So I just recently finished
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I had previously read my first Muakami book,
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (a short story collection), last year and was eager to read one of his novels. I really loved this novel, the Kafka linkage was sure appropriate. There was one chapter that was hard to swallow though, or maybe that was my next meal after reading that, but there was so much excellent writing in this and deep ideas:
Quote:
Miss Saeki looks at me for a while, and the smile fades away. “Picture a bird perched on a thin branch,” she says. “The branch sways in the wind, and each time this happens the bird’s field of vision shifts. You know what I mean?”
I nod.
“When that happens, how do you think the bird adjusts?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“It bobs its head up and down, making up for the sway of the branch. Take a good look at birds the next time it’s windy. I spend a lot of time looking out that window. Don’t you think that kind of life would be tiring? Always shifting your head every time the branch you’re on sways?”
“I do.”
“Birds are used to it. It comes naturally to them. They don’t have to think about it, they just do it. So it’s not as tiring as we imagine. But I’m a human being, not a bird, so sometimes it does get tiring.”
“You’re on a branch somewhere?”
“In a manner of speaking,” she says. “And sometimes the wind blows pretty hard.” She places the cup back on the saucer and takes the cap off her fountain pen.
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So now I am working on
Turn, Magic Wheel by Dawn Powell (MR Literary Club March election). I am only about 50 pages into it, but so far I find both of the principal characters so pathetic and annoying it is hard to stay interested in them. I find myself wishing that they would choose to jump off of the Brooklyn Bridge to put themselves and me out of misery.