So here I go, my first shot at a post. I just wrapped The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. All I'm left with is, Wow. What an intimate, amazing and encompassing story. It was similar to the other Murakami works I've read in that it was many stories tied to a solid yet evolving base. Another thing I should note was the ability it had on me to produce tears. Much the way A Wild Sheep Chase brought me to tears, the emotions that built their way to the end of the novel were overwhelming to me.
I'm so drawn into this world that Murakami creates that I'm very tempted to start into IQ84. I have it, and am ready to begin my ascent. But here's the problem. I still haven't started or tried starting Gravity's Rainbow. I have that, thanks to you brother. So a little help persuading me in the right direction would be appreciated as you've read both. And Mason and Dixon is out of the picture for now. I'm waiting to grow some more brain cells back before I try that again.
Another bizarre realization hit me with your post about Wallace. The picture on the cover, the upside down Cockatiel, is very much like my cover of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I'll try to post it later. Also, I'm tempted to try this box method of sleeping for Norman. If I do, pictures will follow.
Sorry for the lag, reading working and Fathering are a lot for a nut like me!!
Hey Brother!
ReplyDeleteNo worries on the lagging, I fully understand.
As for what to read next, I would suggest you tackle 1Q84 next. Perusing my copy Wind-Up Bird Chronicle I saw that it's split in three books: June and July 1984; July to October 1984; and October 1984 to December 1985.
1Q84 is split into three books: April-June; July -September; October-December, all from 1984, which gives you a symmetry with the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle that you'd be in the perfect position to grab.
1Q84 is mostly straight forward, with the two main story lines helixing around each other until...well, you get the idea.
Gravity's Rainbow is shorter but will take longer to read. Powering through it, though, may give you relief from the zany Murakami world. Not that that's really a thing that needs to be relieved, of course.
I've taken a break from Sanctuary and held off my start of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by tackling "The Garlic Ballads" from Mo Yan, the Chinese writer who just won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
His style was described as "hallucinatory realism", which sounded cool, and kinda like mine, and Murakami's, from time to time. It's got its moments, like when a guy has been thrown out of a rural government office and something salty and slimy crawls into his nose and he blacks out; or when a different guy is shackled to a tree (because the cops don't want him in the station house while they eat) and when the cops come out to abuse him he projectile vomits all over them.
It's pretty sweet so far.
Enough of that.
1Q84 might be the Ruk-Man's most accomplished work.