Done with Tsukuru, Starting with Ximen Nao

So...

We've all been busy. That's life. I've been getting holiday newsletters and had a crazy idea about making a newsletter that would be entertaining and fictitious, but I've been too busy to get around to doing anything with the idea, barely even breaching the topic with Corrie, who thought it more amusing than practical.

Anyway, because Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki... is relatively slim, I was able to finish it in random moments here and there (giving a test; sitting on the can; etc) whereas, had I been riding the train everyday like last year, it would have taken a week. Maybe two.

I couldn't get the picture I wanted last time to show the relative size differences of Murakami's last two books, so I tried again:

That one is not so bad, but it is kinda weird. 1Q84 tops 900 pages if I remember, and while CTTaHYoP is just over a third of that, it feels like had it been produced at the dimensions of 1Q84, it would be maybe 150.

I tried one more picture with my hand:

What I really wanted to do with these pictures is relay the weird sense I had holding both of these books. That's mostly unrealistic.

Colorless Tsukuru... starts out more sexually charged than it finishes, seems like it has three entwined time spans spiraling to a conclusion when it's really more like one-and-a-half, and leaves more loose ends than Pynchon on a bad day. It's good and more emotional than Murakami usually attempts, and the Haida's father's anecdote about the "death-coin" is a nice red-herring. You find yourself trying to piece how the Ruke-man will connect it all, only to find there to be two millimeters left of pages, and that's way not enough for a wrap-up effect to be slapped on. Maybe Murakami's getting a little more comfortable letting somethings remain unsettled.

Moving on...

A while back I ordered the Mo Yan book I'd wanted from the first time I learned about him, back before I discovered The Garlic Ballads:

I got a chance to read the first few pages today...

In the first TWO PAGES the main character, Ximen Nao, is in hell being tortured by frying in huge vat of oil like a tempura landlord. He refuses to confess to dastardly deeds. He's pulled out, all crispy and brittle, and begins to defend himself and his honor and has half his face blasted off by a large musket full of grape-sized shot. Fried in oil until brittle and shot in the face by a shotgun.

In the first two pages.

He convinces the judges of hell that he has honor and should be allowed to confront his still-living accusers, and the story follows his repeated reincarnations: first a donkey, then an ox, then a pig, then a dog, then monkey, and finally, as "Big Head Baby Lan", a progression seen on the cover in that makeshift zodiac.

Good stuff. Vacation is coming up fast...

So...I forgot about this...

I haven't finished Murakami's newest book yet, but it is small, swift, and engrossing, like he mixed his style with, eh, Denis Johnson's short-fiction density.

Anyway, two years back when I was laid up on the couch I started many blogs. This particular forum is one of the results of that time, as is "Sherwood and Sons." I'm pretty sure if anyone knew about all of them it would be you.

There was one particular spot, though, that I don't think I told anybody about.

I started a Tumblr site in addition to all of the Blogger sites, but it was where I showcased new fiction.

One of the things about my Blogger-hosted blogs was that they are all non-fiction---either artsy discussions, observational motivations, adventure summations, or random brainal verbal diarrhea---but they were all certainly and purposefully NON-fiction.

My fiction was always too special for me to post for the world to consume for free.

But then...I was laid up on the couch and I had a brain bursting at the seams with things to say. I had a character and a setting and a rambling premise that could have, I thought at the time, been milked easily each week for a tiny bit more, getting towards my final goal. Actually, all that's still the case.

But that's beyond me at this current juncture.

As it is, there are only two chapters. There are specific references throughout both of them: the city, the hostel, the bar, the protagonist's name and look, the bartender...almost too much stuff.

Ask Dan about a little project we each wrote for together back in the day---it was part of the unspoken and mysterious background to the intrigue in the second chapter.

I stumbled upon the link and was reminded of the two parts the other day. I read through them for the first time in more than two years, and, well, I was mostly happily surprised.

I think if you get to them, you may like 'em.

So, here're the links for the first two chapters of "Searching for Daniel Traf:"

Chapter 1: Talking About His Hair
Chapter 2: Bike Accessible

Been waiting for this...maybe a bit more...

I'll be getting to this sometime in the future, but time is tight...

The team that Murakami has at his American publishing house is simply phenomenal. This dust cover has cellophane windows that show the colors and subway map design underneath:

This is a beautiful artifact and Murakami's most sexually charged and possibly most complex narrative structure to date. I'm not done, but it is actually quite small. It isn't a normal size, especially for a hard-back book, but I don't have a good enough comparison picture yet.

Coming Soon...

December 12th, 2014...

Too, too excited...check me out!

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A novel

Just thought I'd leave this here.

Released today, but I've been stuck in Portola.  Plan on picking it up tomorrow.

Trout Shoes

I thought of you when I saw this, Norm...

The baseball All-Star game happened just recently (literally yesterday as of this post), and for the All-Star game, the bosses loosened the rules on what ball-players could wear in regards to shoes and cleats. It seems like a silly concession, but it looked like so many players just love neon colors that the decision would be considered a success by those bosses.

Currently in baseball the best player is also one of the youngest, a giant of a young man playing in the outfield down here for the Angels. His name is Mike Trout. Instead of neon cleats and shoes, he wore:

Rainbow trout colored baseball cleats...

At the Cabin

I'll have more to say on this some time later...but:

And:

Cuteness...

Missed it...Happy Birthday to the Norms

I missed both of you boys on all of the sites...

Happy Birthday Norm (III) and Happy Birthday Norman (IV)! I hope, Norm, your travails along the rails were as enlightening as I imagine the zen-like time could be.

I'm looking forward to seeing you two in a few weeks, up at the Cabin. I have a small writing project I'm working on to leave up there...a somewhat fictional gonzo treatment of a week in the life of a, eh, resident T.

Norman, Chilling--eyes on the sea-bass...

Until next time...

Discovery at Powell's, the King of America's Independent Bookstores

I'd read plenty about Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. It's the de facto King of the American Independent Bookstore. Once we'd decided to go to Portland, this was one place I really wanted to visit.

In a later post on the regular blog I'll be going into some more detail about the discoveries at Powell's, but until then, Norm, here's something that you may appreciate:

These guys have a rare-book room, but this was definitely not found there. The cover art and the ad-copy inside are pretty neat.

I'm not sure how Powell's stacks up against Manhattan's the Strand...

I need to think about that with some more depth, but I certainly never saw anything like this chilling on the shelf in New York.

Update: Rellerindos

Norm, there's good news and bad news. First the bad.

I've just been informed that my new favorite hard candy:

...is only available for sale in Tijuana (and random spots that have regular TJ runs).

The good news is that a trip is being planned by my current source, and he said he would procure some for the both of us.

Just a Test

One two...

Buckle my shoe...

Downtown LA from 4th Street, just west of the 110:

Skyline of downtown Los Angeles, from the Slauson metro stop, one of my new daily routines, and in no way connected with the above picture:

This was only a test of posting pictures directly from my phone. It was a success...

Happy New Year

2013 saw both a new Pynchon book and, in an easy way to trivialize a new Pynchon book, a new baby for Norm! Congratulations, brother!

Time to get over to this blog to type ramblings about authors is hard enough for me to make, and I have zero babies. But, in keeping with the general vibe of posts over here, I'm back with another random Dollar Bookstore discovery.

I finished the latest book I wrote about over here, Richard Flanagan's Wanting. I found it good, but certainly not as outstanding as I had hoped, but that's my fault.

Saying something truthful, like "Well, it's not as a good as Gould's Book of Fish," is like complaining Pudd'nhead Wilson isn't as good as Huck Finn--how could it be? In both cases, one is good book by a genius, and the other is a masterpiece.

But, since Flanagan doesn't get the recognition he deserves, sometimes his books end up on the margins, and for me in downtown Long Beach, those margins are manifested in the physical world by our Dollar Bookstore.

So the other day I found another new book to get to once my Christmas reading has finished:

The premise is that a stripper wakes up one morning to see her face all over the news as a newly wanted terrorist. After reading Wanting, I am curious to see how Flanagan deals with a more modern narrative. The first and last chapters of Gould's... notwithstanding, I've only seen his prose in specific historical time periods, and this idea seems like it could have some legs.

Also, having read Wanting, I know where to set my expectations so I won't face disappointment.