(no subject)

[proximoception]

Been reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in leisure hours over the last couple of months. Thoughts on finishing: I get the main thrust of what he was saying, but how many others did? His style is totally at odds with his allegorical project. You're pulled along in the moment all the way through, like in a pop novel. There's a few rare moments of compression, but for the most part I could forgive anybody who decided the book was shooting for Weird rather than Significant--rather than with Woman in the Dunes, say, where engaging with the allegory is the obvious business of the reader. Everyone compares Murakami to Lynch, and I see it too; I think I prefer Lynch, he's a natural with sublimity, comedy, moments of humanity, and in enhancing all of these by having them emerge from moments of total audience confusion. Fascinating how well this technique captures the feel of reality, or rather of reality's turning moments. Murakami is a bit more likable, though, more of a mensch and less of a magus. He also gives a damn about historical reality--I'd put WUBC somewhere between Engine Summer and Underworld, thematically. It actually kind of switches gears, almost seamlessly, midway through, and I'm still trying to process how it did it. Perhaps it's easier to achieve structural prodigies when no reader has much of an inkling of where you're going at any given point? What the book's about comes together in hindsight, and hindsight criticism might be more lenient, since attacking the time we spent reading the book reflects on our own judgement and not just the author's.

I have no idea if I recommend this book. I will say that, over a period of time when I wasn't really compelled by The Savage Detectives, The Cave and even Suttree, I kept going back to it. Of course, I also watched all of the first season of Prison Break about a year ago, so.

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Do you like Prison Break? It's my brother's favorite show. I haven't watched a single episode.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Never watch a single episode. It's extremely dumb but will suck you into wondering how they'll prison-break before you realize just how dumb and then you're trapped.

[mendaciloquent.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I read that book few years ago and can't really remember anything about it, except that it reminded me of Paul Auster and that his depiction of suburban Tokyo was appealing.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I guess the Kafka/noir meld isn't very common?