Three Things I Read This Weekend

1. "Sleep" by Haruki Murakami. (Thanks to Carolline for the link.) As a very good sleeper, I find the opposite of sleep fascinating.

2. "Picturing Auschwitz" by Alec Wilkinson, in the New Yorker. I read this while drinking tea before preparing to drive home from Riverside early in the morning. It made me woozy - the entire disconnect between my peaceful morning and photos in the face of death - but the discovery of a treasure trove of photos from the assistant to the commander at Auschwitz is
truly extraordinary. (More pics from the album online too.)

3. Why Gen X still matters, an article in the LA Times about a new book by Jeff Gordinier. I am a Gen X cusp baby. Technically I was born three years too late (which makes me a Millenial, per the article, but I don't buy that. What happened to Gen Y? Aren't the Millenials the teens of today?) but Gen X values still intensely shaped my early cultural awareness. I discovered music right as Nirvana and Pearl Jam burst onto the scene, and I adored "Singles" and "Reality Bites" and grunge and everything else. I felt utterly Gen X. And even though the lovely dot com boom era polished a lot of that away, I still feel very close to my X-er past.

Dance Dance Dance

I never really bought into the metaphor that creates the title of this Murakami (Haruki, not Takashi) novel, but other than that, I found this book utterly enchanting.

I'm a big fan of Murakami's brand of fatalistic magical realism. And I'm particularly fascinated by his male characters. They are insightful and sensitive, and yet aloof and difficult. And they tend to like women who are like wounded birds. Women love them, and yet leave them more often that not, for whatever (sometimes metaphysical) reasons.

Anyway, am saving up some of my DDD thoughts for my book club (like trying to puzzle out the commentary on late capitalism), but I still want to share a passage, as the protagonist contemplates the teen who has become essentially his charge:

Humans achieve their peak in different ways. But whoever you are, once you're over the summit, it's downhill all the way. Nothing anyone can do about it. And the worst of it is, you never know where that peak is. You think you're still going strong, when suddenly you've crossed the great divide. [and it goes on, but I don't want to type the whole book. It's pages 209-10 of the Vintage trade paperback edition, if you want to find it]

Dancing? or floating along? How do we choose which will comprise our lives? Or do we struggle to find another action altogether?

Re-discoveries: Murakami

I love Haruki Murakami. My first encounter with him was probably in a New Yorker short story, but I first discovered him the summer after graduating from college, reading Norwegian Wood. It was haunting and sad and lovely. Most of his short stories are as well. And then there is the utterly bizarre The Wind-up Bird Chronicles. This novel is fantastical and nonsensical - like a dream that seems normal while you're in it, and then you wake up and think "what?!" Like Tom Robbins. (Another re-discovery that should be on my list: Jitterbug Perfume.)

I have heard (but have no immediate source) that Murakami is somewhat derided in Japan for his embrace of Western pop culture and literary style. Having no deep knowledge of the Japanese version of either of these, I can't tell. But I do know that his commentary of the isolation and search for human connections in modern life rings true to me.