John Updike – The Widows of Eastwick

Posted on | March 18, 2012 | 7 Comments

Updike’s Rabbit series has been on my to-read list for a very long time, so I’m not quite sure how my foray into his world started with his final book, published in 2008. And, as the blurb on the back didn’t say anything about this book being a sequel of sorts to The Witches of Eastwick, which is also kind-of unfortunate for I approached this book as standalone. Which it possibly isn’t. That said though, this book can easily be read in isolation. It’s just that, sometimes, context is a good thing. But, anyway…

The Widows of Eastwick follows three witches who used to be friends in their youth, but have since gone their own separate ways, in marriage and parenthood. However, once their husbands have died, and the children move away, the “three old ladies, gone brittle and dry in their corruption” reunite.

As widowed Americans, they travel – first it’s Alexandra who goes to Canada alone, and then it’s Jane and Alexandra who go to Egypt together, and finally, the coven come together with Sukie, as they travel to China. This part of the book reads more like a travel brochure than a piece of fiction, and while descriptions are normally a good thing, this was just incredibly slow-moving, and had me longing for an uptick in pace.

The wait didn’t last too long, for when the witches visit the hometown they had run away from one summer, things start getting interesting. They gather that their crimes from the yesteryears would be forgotten by now, and nostalgia coupled with curiosity leads them back home. It doesn’t sound plausible, but as a reader, you go with it, for you want to see why Updike is taking the witches back to the scene of their past crimes – is it atonement, or is it for the victims to exact revenge?

The homecoming isn’t quite what they imagined. Eastwick has unsurprisingly changed over the years, from the fun hick place they all remember,  to a homogenised one. For the most part, they are forgotten, but they meet Christopher Gabriel, who blames the witches for the unfortunate demise of his sister – and he is looking for recrimination by casting spells on the witches using electricity. This is serious mumbo-jumbo territory. The witches look to magic, in an effort to protect themselves, but… is it too little too late?

I hate saying this, but the book really did leave a lot to be desired. None of the protagonists were in the least likeable. Forget likeable, I couldn’t even relate to them at any level. The story came across as forced and instead of witchcraft, the theme seemed to be about three old ladies repenting their past – or the past they couldn’t have.

From the reviews I’ve read, this does not sound like Updike’s best work, so I suspect there will be more Updike on my reading list soon, for if nothing else, his writing is quite accessible (which surprised me). What would you recommend? And, should I go back to read about the shenanigans of the witches in their youth?

Jeannette Walls – The Glass Castle

Posted on | March 12, 2012 | 6 Comments

I think sometimes people get the lives they want.

This is a rather unflinching nonfictional memoir, in which Walls traverses her childhood days. For the most part, the book focuses on her parents, who were ill-equipped to raise children in the real world. Yet, it’s the affection and lack of judgement leaping off the pages, that makes this book incredibly endearing.

In the opening paragraph, Walls is in a taxi in New York City, and she notices a woman scavenging a garbage bin, only to realise it’s her own mother.

Once the present has been asserted, the trip down memory lane begins.

Walls’ childhood isn’t one most of us can imagine, and it is difficult to not to judge her parents. By the time she’s four, her family’s moved some eleven times, for a myriad of reasons and whims.

Her father, Rex, is an intelligent man, who’s spent a fair bit of time educating the kids, to ensure that they’re well ahead of other kids their own age. However, “a drinking situation” and the inability to keep a job means that money is always a problem.

Her mother, Rose, on the other hand, is a painter, and possibly one of the most self-involved and deluded mothers you’ll come across. A self-proclaimed ‘excitement addict’, Rose doesn’t really seem to care about anyone but herself.

“Mom told us we would have to go shoplifting.

Isn’t that a sin?” I asked Mom.

Not exactly,” Mom said. “God doesn’t mind you bending the rules a little if you have a good reason. It’s sort of like justifiable homicide. This is justifiable pilfering.”

A self-proclaimed ‘sugar addict’, Rose hid a king-sized bar of Hersheys in her bed, for herself, even though the kids had nothing to eat, and were scavenging for food in the school trash.

“Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in an hour,” she’d ask us, “when in the same amount of time, I can do a painting that will last forever?”

The “let it be” ideas that Rex and Rose harboured about parenthood was, in a conventional sense, far from ideal. Not only were they constantly moving cities, on the whims of Rex (or when his creditors were chasing him), but each traumatic experience that the children experienced was dismissed as mandatory lessons.

“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy,” Mom told me. “You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”

When Jeannette managed to burn herself at the age of three, and required skin grafts, her father bailed her out from the hospital, because he doesn’t like the bandages, against medical advice. Later, when they were moving cities in the old car, their cat was thrown out of the window by her father. At another point, Jeannette herself was hurled out of the car, and had to wait for a few hours before her parents picked her up again. And then, when her grandmother molested her brother, Rex sides with his mother.

Christmas is always an interesting time, as it’s celebrated a few days later, to allow the family to get second-hand wrapping paper and presents. One Christmas though, money is tight, and Rex takes the children outside, and asks them to pick a star, for he knows a fair bit about astronomy – which they all do, but Jeannette who picks Venus. That’s their Christmas present.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. “Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,” Dad said, “you’ll still have your stars.”

In West Virginia, they buy a “house” which is where Rex intends to the build “the glass castle”, after striking it rich. He continuously updates the plans, and shares it with the children giving them false hope that someday – someway – their life will be ideal. One can argue that he means well, but it’s his inner demons that continuously hurt the children. At times, it almost comes across as though he’s not even aware of the damage he’s doing, or in fact, that he’s doing anything wrong.

It’s a wonderfully written memoir, which isn’t self-pitying or condescending in any measure. In fact, it’s a novel that reverberates of filial devotion and love; that in spite everything, the children did love their parents unconditionally, and the family stuck together through thick and thin. They grew up to be resourceful, bright and independent, pursuing a more conventional lifestyle.

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me.

“You’d be destroying what makes it special,” she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.”

There is absolutely no bitterness, but instead, the affectionate forgiving tone indicates that Walls and her siblings have made peace with their childhood, and with their parents’ eccentricities. Personally speaking, I find this quite commendable and feel as though I could learn a lot from the Walls’ family – mostly Jeannette. The poignancy, humour and the lack of psycho-babble or emotional drama make this a must-read.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón – The Prince of Mist

Posted on | February 19, 2012 | 5 Comments

The Shadow of the Wind is one of those books that I absolutely loved, and although my second experience with Zafón didn’t have quite the same happy ending, the desire to read his works didn’t really come to a complete halt. I picked up The Prince of Mist, a book aimed at children, at Greenwich Market, just the other day, and started it feeling quite positive.

The Prince of Mist is Zafón’s first published book, albeit the English translation came much later. Thirteen year old Max Carver is forced to say goodbye to city life, as his idiosyncratic father decides that the entire family must move away to a house by the sea-side, during the War. It’s safer, after all. However, no location is ever mentioned.

The book starts off slow, with the Carvers moving to their new home, which isn’t all that it seems on the face of it. In the mysterious garden behind the house, Max discovers creepy statues of circus characters, . Investigating the history of the house, he discovers that the house was abandoned by a couple after their son died. In the shed, there’s a projector and some old home-made movies. One of the movies is set in the mysterious garden, and once over, his sister, Alicia, claims to have sene the clown before – in her dreams. Something’s a-creepy. Something’s amiss.

When Max befriends a local boy, Ronald, the pace picks up. While the budding romance between Alicia and Ronald is one story-line, the parallel story is what grips the reader. When the boys go scuba-diving by an old shipwreck, Max and Alicia learn the legend of the ship, the crew and its story. And the fact that no bodies were found.

Curiouser and curiouser.

The story, in itself, ends with more questions than answers. Some of the plot developments are all-too-convenient for the story, but perhaps that’s me being unfair, for it is a children’s book. The suspense is built throughout, sometimes a little too melodramatic; a little too hyperbolic. But – perhaps, that’s what good fiction is.

I did enjoy the book, and like before, I will actively seek out more of Zafón’s works.

Thomas Keneally – The Tyrant’s Novel

Posted on | January 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

Schindler’s Ark was one of those books that left me speechless; the story, the writing, the emotions it evoked. Everything, basically. A couple of months back, I picked up The Tyrant’s Novel from a second-hand bookstore, just to see how it would compare to the 1982 Man Booker Prize winner.

In a nutshell, this book is not a patch on Schindler’s Ark. The location of the book remains ambiguous, although it’s easy to reach the conclusion that the book is set in Iraq, and the dictator, referred to as Great Uncle is none other than Saddam Hussein. The reason for the ambiguity of the location and its dictator confused me. Perhaps it was down to the fact that it was a fictional novel. Or then, for the same reason as The West Wing, where Qumar is a fictional Middle-Eastern country, which represents the worst of all extremist Islamic states.

The narrator of this book, Alan Sheriff, has been commissioned by the Great Uncle to write a novel addressing the injustice of the sanctions imposed on the country by the international world. The book will be published under the name of the Great Uncle, and the objective of the book is to initiate some debates in the literary circles in the States, in order to get the G7 nations to re-think their stance. The deadline imposed to Sheriff is nothing short of unrealistic (one month), and as this narrative within a narrative progresses, one just gets the feeling that the novel leaves a fair bit to be desired.

At the very outset, Sheriff, who is narrating his story, says that this is the saddest and silliest story you will ever hear. The tinge of self-deprecation coupled with the curiosity it arouses is a great way to start the story. It immediately draws the reader in. In a way, it’s a tall order – recanting a story that’s both, the “silliest” and the “saddest”. But then, despite being set in the Middle-East, all the characters have Western names, which is, in a way, inexplicable. The author, through his protagonist, does attempt to justify this, but it’s an unconvincing argument.

“I would very much like to be the man you meet in the street. A man with a name like Alan. If we all had good Anglo-Saxon names…or if we were not, God help us, Said and Osmaa and Saleh. If we had Mac instead of Ibn.”

Is there really that much to a name? Would it make a difference if Saddam had a different name? Or Osama? Would their crimes be considered any less trivial? Would their fates end differently? All rhetorical questions.

I digress… Back to the story:

The deadline imposed on Sheriff has been done so at a time when he’s suffering from a serious writer’s block. His wife is recently deceased, and all the materials for his second book have been laid to rest with his wife. He doesn’t really have much to go on for this novel that he’s been commissioned to write. And, if not written by deadline day… well, we all know how that story ends.

The emphasis seems to be on how completely powerless and helpless Sheriff is, as the powers that be seem against him. To quote Mark Twain, at this point:

There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is Providence.

And he’s just one man trying to make sense of his reality. As are probably very many other men living in that dictatorship, as they desperately try to figure out their lives, and strike a balance between their personal demons (griefs) and the political terror that haunts them every waking minute. It’s not a life I would care for, needless to say.

Sheriff’s story is fascinating; specially as he talks about how he ended up at the asylum, which is where he’s sitting as he tells his story. But, even as he ends his story, it doesn’t change the world. All said and done, it doesn’t really matter. In the grand scheme of things, it’s fairly insignificant. But despite that, it’s a story that needs an audience, and it’s a story that’s worth listening to. In a world where we take freedom for granted, and our fundamental rights are something we can’t live without, this story serves as a reminder that even now – even in the twenty-first century – history is being made, and we haven’t really moved on from dictatorships of the past.

I do want to read more works by Thomas Keneally, but I’m not quite sure where to go next. Any recommendations?

Neil Gaiman – American Gods

Posted on | January 17, 2012 | 7 Comments

This book was recommended by the same person who introduced David Mitchell (number9dream) to me. It was then recommended by another colleague who borrowed number9dream from me. So, it had to be read. 590+ page chunkster or not, it had to be read.

I finished it about a month back, and my head’s been reeling since. I don’t really know how to pen my thoughts down, for this book is epic. But – I have to do better. I have to, at least, give it a shot. So, here goes nothing.

American Gods is literally about American Gods, and how they immigrated to the Americas with their believers, back in the day. Centuries (and generations) later, people have lost faith (as they do), but the Gods continue to live – or exist – as they try and find their place in the new age, when new Gods of technology, media and television have taken the place that originally belongs to them. With the impending storm, a battle is brewing – a battle between the gods, to see which ones survive, and which ones fade into nothing.

“Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.”

Shadow, recently released from prison, only to discover that his wife has died in unfortunate circumstances is approached by Wednesday – a man who has many-a-trick up his sleeve. He hires Shadow as a driver of sorts, and so begins the journey to the heart of America, a road trip a la On The Road.

“This is the only country in the world,” said Wednesday, into the stillness, “that worries about what it is.”

The rest of them know what they are. No one ever needs to go searching for the heart of Norway. Or looks for the soul of Mozambique. They know what they are.”

The journey is to gather up all the old Gods to lead them to the battleground, and fight the new Gods. Yes, even Gods have power-struggles!

The paradigms were shifting. He could feel it. The old world, a world of infinite vastness and illimitable resources and future, was being confronted by something else—a web of energy, of opinions, of gulfs. People believe, thought Shadow. It’s what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.

And then there’s poor Shadow stuck in the middle, haunted by the physical presence of his dead wife, trying desperately to find some kind of solace with coin tricks, and get over the events of the recent past, and make some sense of the current events: the Gods, the carousel that spins till he reaches the place with the statues of the Gods, disappearances of people, and a myriad of characters – some human, and some, well, Gods. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Even in the unlikeliest of places. But, that possibly, was the biggest problem with Shadow’s character – despite being Wednesday’s driver for most of the book, he really is just a passenger; passive and just along for the ride, while things happen in spite of him. An unlikely protagonist, some might say. Unlikely compared to say, his dead wife, Laura, or the enigmatic Wednesday.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and you can expect to see a lot more Gaiman on here! It’s a hell of a ride, and in parts, it’s exasperating, but all said and done, it’s absolutely worth a read!

And to finish off, one extremely long quote (shamelessly copied from the internet), which I absolutely loved:

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

The pantheon of Gods unleashed on the readers is like a deep-dive into the world of mythology. The gods, incarnated as ordinary imperfect people, grace the pages, and reading about their past is fantastic. In fact, some of those bits were the most interesting in this chunkster, which I did fly through. It’s a long-winded meandering book, with plenty of detours and excessive digressions, some of which are relevant and some of which not. At times, Gaiman does ramble on for a bit, but his writing is incredibly witty and for the entire book, he keeps the reader (well, me!) hooked.

Happy 2012!

Posted on | January 1, 2012 | 1 Comment

Happy New Year everyone! It’s been a long 2011, but still, it feels like the year’s flown by, in the blink of an eye. I’ve not blogged much this year, and even if I take into account the books I haven’t reviewed (yet), my reading year has been pretty abysmal. I do apologise for that.

But, it’s a new year, and with new years come new resolutions, and one of mine’s to be a better reader, and to be a better blogger. I’ve got way too many books sitting pretty on my bookshelf, and I have this bizarre urge to compulsively buy all the books that I want to read, so, you know, if nothing else, I owe it to myself.

I have a couple of other projects on the cards for next year, so you know, all in all, I’m quite excited. And hopefully, come December 2012, I won’t sit nodding along to Damien Rice’s Amie, thinking, “that pretty much sums up my year!”

Nothing unusual nothing’s changed

Just a little older that’s all.

Here’s wishing you and your families a wonderful 2012! :)

Jostein Gaarder – The Christmas Mystery

Posted on | December 27, 2011 | 5 Comments

This time of the year, I like reading at least one Christmassy book; one that propounds the Christmas spirit and is essentially feel-good, and festive. A Norwegian friend of mine fleetingly mentioned how, while he was growing up, his family would read this book together, reading one chapter on each day of the Advent calendar. Intrigued. Curiosity piqued. Specially as I’ve loved everything else I’ve read by Jostein Gaarder so far.

I did race through this book in two days though, instead of reading it patiently, over twenty-four days. But, in my defence, I *needed* to know what happened next. Clearly (and possibly slightly embarrassingly), Joachim, the child protagonist, has more self-control and patience.

On 30th November, Joachim and his father go into a bookstore, looking for an Advent calendar. They walk out with a hand-made calendar, a one-of-a-kind that the bookseller doesn’t quite recognise, and attributes its presence to John, the flower seller, who occasionally leaves things at the store as a thank you.

When Joachim opens the first door of the calendar the following day, not only is he greeted with a pretty picture, but also with a piece of paper that flutters out, that tells a story. The story is of a little girl called Elisabet, who spots a lamb in a department store, and is so keen to stroke it, that she runs after it, calling “Lambkin, Lambkin”.

She had decided to follow it to the ends of the earth, but the earth was round, after all, so they might go on running around the world for ever, or at any rate until she grew up, and by then she might have lost interest in such things as lambs.

As she chases after the lamb, she notices the hues of the sky changing, and the clock going back in time, at which she ponders,

…perhaps the clock hands had become so tired of going in the same direction year after year that they had suddenly begun to go the opposite way instead…

En route, she meets Ephiriel, an angel, who informs her that they are going to Bethlehem, to witness the birth of Christ, and the journey continues through space and time. And each door of the advent calendar reveals a little bit more about this journey. More characters from the Bible, including the three wise men, the shepherds and the sheep join the journey, as they progress towards Bethlehem.

While the tales of their travel unfolds, Joachim and his parents get caught up in another mystery – the mystery of the little girl who disappeared in 1948. Could she be the real Elisabet, the girl who this story was written about? Or inspired by? They try getting in touch with John, but he seems to have disappeared off the face of this earth as well, popping up every now and again, to speak to Joachim, but not shedding any light on the mystery.

There are twenty-four chapters in this book, each representing a day on the advent calendar. There are stories inside the story, and advent calendars inside the advent calendar – multi-layered, much like Sophie’s World. It’s an engrossing, fascinating book. The only flip side was, the mystery of the real Elisabet rushed to a close, and ended almost too abruptly. But, that’s a small small flip side, considering all else.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – The Thing Around Your Neck

Posted on | December 24, 2011 | 2 Comments

Having previous read both, Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus, I was quite happy when I received this as a Christmas present last year. The only concern I had was, my track record with collections of short stories – for the most part, I’m not a fan. “For the most part” being the key phrase.

This collection mainly focuses on African immigrants in America, and the lives they live, the experiences they succumb to – by virtue of their past. Or their present. Slightly reminiscent of say, The Joy Luck Club or The Namesake. Barring a couple of stories, this isn’t really brand new territory, but Adichie’s writing and story-telling continues to impress. That said, my biggest complaint with short stories, i.e. the lack of closure, still holds. And, as a reader, one’s left craving more – more about the characters, and more about what happened next.

The Arrangers of Marriage is one such story. We don’t get much insight into the characters, or what makes them click. So, when the story ends, there’s a sense of incompleteness; of wanting more, because the motives of the narrator hasn’t really been touched on. Or, what makes her click.

The two stories, Jumping Monkey Hill and the title story both tick off the feminist criteria. Jumping Monkey Hill is based in an African writer’s camp in Cape Town, where a group of people are meant to write a short story under the direction of a Brit whose passionate about African literature. Sexism and racism are both rampant in the story, as it hits home the underlying point: why do we always say nothing?

In The Thing Around Your Neck, a young girl goes to live in America with her uncle, after winning the Green Card lottery. When her uncle makes a pass at her, she runs away, and tries to make a life for herself.

Cell One, the opening story, was probably the most powerful of them all. In an age where the cult-culture is so prevalent, we meet a rich family, whose only son belongs to a cult indulging in debauchery and hedonism, and has been imprisoned for breaking and entering. In prison, when the teenager speaks up against the mistreatment of an older gentleman, he is beaten and thrown into the infamous Cell One. Eventually, unsurprisingly, he is released, but forever changed.

The other stories, some based in Nigeria during riots and wars, and some on immigrants in America are beautifully written. However, they are all within what is expected, and don’t really astonish or surprise… or wow. The raw emotions and startling vivid descriptions that made Half of a Yellow Sun so gripping are amiss, which is unfortunate. None of the stories give us a new perspective into Africa, or a new insight into America. Under different constructs, all the stories have been told before. And it’s that which left me feeling as though there was more to be desired from this collection.

Haruki Murakami – The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Posted on | December 10, 2011 | 9 Comments

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?

Holidaying in Hong Kong

Posted on | November 6, 2011 | 8 Comments

It’s warm, it’s congested, there’s no need for a jacket, and oh my god – there are so many people! Just over for a week, to get away from London, where my last holiday (or day off) was in January, and I’ve been feeling overworked and stressed. It’s so nice to get out of there, and just do nothing, albeit I have to admit that doing nothing doesn’t really come naturally to me. It’s always like, so what’s next?!

As expected, many a book came with me on my holiday. However, I have to make some wedding photo books, and there’s work to continuously catch up with, so not sure how many I’ll actually end up reading, if at all. I am the earliest riser amidst my friends, so morning’s seem like a good shout.

Soooo, what am I carrying? Well, there’s:

• Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad
• Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
• Michael Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White
• Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys
• Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

I really am not quite sure what prompted me to carry five books on a  ten day break, special considering at least two of them are fairly chunky. I did pack under eight minutes though, as I thought my flight departed later than it actually did… yes, the OCD super-organised control freak was not organised this once. It shows – I forgot my contacts, some prescription drugs, nightclothes etc. Oh well… C’est la vie.

Also, during my travels, my beautiful shiny MacBook Pro that I’ve had for about two years now, with not as much as a single scratch, got this massive dent. I’m not sure how. I was carrying it in my backpack – it wasn’t there when I left London, and boom! When I got to the other side of the world, there it was. I keep staring at it, lamenting. That’s taken some of the shine off this holiday. Poor little MacBook Pro! :(

I have been reading Madame Bovary for about two weeks now, and am not really getting into it. Should I abandon it or press through? Murakami sounds like a good holiday bet, but… suggestions please, on the reading front! Thanks!

xoxo