiction.

I also found this book a little slow moving, especially in the beginning.  It tells a good story, but ultimately I didn’t love it.  This is a book most readers have raved about, so use your own judgment.

Review of The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

I liked the movie but not as much as I expected to.  I loved the book.

The movie was well-cast, well-acted, and rose way above the typical rom-com.  And yet… it was, in the end, a “dance movie”.  Why do movies insist on acting like dancing will heal everyone’s problems?

Without going into a lot of detail about how the book differed from the movie, I’ll just say this: the dance part happens in the middle, not the end.  Pat and Tiffany have issues that can’t just be danced away.

What I loved about this book: Pat Peoples is an amazing character.  He’s not perfect, and he’s not terribly smart, but he’s someone you’ll care about.  I love the way he thinks about literature.  I love that he cries.  And that he loves his wife.  And that he cares about his mother.  And that he’s working towards “being kind, not being right”.  I like that he thinks about what it means to be mentally ill, and how people with problems are treated by society.  And what it means to be a friend.

The movie does a nice job of conveying those things, but the book does it better.

Somehow the book did a better job of not only helping me understand Pat, but also making Tiffany likeable.  She’s not the main character, so you don’t have to love her, and you don’t even have to understand her.  You just have to sympathize.  I found that easier to do in the book than the movie, mainly because the book doesn’t revolve around the dancing quite so much.  Mom is also a more interesting character in the book.

There’s a lot of football in this book, which was a good thing — except while I love football, I hate the Eagles.  Both the book and the movie made me dislike them even more.  Eagles fans seem just fine with beating non-Eagles fans to a pulp.  No, they celebrate it.  Yes, my Redskins have a racist name that bothers the hell out of me – but in general I like our fans.  It’s not easy being a Redskins fan, but at least my life doesn’t revolve around whether they win or lose (although some Sundays it seems to).

This book is funny, smart, romantic and thought-provoking, all in the guise of a rom-com type read.  It never takes itself too seriously even while dealing with serious subjects.  One of my favorite parts is where Pat gives us his version of the dance movie montage (he has to learn the word first from his therapist).

So except for confirming my perception that Eagles fans are basically thugs (the only one that isn’t is the guy who spent years in a mental institution), I liked everything about this book.

In fact, if I wanted to compare this book to something I’ve read recently, I couldn’t.  It’s just different.  You have to like a book where a “dumb jock” reads The Bell Jar and appreciates it.

Pat says he’s living the movie of his life, and he expects it will come out happy.  Only everyone around him says that life doesn’t work that way.  It’s this back and forth about what it means to live in the real world and be a good person, that makes this book so worth the read.

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

I’ve been reading a ton lately, and people keep asking me how I’m reading so much when I’m so busy.  I don’t know how to answer that — somehow I seem to read more when I’m under stress.  Does that make sense? I did spend ten hours on a plane last weekend, which helped.

In the last couple of weeks, I finished and posted reviews for Life After Life, Charlotte Street, and Cat’s Cradle.  Upcoming reviews are Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley.

What I’m reading now is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and I love it.  What a strange book but the way it’s written, I don’t want to put it down.  This is my second book by Murakami.  Last year I read Norwegian Wood, which is considered one of his “more accessible” (less strange) books.  I like this one even better.

Having finished Cat’s Cradle and Gillespie and I, I have a question for the readers out there.  What do you think makes a book historical fiction?  Is it enough that a book is set in the past?  Or does there need to be more?  For example, is the author’s purpose to really explain a certain period in time?  Does it need to be a specific historical incident like a war?  Does it need to have characters based on actual persons?  Does it need to be based on factual research and provide details about life in that time?

Cat’s Cradle seemed more like science fiction than historical fiction to me, but I think it meets the characteristics I just described more than Gillespie and I, which takes place in 1888 but barely tells you anything about the time and place. I like a good genre-bending novel, and I think it’s a good thing when a book can’t be neatly categorized.  Still, I’ve been oddly troubled by this lately (it’s my semi-compulsive need for order and lists).

Another thing that’s troubling me.  A few weeks ago I went searching for good books written by Australian authors.  I was fortunate to pick up one on NetGalley, and the other two I downloaded first chapters from Amazon (The Light Between Oceans, Questions of Travel, and Floundering).  The problem?  I just didn’t warm to any of the three.  All three are award winners, but I couldn’t see myself sitting down and reading any of them.  It makes me a little sad that I’m heading to Australia and couldn’t find an Australian book I wanted to read.

On the positive side, I am super-excited to have scored a copy of Naomi Novik’s upcoming book in the Temeraire series, Blood of Tyrants (out in August).  Thanks, NetGalley and Random House/Del Rey!

Well, those are my musings on this Monday.  Happy Reading!

Review of Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

I read Slaughterhouse Five last year and loved it.  I think Vonnegut’s a genius, and I was super excited about this one.  But somehow it never came together for me.  Although I feel like I missed a lot, which I’m going to blame squarely on myself rather than the author.  I would love to study Vonnegut in a literature class so  I feel like I’m getting more out of his books (although I suspect Vonnegut would laugh at me for that).

Here’s the basic plot, as well as I can describe it: narrator John is researching the father of the atomic bomb right after World War II, Felix Hoenikker (who is fictional but based on actual scientists).  His fate becomes intertwined with that of Hoenikker’s children, Newton, Frank, and Angela, when he travels to San Lorenzo, a fictional small island in the Caribbean.  Frank, who disappeared from home years ago, is now the assistant to the dictator of San Lorenzo, who threatens to impale anyone who misbehaves on a giant hook.

Oh, and one more thing: Dr. Hoenikker’s three children are carrying around their father’s greatest invention, ice-nine, which increases the freezing point of water and could turn the entire planet into ice.

If you’re a Vonnegut fan, the oddness of this story won’t surprise you.  You also won’t be surprised that this book is really about the conflicts between science and religion.  Dr. Hoenikker lives an unhappy life even though his bomb won the war and made him a hero.  His children hate science and what their father represents.  The title of the book refers to a Cat’s Cradle that Dr. Hoenikker makes with string for his young son Newton on the day the bomb was dropped.  Newton sees his father as scary and spends his life wondering how some criss-crossed string can be described as a cat or a cradle, when clearly it looks like neither.

Here’s how it starts:

When I was a much younger man, I began to collect material for a book to be called The Day the World Ended.

The book was to be factual.

The book was to be an account of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

It was to be a Christian book.  I was a Christian then.

I am a Bokononist now.

I would have been a Bokononist then, if there had been anyone to teach me the bittersweet lies of Bokonon.

No one points out the ridiculous quite like Vonnegut.  He also makes up (and makes fun of) an entire religion, Bokonon.  John finds a book in San Lorenzo that describes Bokononism, which says that everything, including the religion itself, is a lie, we are bound together by fate, and the greatest intimacy is achieved by two people touching the soles of their feet together.  John tells us this about a woman who thinks she has God all figured out: “She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing [writes Bokonon].”

The book was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1964, and of course, its ideas about nuclear weapons and biological destruction would have been very relevant at the time.  Although as I think about it, those views are just as relevant today.

I have to admire Vonnegut’s amazing creativity and satire, and yet this book wore thin pretty quickly.  I can’t really explain why – I know I haven’t been on my best reading game lately.  If you’re a Vonnegut fan, what did you think of this one?

This book counts towards my Classics Club and To Be Read Pile Challenges.

Review of Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace

I picked up a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley, but really the suggestion came from Bethany at Subtle Melodrama, who said it was nice to read something a little light when most books are so heavy.  And having recently read books about World War II spies, Sudanese civil war, and the blood and gore that is George R.R. Martin, something light sounded pretty damn good.

In some ways, Charlotte Street is the London version of Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell.  By that I mean it’s sort of a rom-com, or at least it’s what you wish passed for a rom-com these days.  In a direct comparison, I think Attachments has a leg up on Charlotte Street but both were fun reads.  I’ll explain.

Jason Priestley (not the actor, as he has to constantly tell people) is a near-30 freelance reviewer for a local free paper in London.  Despite having a very cool job, he’s floundering, professionally and personally.  He finds out from Facebook that his ex is engaged and that sends him into a tailspin.  Until he helps a girl into a cab one night on Charlotte Street and becomes obsessed with finding her again.

The mystery girl drops a disposable camera with 12 photos as she gets into the cab.  Priestley tries to find her to give it back, until his friend Dev talks him into developing the photos instead.

I’m going to start with what I didn’t love about this book.  The main character is kind of an ass.  Not in a stalkerish way like it suggests on the cover; that didn’t bother me.  No, he’s just selfish and annoyingly passive most of the time.  And here’s where my comparison to Attachments ends.  Attachments had Lincoln, one of the most endearing male characters I’ve read in a modern rom-com type story.  Jason is insensitive to his friends and co-workers, and completely unethical at work.  For example, he posts reviews that are overly negative because that gets him more attention as a writer — but those reviews actually hurt people’s businesses.  It doesn’t bother him, but as a reviewer, it bothered me.

One more thing: I think I was supposed to like the ex, but I hated her.  If there’s one person in this book that’s stalkerish, it’s her.  On the other hand I loved Jason’s friends Dev and Matthew.

What I liked about the book: Wallace keeps the plot interesting and fairly original.  It’s cleverly written and the side characters (most of them) are really the entertaining ones.  There’s also a level of detail in the writing that brought this book to life.  For example, Dev owns a used game shop and he’s a gaming expert.  Jason writes reviews and we get to see the ups and downs of the life of a reviewer, and we also learn a lot about his life as a teacher.  And I love all things British, so to be honest, just reading about the guys going to get a pint or kebabs after work makes me happy (even though we have those in the U.S. too).

An example of what makes this book engaging comes when Jason takes out an “I Saw You” ad in his paper.  Those are the personal ads (in big city papers, at least) where people hope to contact someone they ran into and liked but didn’t have the nerve to actually say something.    When I first moved to DC, I was semi-obsessed with the “I Saw You” ads.  It’s a fantasy – we want to think that momentary bump into someone cute on the Metro actually meant something.  We want to think that somewhere, someone made eye contact with us for a minute and really liked what they saw.  Of course the bigger fantasy is thinking that person might actually read your ad among the thousands of other ads, recognize themselves in it, and actually want to contact you.  Still, it could happen, right?

No eyes meet across a crowded room, no two people think precisely the same thing, and if only one person actually has that moment, is it even really a moment at all?

We know this, so we say nothing.  We avert our eyes, or pretend to be looking for change, we hope the other person will take the initiative, because we don’t want to risk losing this feeling of excitement and possibilities and lust.  It’s too perfect.  That little second of hope is worth something, possibly forever, as we lie on our deathbeds, surrounded by our children, and our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren, and we can’t help but quickly give one last selfish, dying thought to what could have happened if we’d actually said hello to that girl in the Uggs selling CDs outside Nando’s seventy-four years earlier.

In my opinion Wallace hits this dead on.  The “I Saw You” ad is like a microcosm of all our hopes, insecurities and desires, all wrapped up in 28-words.  And this is the kind of detail I appreciated in this book.

So in the end I have to give this a mixed review.  Points given for cleverness, creativity and a fun story, and points taken for an annoying main character and some fairly obvious lessons (like valuing the friends around you more than some girl you saw in the street one day).