Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I'm not quite sure where to begin, but after finishing a Murakami novel, that's not altogether too surprising. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is oft' touted as Murakami's best and most notable work, and that's what I was hoping for - to be completely blown away. And yet, despite the book being bizarre and ambitious in equal measure, I was left disappointed. The book starts out with Toru, the protagonist, looking for a cat adopted by him and his wife, that's gone missing. Toru has quit his job, has no real ambition, and is just drifting through life, trying to figure out what is it he wants to do, while his wife brings home the money.

When the initial search for the cat is fruitless, he ventures further out to the "alley", and ends up meeting a high-school dropout, May Kasahara. His relationship with May evolves, and is almost bordering on pedophiliac. Still no luck finding the cat, so, he ropes in Malta and Creta Kano - the two psychic sisters, both of whom have interesting life stories, and end up visiting Toru in his dreams, as well as in reality.

And then, as things go, his wife leaves home for work one day, but never returns. In due course, our protagonist discovers that she's left him, without  a word. As one does. And then, a sequence of extraordinary events, and interactions with fascinating characters sees his life spin (or should I say, tailspin?) out of control, where he's no longer the master of his own destiny; instead, he's struggling to figure out what on earth's going on.

There's the experiences as he sits in solitude at the bottom of the dry well, and then there's the mysterious phone calls; the dreams which aren't really dreams, and the reality that's a tad distorted. All of it is a bit confusing - I'm all for magical realism, but this is just a little too over the top; a little too cryptic.

The book does cover a lot - from World War II, and the story of the solider and the spy, which had me absolutely gripped, to World War II, and the story of the animals that were heartlessly massacred, which had me depressed and lamenting.

'The officer gave his order, and the bullets from the Model 38 rifles ripped through the smooth hide of a tiger, tearing at the animal's guts. The summer sky was blue, and from the surrounding trees the screams of cicadas rained down like a sudden shower.''

It has the obligatory contemporary political slant, which most books by Murakami (that I've read) touch upon, if not focus on. And, again, as expected, there's romance that fades away; and female characters all carrying way too much baggage. Add on strange names for some of the characters (Cinnamon and Nutmeg), and even stranger life stories, and it's all Murakami.

The thing is, I just really struggled to comprehend what was going on, and why. And then it all fizzled out, and became even more ambiguous and abstract - the second half of the book, that is. Normally, I love ambiguity and magical realism, but here, it just didn't "fit", I thought. Sometimes, it be that way. All the more disappointing, as I was glued to the first third/half of the book.

Have you read this much-acclaimed book? Were you as underwhelmed as I am, or is it just me?

Ryu Murakami - 69

The vibrant cover of this book caught my attention while I was drifting through eighteen miles of books in New York a couple of months ago, and I ended up purchasing it. In The Miso Soup and Piercing have been on my radar for a few months, but considering that this is semi-autobiographical, I thought that it's a good place to start.

This coming-of-age story starts in 1969 when the narrator, Ken, is a lazy selfish self-satisfied adolescent living in a small town in Japan (in westerrn Kyushu), with just one objective in life: getting attention from the fairer sex, and he is ready to go to some pretty extreme lengths, dragging his friends with him.

Inspired by the political movements around him, the Beatles and the Stones, Rimbauld and Camus, Hendrix and Simon & Garfunkel (god, don't you love the sixties?), Kensuke "Ken" Yazaki, aspires to be a rebel, to stand out, and win the affections of his Lady Jane.

This is a light-hearted fun book, filled with moments of hilarity, and occasional moments of utter disbelief. Much like the song (Summer of '69), the book does seem to recount some of the "best days" of Ken's life. One of those people who manages to influence those around him very easily, in the span of a year, Ken organises a rock festival to blow away the minds of the girls, barricades the school under the pretext of political ideals and communism (when he doesn't really care either way), gets suspended from school for over a hundred days, films a movie for the festival on an 8mm camera, and manages to get on the wrong side of the yakuzas. All to impress Lady Jane.

Adama and I looked at each other. I can't stand myself. That was one line a seventeen-year-old must never, ever let himself say -- unless he was trying to make it with some chick. [...] But certain phrases were taboo, and you cast a shadow on the rest of your life if you uttered them.

So while I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I couldn't help but dislike the narrator. Yes, I know he's a seventeen year old, who probably doesn't know better, but he just came across as a pretentious selfish jerk, who probably deserved a tight slap. Quoting books he hadn't read, sitting in a cafe sipping tomato juice just for effects, stereotyping those around him, and using his influential skills to get up to no good, dragging others down with him... those are just some of the issues I had with him. The blurb likened this book to Catcher in the Rye, and unsurprisingly, I disagree. Holden Caulfield was a hypocrite, but he was not pretentious nor was he affected. One empathised and sympathised with Caulfield. Can't say the same about Kensuke.

That said, I look forward to reading more books by Ryu Murakami (and yes, by Haruki Murakami - no relation - as well). His other books are meant to be dark and surreal. How can one back away from that?! Which would you recommend?

I read this as part of Japanese Literature Challenge V hosted by the lovely Belleza. Pop over to read more reviews on books by Japanese authors, and do join in! The more Japanese authors I read, the more I want to read, so... this is great! Also, obviously, if you have any recommendations, please do let me know. I feel some Ogawa and Mishima coming up...

David Mitchell - Ghostwritten

Ghostwritten is David Mitchell's first novel, and on finishing it, I've now read all his works, which pleases me greatly. Of course, the fact that this is a tremendous debut adds to the pleasure, albeit, I really do wish there was another Mitchell on my shelf, just waiting to be read. The sub-title of the book reads, "a novel in nine parts," and so it is. It could easily a collection of nine short stories, each told in first person by a different narrator, who seemingly have nothing to do with the previous narrator(s). However, six degrees of separation (or fewer) bind the characters together, through time and different geographical locations. The link between the characters isn't blatantly evident though, as one might come to expect from Mitchell, and at times, it's confusing as to how the characters come together, and to figure out if there is any kind of causal sequence. That said, one can't help but anticipate the revelation of the link, and then deliberate over it for a bit, which in turn means that one can't help but read the book, scrutinising almost every word to see where the link lies.

{note: there are some spoilers below, but I have tried to keep them to the minimum}

The first story, Okinawa, is inspired by the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway - an act of domestic terrorism. Quasar, a terrorist, is on the run after wreaking havoc on a train, as he imagines a world without the "unclean" - forgive the comparison, but similar to the way some pure-bloods (and Voldemort and his Death Eaters) fell about mud-bloods in Harry Potter. Quasar believes he can communicate with the leader of his cult telepathically, and while he hides out in Okianawa, waiting for things to quieten down, he gets the news that His Serendipity has been captured. While the locals rejoice, Quasar tries to get in touch with the powers that be, to figure out the next course of action. The password to get in touch with the powers that be is simply, the dog needs to be fed.

Cue the second story, and the shift in location to Tokyo, where a teenager works in a record store, specialising in jazz. One day, a group of girls enter the store, and he's instantly attracted to one of them, but they leave the store, and he is resigned to never meeting her again. A few days later, while he's closing up the store, he hears the telephone ring, and being conscientious, goes in to answer the phone. The voice at the other end simply says, it's Quasar. The dog needs to be fed. As fate has it, this slight delay leads to him meeting the girl again, and they immediately hit it off. End of the second story. Yes, the links are that random.

“The last of the cherry blossom. On the tree, it turns ever more perfect. And when it’s perfect, it falls. And then of course once it hits the ground it gets all mushed up. So it’s only absolutely perfect when it’s falling through the air, this way and that, for the briefest time … I think that only we Japanese can really understand that, don’t you?”

{end of spoilers}

Through the rest of the stories, the reader meets the Russian mafia, and a ghost that transfers from being to being by touch; a physicist involved with the Pentagon and a night-time DJ in New York; a tea shack owner at the Holy Mountain who laments as to why women are always the ones who have to clean up, and a drummer/writer in London who also works as a ghostwriter to pay the bills.

I couldn’t get to sleep afterwards, worrying about the possible endings of the stories that had been started. Maybe that’s why I’m a ghostwriter. The endings have nothing to do with me.

You know the real drag about being a ghostwriter? You never get to write anything that beautiful. And even if you did, nobody would ever believe it was you.

We're all ghostwriters, my friend. And it's not just our memories. Our actions too. We all think we're in control of our lives, but they're really pre-ghostwritten by forces around us.

The above quotes illustrate another prominent aspect of the book: the role of fate, of chance, of the chain-reaction. The sheer randomness of the stories, and the way the characters inter-connect is pivotal to the novel, and keeps the reader completely engrossed. Of course, the other side is, by the time the reader actually starts relating to the narrator or nodding in agreement with their sentiments, a new narrator is introduced and the old narrator a thing of the past.

And then there's sneaky little political comments just dropped, making the book a lot more relevant in today's day and age. The below snippet, for example, reminds me of the preamble to Iraq.

"Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'?"

It's an overtly ambitious work, with some fairly profound statements, that had me admiring the debut from the get-go. It was thought-provoking and massive - perhaps not as demanding as Cloud Atlas, but a hell of a ride, nonetheless, and one couldn't help but marvel at how it all unraveled.

Integrity is a bugger, it really is. Lying can get you into difficulties, but to wind up in the crappers try telling nothing but the truth.

Of course, the other impressive thing was, how all nine narrators found a unique voice in the novel, totally disconnected from the previous narrator, similar to Cloud Atlas. Speaking of his most acclaimed book so far, two characters from Cloud Atlas also made an appearance in this book: Tim Cavendish and Luisa Rey - their occupations remain the same across the books, i.e. publisher and writer respectively. Not only that, but a character with a comet-shaped birthmark has a cameo role to play as well. I have to say, love finding old friends in new books!

Personally speaking, my primary complaint with the novel was that I didn't get a sense of closure or fulfilment on finishing the book. I enjoyed it, but I just didn't get the ending. I re-read the last "story" thrice, but to not much avail. I believe this book would benefit from a re-read, as there might have been a multitude of subtle hints that I missed - inadvertently.

Have you read David Mitchell's debut novel? Or, anything by him? What's your favourite? My unequivocal pick would be Number9Dream, but that might have something to do with it being the first Mitchell I read. I almost feel as though I have to re-read all his works in the order of writing, to truly appreciate the erratic wondrous world of fiction he has created.

Haruki Murakami - South of the Border, West of the Sun

This is the fifth book by Murakami that I have read, and excluding What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, I have to say it's the most subtle. The magical realism and bizarreness that I expect from Murakami's writing is missing, which is almost disappointing. However, this book is strangely reminiscent of Norwegian Wood, in that the title is inspired by a song (Nat King Cole's South of the Border), and that the middle-aged protagonist still thinks of his first love. Hajime, thirty-seven years old when this novel starts, is the narrator. An only child in the 1950s, when most families had at least two children, Hajime is often considered to be the stereotypical only child: spoilt and selfish. While for the most part, he does come across as a decent introspective narrator, some of his actions and thoughts lead us to believe he does actually fit the "only child" bill.

Hajime and Shimamoto, a twelve year old girl left lame by Polio, meet when the two are twelve years old, and instantly strike up a friendship. Shimamoto is an only child as well, and the two children feel perfectly at ease with one another, until the inevitable happens: Hajime moves to another town at the end of the school year, and the two lose touch.

Hajime has his first girlfriend, and the first girl he sleeps with is her cousin, hurting his girlfriend at the time beyond repair. He attempts justifying it, saying

From the first time I saw this girl, I knew I wanted to sleep with her. More accurately, I knew I had to sleep with her. And instinctively, I knew she felt the same way. When I was with, my body, as the phrase goes, shook all over. [...] The magnetism was that strong. I couldn't let this girl walk away. If I did, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

He still stumbles through life, till he reaches this point: happily married to a placid loving woman, Yukiko, with kids, running two successful jazz bars. He is content, for the most part, but something is missing. Cue, Shimamoto enters his bar one day, and the two childhood friends are reunited, much to their joy. The attraction is mutual, and he is ready to give up his content happy life to spend time with her. However, her life remains a dark mystery throughout the book - she doesn't talk about her past, or the troubles she's undergone. She comes and goes, sometimes disappears for months unending, with no explanations, but that's enough to make Hajime's life tumultuous as he obsesses over her, how he can't live without her and how he's ready to sacrifice everything for her.

The title itself is indicative of that, with the "West Of The Sun" referring to a madness that affects Siberian farmers which causes them to forget about the bare necessities of life, but just keep walking towards the land west of the sun, till they drop dead out of fatigue, hunger and thirst. It's this self-destructive streak that made him endearing, and almost stopped me from judging him for his actions, and his susceptibility to infidelity. Also, it did make me ask the question: is this selfishness and obstinacy a result of him being an only child - a point Murakami's emphasises abundantly in this book? He does ponder the repercussions of his actions, but at the end of the day, he's predominantly thinking of himself.

Infidelity is never forgivable as per my moral compass. And then, we see the lives of women destroyed - of happy women transforming into unemotional stones, of women full of life feeling compelled to kill themselves, of married women willing to accept infidelity - and that makes me wonder, why on earth is it that women are normally shown to be that weak and fragile, so much so that men can break them so easily?

The one thing that did really annoy me about this book was that as a reader, I have no idea as to what Shimamoto's story is! What is she hiding and why is she being so secretive? So coy? So precocious?

I enjoyed the flow of this book, specially in the second half, where Murakami describes the imagery and the emotions oh-so-poetically.

Every once in a while, as if remembering its duty, the sun showed its face through a break in the clouds. All we could hear were the screeches of the crows and the rush of water. Someday, somewhere, I will see this scene, I felt. The opposite of deja vu - not the feeling that I had already seen what was around me, but the premonition that I would some day. This premonition reached out its long hand and grabbed my mind tight. I could see myself in its grip. There at its fingertips was me. Me in the future, grown old. Of course, I couldn't see what I looked like.

but I did crave some of the kooky outlandish writing that I've come to know and love Murakami for.

Guess The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is the next Murakami on my list. Will it be bizarre enough?

Haruki Murakami - Kafka On The Shore

Surrealism. I've reached the conclusion that it's the only word that can be used to describe Murakami's books. Kafka on the Shore is no exception. Leeches and fish rain down, there's a character called Johnnie Walker, and another called Colonel Saunders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame), a mysterious childhood "accident" results in one of the characters being able to speak to cats, and there's a portal to a parallel universe. The book follows two characters in interleaving chapters: Fifteen year old runaway, Kafka Tamura and Nakata, an elderly man who is considered "dumb" by most as he is unable to read or write. While neither of them are aware of the other's existence, there's a greater (almost supernatural) force that connects them.

Kafka ran away from home, after this father had cursed him with the Oedipus prophecy: that he would kill his father, and sleep with his mother and sister. His mother and sister had left home when he was merely four years old, and he has no recollection of them whatsoever. He figures he just has to be the toughest fifteen year old boy. Or, so "a boy called Crow" tells him.

And I bet the longer I live, the emptier, the more worthless, I'll become. Something's wrong with this picture. Life isn't supposed to turn out like this! Isn't it possible to shift direction, to change where I'm headed?"

Then there's Nakata, who fell unconscious after a bizarre attack while he was still at school. This so-called "attack" left sixteen children unconscious, but when they came to, their memories and intelligence was left intact. They simply had no recollection of the event itself. Nakata, however, lost all his intelligence, and his ability to read or write. Instead, he was bestowed with the ability to talk to cats, which led to him earning a little money by finding lost cats, in addition to the government "sub city" (subsidy) he received.

Kafka runs away to Takamatsu in Shikoku, and starts working in a small private library. He befriends the librarian, Oshima, as well as gets closer to the beautiful albeit melancholy Ms. Saeki, the manager - a lady who still mourns the demise of her long lost love, who was killed about thirty years previously.

Nakata, on the other hand, runs into a dangerous man, Johnnie Walker, in Kafka's hometown, who is kidnapping cats, and then killing them brutally in order to make a flute of their souls. In order to save the cats, Nakata ends up killing the man and then following his "fate" - he doesn't know what it is, but he'll know it when he sees it.

This was an obscure novel, which on finishing, I had more questions than answers. Who is "the boy named crow"? Did Kafka succumb to his fate, or did he manage to avoid it? Can ghosts of living people exist? Can ghosts of people's past exist? What connected the two characters? And, what actually happened to Nakata in his childhood, that left him bereft of his intelligence?

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed this book, as I do most Murakamis. And, I would recommend it. Just remember, if and when you read it, it'll be a hell of a ride, and you'll be second guessing everything right till the last page - and beyond. While some bits were tedious to read, all in all, the characters and the surrealism made it a must-read for me.

Note: Kafka on the Shore is the first Murakami I ever had on my shelf. It was given to me as a present sometime in 2008, and I kept "saving it" for the right occasion. I planned on reading it when I went on holiday to Barbados last year, as part of the Japanese Literature Challenge 3 hosted by Bellezza last year, and a couple of other times as well. Finally read it about a year later, while the Japanese Literature Challenge 4 is being held. Have been meaning to write a post about the challenge itself for awhile, but kept getting sidetracked. Apologies.

Anyway, head over to Bellezza's, to find more reviews of Japanese Literature, and to see what everyone else is reading. Hope to see some of your reviews around as well. :)

David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet

In terms of books being confusing and complex, this one ranks right up there. New characters being introduced every couple of pages, the story taking dramatic turns, changing from showing corruption while trading in the 18th-19th century to a surreal adventure story, and there's a love story thrown in, just for good measure as well. But no - that's not all. In fact, that's simplifying it much.

The book has one of the most graphic opening chapters, where a child is coming into the world, already dead. However, by some miracle, Orito (a midwife) saves the life of the child (and the mother). It's 1799 and the place is Nagasaki. Christianity is banned, most of the women are "wives" or prostitutes, and the locals and foreigners interact with the help of "interpreters," as the Dutch aren't allowed to study the local dialect.

The importance of the birth and the sequence of events it triggers isn't obvious in a first chunk of the book. Instead, we're introduced to the Dutchmen who inhabit the artificial island of Dejima - the corrupt greedy Dutch, working for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC, or Dutch East India Company). Most of them are corrupt, trying best to figure out how to forge the books for their own personal gains, but there's the one employee/clerk who puts honour above all else : Jacob de Zoet.

Things get complicated when he falls in love with Orito, the midwife, and they get even further twisted when she's abducted and sent to the Shrine of Shiranui - where she's set to become a nun at a convent. The Shrine isn't really a convent though, and the Goddess isn't really a Goddess. Think The Handmaid's Tale... with a twist.

And here, we've just finished part one of the book! I don't want to give too much away, but the rest of the book is a whirlwind, with things happening at the blink of an eye: power trips and struggles, love, betrayal, tragedy, courage and a thirst for the truth.

The writing is extraordinary - something I've come to expect from David Mitchell's books (despite reading only the two). The ambience he creates almost seems to transport me back to the eighteenth century Dejima/Nagasaki. Considering most of my historical association with Nagasaki stems from August 9, 1945, this was a pleasant change. Mitchell even gave a nod to the growing friction between the English and the Dutch in their quest for power in Asia, and the extent to which the respective parties would go. Fantastic, as it almost seemed like text book stuff - but so much more gripping.

I enjoyed the book, but not as much as number9dream, nor as much as Cloud Atlas. I thought this book was less "fun," and more "serious" - the experimental style of Mitchell's writing does still exist, but I think, the ambition of this novel lay more in the plot than the surrealism or ambiguity that I've come to associate with his writing. I've still got two unread books by David Mitchell, and I'm curious to see how this would compare with them.

Do you have a favourite book by David Mitchell? What do you think makes the book stand out?

Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

The amazing thing about Murakami's books is, you never know what you're going to get - when that bridge between reality and surrealism will get crossed, and, what avenues the surrealism will take. Past experiences with Murakami have also taught me that the story is not going to be like anything I've read before. Experience is a great teacher. A Wild Sheep Chase, originally published in the early 1980s, is literally the story about a young man (who is a partner at an ad agency and PR firm) and his girlfriend's (a girl with the most sensual ears) quest to find a sheep - not just any sheep, but a sheep with a star on its back; a sheep that, by all rights, shouldn't exist in Japan, where all sheep breeds have always been monitored and documented closely. You could say that their search is a metaphorical wild goose chase, but....

So, what's special about the sheep with the star on its back? Well, he's this omnipotent super-intelligent power, that takes over human beings, and makes them immense despite their innate mediocrity. However, when the sheep's finished using one person, it leaves the body, in search for its next target, leaving the previous inhabitant sheepless.

In the story, the sheep had inhabited inside the right-wing Boss, a character who sat at top of the Tokyo food chain. Boss was mediocre; there was nothing special about him, until the sheep took over, and made him the single power that controlled almost all the advertising, stock markets and even information services in Tokyo. In 1936, Boss had been diagnosed with a fairly large brain tumour, which hadn't killed him - the miracle lay in him still being alive! Now, sheepless, the boss is at the brink of death, and his right-hand man manages to corner the book's narrator to search for the sheep, so that the Boss can be effectively replaced at the top, and the network built over the years will not disintegrate into nothing. The narrator does attempt putting a feeble fight, when he's cornered, but, the rest, as they say, is history.

Nor do you know where you stand. Now listen, I thought it over last night. And it struck me. What have I got to feel threatened about? Next to nothing. I broke up with my wife, I plan to quit my job today, my apartment is rented, and I have no furnishings worth worrying about. By way of holdings, I've got maybe two million yen in savings, a used car, and a cat who's getting on in years. My clothes are all out of fashion, and my records are ancient. I've made no name for myself, have no social credibility, no sex appeal, no talent. I'm not so young anymore, and I'm always saying dumb things that I later regret. In a word, to borrow your turn of phrase, I am an utterly mediocre person. What have I got to lose? If you can think of anything, clue me in, why don't you?

And yes, that's the narrator for you! You might have noticed I haven't used any names - just references - and that's because Murakami himself doesn't use any names in the books.

The book is a timeless universal one, where the narrator could have as easily been running an ad agency in the States, as in London, as in... well, Tokyo! Quoting Murakami:

There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. It'd be like an aquarium without water. Why, 95 percent of the information that reaches you has already been preselected and paid for.

The journey taken by the nameless narrator and his girlfriend takes them to places far and remote, where the population is in the thousands. They meet plenty of fascinating people referred to as the Sheep Professor - someone who was once inhabited by the sheep, but is now sheepless, and has devoted the rest of his life searching for the sheep; the Sheep Man - a person who is half-sheep, half-man; and Rat - an old friend of the narrator, who actually lands the narrator in his present situation.

While the narrator undergoes a physically challenging and mentally exhausting journey (peppered with sex, cigarettes, alcohol, and Sherlock Holmes), the reader embarks on a philosophical journey, in order to determine what the search is actually for. What does the sheep symbolise? Totalitarian power? The devil? And, what is the sheep searching for, that makes him constantly discard people and occupy others? Sufficient weakness to takeover, and turn the victim's weaknesses into a thing of the past? And, what will the outcome of this search be? Will sheep end up ruling the world, by occupying people, through their supreme intelligence?

Murakami's casual style of writing, filled with modern day references and thought-provoking allegories makes for a good read. Add to that the surrealism, the randomness, and the incredibly fascinating characters, and the good read becomes and extremely captivating one.

Natsuo Kirino - Out

Desperation leads one to do strange things; things one would not do under normal circumstances - things one would not even consider. This is the essence of one of the bleakest books I've read this year: Out. Natsuo Kirino's bestseller follows four women working in a bento-box factory, who turn their lives upside down, as circumstance dictates. Yayoi, in a fit of rage, strangles her husband, who was enamoured by a young hostess, and had wasted away all their savings. On realizing that she'd killed him, she contacts Musoko, one of the other factory workers, and asks for her help in disposing off the body.

Musoko instantaneously decides to help, and picks up the body from Yayoi's place. After work that night, she speaks to Yoshie, and convinces her to lend a hand. Yoshie is reluctant, but, when Musuko promises a monetary reward, she concedes. Financial difficulties, and a teenage daughter plus an old mother-in-law to look after means Yoshie can always do with money!

And finally there's Kuniko, a compulsive spender, who needs money to pay off the interest on her loans. Greedy, materialistic and untrustworthy, it's no surprise that Musoko doens't trust her enough to ask her for help outright. However, when she goes over to Musuko's place, to beg her for a loan, Musoko and Yoshie are in the middle of dismembering the body, and they pull Kuniko in.

After cutting the body into tiny pieces, they put the fragments into garbage bags, and decide to leave it around the city - it would be the easiest way to dispose off the body. The three girls take some of the bags each, while Yayoi plays the role of the worried wife.

When a set of bags are discovered in the park, the police suspect Satake, the psychopathic owner of a club and gambling outfit, as Yayoi's husband had gotten into a fight with him on the very evening he was killed. The girls are under the impression that they have pulled it off, and can get away scot-free...

But, old secrets come to light, and the story follows on into a glimpse of Tokyo vice: loan sharks, illegal gambling clubs, prostitution, and the like.

The book is gory, with grotesque screens described vividly: be it the dismemberment of Yayoi's husband, or a rape scene, where the rapist is stabbing the woman and causing her to bleed to death, while raping her. If you have an overactive imagination, or a sensitive tummy, this book isn't for you!

It's also a glimpse into society in Tokyo: about sexism and racism, work ethics and culture, money and vice. The women are lovelorn, their relationships with their husbands have faded into nothing, and the poverty that binds their hands, leads them to make some shocking decisions. It's not a book about friendship - it's a book about desperation, and the choices made subsequently. The ending is as bizarre as it gets, and it's another bloody gruesome picture.

The suspense in the book is limited to: will they be caught? The crime's committed in the opening chapters, and in my opinion, some of the book dragged on. It's not the best book I've read this year, but I was wolfing it down, eager to know what happened next. Some of the writing fell flat, and I personally thought that the translation wasn't great.

Rating: 3.5

Angela Carter - Fireworks

After being absolutely delighted with The Magic Toyshop, which has probably been my favourite book this year, I picked up Fireworks, a collection of short stories by Angela Carter. At the very outset, I should say this: I'm not the biggest fan of short stories. Sure, there are exceptions, but, more often than not, I don't like them. Character build-ups aren't great, the plots are predictable, and the last grasp plot twists sometimes make me cringe. I wasn't sure what to expect with this collection, but I decided to give it a fair shot. After all, no point having preconceived notions, right?

Fireworks is a collection of nine bizarre short stories, all of which belong to the 'magical realism' genre. There are surreal stories about reflections, and mirrors, a freakish story about puppets (reminiscent of The Magic Toyshop), a scary story about children in a forest, where the plants are carnivorous. The stories touch upon topics, like incest, rape, loneliness and estrangement. The writing, as expected, is beautiful:

She sprang towards the exquisite, odoriferous tree which, at the moment, suffused in failing yet hallucinatory light the tone and intensity of liquefied amber, seemed to her brother a perfect equivalent of his sister's amazing beauty, a beauty he had never seen before that filled him, now, with ecstasy. The dark pool reflected her darkly, like an antique mirror. She raised her hand to part the leaves in search of a ripe fruit but the greenish skin seemed to warm and glow under her fingers so the first one she touched came as easily off the stem as if it had been brought to perfection by her touch.

However, I found myself reading a lot of the stories, and thinking, "what's the point of this, if any?" I can't really pinpoint what was missing, but, I just didn't enjoy this book. I am going to attribute it to the fact that short stories aren't my cup of tea. However, if you like short stories, gothic magical surrealism, and parallelisms drawn with things you identify (e.g. The Original Sin), am sure you'll like it.

Rating: 3

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

So far, this year, I’ve read two books that can only be described as ‘coming of age’ books. This year, I’ve read two books based in Tokyo, where the protagonist comes from some small village in Japan, and have come to Tokyo with a purpose. This year, I’ve read two books that have the title of a Beatles song (well, one of them has a title from a Lennon song). And both books have been written by different authors! (The other book was David Mitchell’s Number9Dream. Mitchell’s oftened been likened to Murakami, so...)

As the plane touches down in Germany, an instrumental version of the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood comes on, which results in the protagonist, forty year old Watanabe, reflecting on his college days in Tokyo in 1968, and his two great loves. The book’s title, inspired by the Beatles song, pretty much sums up the story:

I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me...

The two great loves: Naoko, the girl who used to go out with his best friend from high school, Kizuki, who killed himself when he was seventeen; and Midori: the impulsive, slightly twisted girl, who delights in talking about sex and wearing short skirts.

After Kizuki’s untimely and sad death, Naoko and Watanabe lose touch, until they bump into each other on a crowded train. They attempt to revive their friendship, and while they don’t talk much about the only common factor, they start going for long walks and its mostly Naoko that does the talking, and the protagonist that listens. On her twentieth birthday, the two of them end up sleeping together, after which Naoko troubled by emotions and vulnerability admits herself in a sanitarium far away from civilization.

While she’s in the sanitarium, the vivacious Midori befriends Watanabe, and they end up spending a fair bit of time together, talking about life and things. Midori’s a less emotional, more practical girl, who speaks openly about things most other girls would consider taboo (this is highlighted by the fact that Watanabe is surprised about how open she is, specially when she asks him to take her to a pornographic movie). As their friendship grows, so much so that they spend almost every Sunday together, and Watanabe even spends some time taking care of her father in a hospital while she takes some time off for herself. However, while she’s open and shares the details of her life with him, he’s still not told her the truth about where Naoko is, and why they barely spend time together, leading her to believe that she’s a married woman.

In the mean time, Watanabe visits Naoko in the sanitarium, meets Reiko (Naoko’s roommate) and is pleased to find that Naoko is doing better, and he promises to wait for her, ‘til she’s ready to return. He even asks her to move in with him, when he rents a flat in Tokyo. While he visits her, the three of them (Reiko, Naoko and Watanabe) sing songs, with Reiko playing the guitar. The songs they sing include Norwegian Wood (obviously), Michelle, Nowhere Man, Julia, Lemon Tree, 500 miles, and other classics.

That’s who Watanabe is, to both girls: the savior; someone who’s always there, with a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear; someone who is intelligent, and caring. He tries to amuse them with funny stories about his dorm mates, when they look like they need cheering, takes them to porn movies when they want to see one(!), goes to the ‘facility’ a couple of times to visit Naoko, and writes to her every weekend. He even relates the story of Reiko, and how she ended up where she was, after she feels at ease with him and talks to him. In fact, she says that he’s one of those people who’s good, and can save someone from their monsters. However, at this point, I am compelled to say that while some critics have said his character is close to Holden Caulfield’s, I beg to differ. For starters, Caulfield was the one who needed saving in that book, he wasn’t the savior. While Murakami’s tried hard to stress on the fact that Watanabe ‘talks funny’, it’s not “Caulfield”-esque.

This is a sad book, reverberating of death, suicide, losing people and trying to move on. It almost seems like a reprise of Norwegian Wood, which is haunting, and melancholy (and when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown). Another property of this book is that it’s full of sex. Unusually so - casual sex, with Watanabe and one of his dorm mates going out to pick up girls for one-night stands regularly, despite Watanabe having Naoko, and his friend a girlfriend. Sex and love are distanced, and at occasions, the author seems to resort to the ‘sex seems like the most appropriate thing at this point’ cliche. At some times, it genuinely surprised me (wouldn’t want to ruin it for you), as did the detail and the emphasis on it. There is also a lesbian scene, detailed, between a married thirty year old woman and her thirteen year old student. It begs the question: Was sex in the 1968-70 Tokyo, in the midst of civil unrest as the students called for a revolution really that casual and indifferent?

This is the first book I’ve read by Murakami, and while I have mixed feelings about it, there is something about the book that makes me want to read more by the author. I can’t quite put a finger on it - whether it’s the simplicity, the beautiful writing, some great music references (from Bach to Beatles to Rolling Stones), or some great literature references (F Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Mann etc). The characters are interesting, and while I found Naoko slightly annoying (although, to be fair, her character’s witnessed the suicide of her older sister and her high school sweetheart, both of whom had apparently perfect lives), Watanabe a little too goody-two-shoes and Midori half-crazy, at some point or the other, I could relate to and sympathize with all the characters.

Overall, a 7 on 10, and more Murakami on my reading list.

David Mitchell - Number9Dream

Although really difficult to read at times, as the book continuously drifts between fantasy and reality, this book was thoroughly enjoyable. While it’s the first book I’ve read by Mitchell, it definitely won’t be the last.

The book kicks off in a cafe in Tokyo where nineteen year old Eiji Miyake introduces himself, and the quest he’s on: to find his father, a man he’s never met, a man whose name he doesn’t know, and a man who has always been a mystery to him. The start itself entices you to read on:

It is a simple matter. I know your name, and you knew mine once upon a time: Eiji Miyake. Yes, that Eiji Miyake. We are both busy people, Ms. Kato, so why not cut the small talk? I am in Tokyo to find my father. You know his name and his address. And you are going to give me both. Right now. Or something like that. A galaxy of cream unribbons in my coffee cup, and the background chatter pulls into focus. My first morning in Tokyo, and I am already getting ahead of myself.

As the story unfolds, we are informed of the people Eiji meets in the city, the people he befriends - some who betray him, and some who continue to be helpful towards him. Throughout the narrative, he reflects on his past: his dead twin sister, and his alcoholic mother who had a brief, almost non-existent role, in his childhood.

The title inspired from Lennon’s 1974 song: #9 Dream (So long ago, was it in a dream, was it just a dream? I know, yes I know. Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me), the book traces his adventures in Tokyo, as he gets involved with what seems to be the Tokyo equivalent of the mafia (Yakusa), meets a girl who, for the first time, almost makes him forget his dead sister for long intervals, and gets in touch with a man who claims to be his grandfather, who provides Eiji with a diary from his days as a kaiten pilot during World War II. He absconds to the house of his boss’s sister, and reads anthropomorphic short stories written by her; finds an alternate reality in roleplaying video games and contemplates whether his father is a politician, a member of the Yakusa or a doctor. If that’s not enough drama, his estranged mother tries to get back in touch with him, and the new wife of his father threatens him.

The book is fast-paced, interesting, and draws you in. There are characters you love, characters you hate, disturbing scenes you can vividly imagine in your head (e.g. when he goes bowling with a man who promises him information about his father), and all this mingled in with the overactive imagination of the author. Sometimes, you aren’t sure if what you’re reading is real, or just a dream, and sometimes, you just end up hoping it’s dream...

Overall, for me, a 7/10.