I enjoyed this novel so much that I read it twice—first in English, and then in German. This is not, however, because the novel is such a literary masI enjoyed this novel so much that I read it twice—first in English, and then in German. This is not, however, because the novel is such a literary masterpiece—Herzog is a good writer, but not exactly Goethe—but because it is a nearly perfect distillation of Herzog’s work.
Onoda is the quintessential Herzogian figure: a lonely warrior, trying to survive in the jungle. From Aguirre to Fitzcarraldo, from Dieter Dengler to Juliane Koepcke—not to mention Herzog himself—this situation seems to keep beckoning the director to revisit it. Indeed, I would argue that it sums up Herzog’s views of humanity and the cosmos. Anyone who has seen Herzog’s strange rant about the jungle in Burden of Dreams (the making of Fitzcarraldo) knows that, rather than a place of beauty and wonder, Herzog sees the rainforest as a place of horror and misery—in his words, “overwhelming and collective murder.” Herzog seems to value it because, for him, this is reality, unfiltered and raw—the pure pitiless cruelty of the cosmos.
Onoda is also typically Herzogian because he is, well, quixotic. Like so many of Herzog’s characters, he is simultaneously heroic and pathetic. Considering the odds against him—not only enemy troops and police ambushes, but the basic struggle of staying alive and maintaining a weapon in the wilderness—it is difficult not to admire Onoda’s iron will and unconquerable tenacity. At the same time, he is so remarkably stubborn and misguided—and his mission so absolutely pointless—that one cannot help feeling, at the end of it, that he has willfully misspent his life. Indeed, this existential situation seems to be at the core of Herzog’s work. If the universe is overwhelmingly indifferent and our lives ultimately doomed to disappear into nothingness, then are we so different from Onoda waging his lonely war?
Some of my favorite parts of the book consisted of Onoda’s personal theories about the changing world around him. For example, he sees a jet plane and theorizes that it must be a new form of propulsion. At night, he sees a light traveling across the sky periodically, and figures that it must be a new technology in space. Onoda also theorizes about the progress of the war. The war planes and battleships that pass by Lubang help to confirm his conviction that the war is continuing, when in reality they represent the United States’ following wars in Korea and Vietnam. The messages sent to him by the Filipino authorities, informing him of the war’s end, are discounted as fakes. Even a recording of his own brother is interpreted as a ruse. It is a remarkable demonstration of how a highly intelligent person can nevertheless be blind to the most important truths.
The last Herzogian quality I will mention is his tendency to use images to probe metaphysical quandaries. His excellent documentary on the Lascaux caves, for example, ends with the striking image of an albino crocodile, in a nuclear-heated pool near the caves. The crocodile might prompt us to think about how the climate, or technology, or our relationship with animals has changed… but Herzog’s narration verges into the truly incomprehensible at this juncture, and he ends with this head-scratcher: “Are we today the crocodiles who look back into the abyss of time when we see the paintings of Chauvet cave?”
This novel ends with an even more confusing series of images, of which I will quote only a small sample:
Among the terrors of the night was a horse with glowing eyes, smoking cigars. A saint left a deep imprint on the rock on which he slept. Elephants at night dream standing up. Fever dreams trundle the rock of night up the angry boiling mountains. The jungle bends and stretches like caterpillars walking, uphill and down. The heron when cornered will attack the eyes of its pursuers. A crocodile ate a countess. The dead, when turned away from the sun, can be buried standing up. Three men on a horse, the saddle remains empty…
I really have no idea what any of this means. It might be very deep, or it might be absolute nonsense. Nevertheless, I enjoy Herzog even at his weirdest....more
This is the second Murakami novel I have read, and again I have a rather muddled impression. Somehow, I quite enjoyed the actual reading of the book; This is the second Murakami novel I have read, and again I have a rather muddled impression. Somehow, I quite enjoyed the actual reading of the book; yet when I put it down, I was unsure whether it was genuinely interesting or merely entertaining.
For one, a lot of potentially heavy themes pervade the story—the power of music, the significance of dreams, the existence of destiny, the nature of identity—and yet, for me, the themes did not really resolve or conclude, but sort of drifted like an aimless melody in the background. The plot itself has this same quality: though there is a definite narrative arc, so many questions are left unanswered that it just seems to float off into the upper atmosphere. As in a dream, there is often a sensation that something terribly meaningful is lying in wait, below conscious understanding but barely perceivable—but is this nagging sensation trustworthy, or merely a kind of trick of Murakami’s writing?
By the conventional standards of a novelist, Murakami is certainly open to criticism. For example, his characters often talk in a highly unnatural way, indulging in long philosophical speculation, emotional confessions, or intently analyzing events of the plot. Yet the characters of Dickens or Dostoyevsky—or Kafka himself for that matter—do not speak anything like living people, and that has not hurt their authors’ reputations. Another potential fault is Murakami’s habit of including lots of extremely banal details into his writing. At one point, for example, the protagonist describes everything he finds inside a refrigerator. Yet I do think the contrast between these mundane facts and the often bizarre events of the plot create a certain aesthetic effect that is one of Murakami’s trademarks.
Perhaps I ought to give the author credit, since I found myself enjoying apparently pointless things without being able to explain why. One of my favorite chapters in the book, for example, consists of a character going to a coffee shop and listening to a Beethoven trio. The prose is nothing special (indeed, Murakami’s style is very plain), nothing much happens, and nothing profound is said. Despite this, I felt a real, solid sense of what it would be like to be sipping good coffee and listening to some exquisite classical music. This in itself is such a pleasant sensation to imagine that it hardly even matters what it has to do with the plot.
There were times, however, that Murakami’s ability to transport the reader worked to his detriment. The many sex scenes in the book, for example, are almost all disturbing—being not only ethically questionable, but simply illegal in most countries I’m familiar with.
I suppose I must end this review with a shrug of my shoulders. All I can really say for certain is that I found Kafka on the Shore to be highly readable and enjoyable. What it means, or whether it means anything at all; what Murakami hoped to convey, or whether he hoped to convey anything concrete; whether it is too complicated or too simple-minded to analyze—I cannot quite figure it out, and so, like the book itself, I will let my review end on an unresolved note....more
I had high hopes for this book. As an aspiring novelist, with a fair amount of respect for Murakami (I loved his book on running), I hoped that his boI had high hopes for this book. As an aspiring novelist, with a fair amount of respect for Murakami (I loved his book on running), I hoped that his book on writing would be inspiring or, at the very least, motivating. But this is not a how-to book. Nor is it a kind of artistic autobiography. The book is, rather, a series of short essays on the writing world originally published in Japan, all of which could be read independently of one another.
There are, indeed, a few pieces of advice, and some tidbits of autobiography, as well as some reflections on the Japanese publishing business and the education system. None of these topics, however, is explored with anything approximating depth, and half of the book is spent apologizing for not having more to say. Further, what he does have to say is either specific to his own case or, perhaps, specific to Japan. And it must be said that he does not make much of an effort to persuade his readers of his opinions—opinions which, for the most part, are neither original nor subtle.
But rather than harp on the poor man, let me offer an example:
One night my wife and I were trudging home with our heads down, too broke to make the bank payment that was due the next day, when we stumbled upon a crumpled wad of bills lying in the street. Whether it was synchronicity or some kind of sign, I don’t know, but strange to say, it was exactly the amount we needed. It really saved us, since otherwise our check would have bounced.
This story (hard to believe, but perhaps true) encapsulates what frustrated me about this book. Just as finding the exact right amount of money, at the perfect time, is not really financial advice, Murakami’s story of becoming a writer (inspiration out of the blue) and his account of his own work (writing what he wants, when he wants to) is not exactly useful, or even encouraging, for others trying to practice the craft.
As far as writing advice goes, Murakami’s is good, if rather standard: be consistent, set a word goal, re-write often, read a lot, take breaks between drafts. Perhaps his most idiosyncratic tip is to become physically fit. As somebody who both writes and runs, I simply don’t experience the connection he feels between aerobic fitness and working on a novel. Surely, there are few things less physically demanding than typing. Curiously, Murakami’s stance on exercise is directly opposed to that articulated in, say, some of Thomas Mann’s short stories, wherein creativity is linked to illness and physical weakness. Well, if it is not good for your fiction, at least exercise will be good for your health.
If I may complain a bit more about this book, the last quality which irked me is Murakami’s (apparent) disingenuousness. For example, he frequently denigrates his own intelligence and talent, and portrays himself as somebody who is neither special nor particularly gifted. Yet it is difficult for me to believe that he entirely believes these things, since if he did he would hardly bother writing these essays. It also strikes me as insincere to write essays about your own opinion, from your own perspective (as we all must, by virtue of being human), while constantly reiterating that it is only your opinion and might be wrong, etc., etc. In sum, it struck me as a kind of false humility which was, for me, off-putting and unnecessary. Murakami has earned the right to strong opinions, at least about the writing world.
My word, I have written a fairly nasty review of this book. Let me insist, then, that this is all from my own perspective and does not represent more than the opinion of an online book-reviewer. I am neither particularly talented nor intelligent, and in any case this book review won’t change anything. I am sorry for taking up your time. All of this would never have happened if this book had not been left un-attended on a bench in Central Park, at the exact time I was hoping to read a collection of essays by a Japanese writer. Was it fate?...more
Set on a small Japanese island, The Sound of Waves is a love story between a young fisherman and the daughter of the richest man in town. While none oSet on a small Japanese island, The Sound of Waves is a love story between a young fisherman and the daughter of the richest man in town. While none of the characters are deeply developed, the book is nonetheless enchanting for its lush descriptions of the simple life led on this island. Mishima clearly aims to establish this as a kind of primordial Eden, untouched by the corruption of the modern, Western world, and he succeeds in painting a lovely portrait of a traditional community. In some passages, such as during the culminating boat voyage, Mishima’s prose becomes nearly intoxicating.
Where this book disappoints, in my opinion, is in the characterization—particularly in the characterization of the women. A good love story, for me, should show why the two lovers in question are attracted to one another. This requires developing their individual personalities and then showing how they change in the presence of their beloved. But Mishima’s fixation with breasts makes this nearly impossible. Shinji, our hero, notices first and foremost the breasts of Hatsue, his love interest. For her part, she demonstrates an extreme devotion to Shinji, yet it is never clear why this is so, since they hardly have a real conversation during the entire book.
Now, if you think I am exaggerating when I say that Mishima has a fixation with breasts, then I must present the following evidence. In one scene, a group of the island’s women are gathered to dive for sea snails (and are thus undressed). What does Mishima imagine these women doing? Discussing their breasts, of course:
The breasts of all the women were well tanned, and furthermore were not distinguished precisely by that mysterious quality that whiteness provides, even lacking in large part the transparency of the skin that reveals the veins. Judging solely by the skin, they appeared totally insensitive, but beneath the toasted epidermis there had been created a lustrous and semitransparent color, like that of honey.
Further down the page, this is what Mishima imagines the mother of the protagonist is thinking (a widow, in dire financial straits):
The mother of Shinji was proud of her breasts, still firm and vigorous, the most youthful of the married women her age. As if they had never known the anxiety of love or the suffering of life, her breasts were raised all summer long towards the sun, from which they obtained their inexhaustible strength.
As a comparison, here is how Mishima describes an insignificant male character in the same chapter:
He was a gaunt man, and on his chest, toasted by the sun, visible through the open collar of his shirt, one could count his ribs. He had very short hair, black streaked with grey, and his cheeks and his temples bore dark spots produced by age. His teeth were scarce and were stained by tobacco, and this lack made it difficult to understand what he said, above all when, such as now, he raised his voice.
I think there is a very clear difference.
(If these passages sound a bit awkward, you can blame me, since I am translating from the Spanish translation.)
Now, I am not ragging on Mishima for being a bad feminist, but because I think his breast-centric portrayal of the women seriously weakened the story. The book would have been a great deal more interesting if the Hatsue were not simply two boobs, filled with desire, and instead she had some reason for liking Shinji—some aspect of her personality that was fulfilled by him.
In any case, I think it is fair to say that the book is still mostly a charming read—a short and sweet love story, on a beautiful island....more
I have often had occasion to remark on the surprising extent of my own ignorance. Sometimes I feel like a lonely janitor, faced with the task of cleanI have often had occasion to remark on the surprising extent of my own ignorance. Sometimes I feel like a lonely janitor, faced with the task of cleaning an enormous building without the help of a floorplan. I wipe down every surface and scrub every floor in sight, only to discover that, further on, there are entire, unexplored wings that are still totally filthy. Not only that, but I am a severely myopic janitor, and often assume a surface is clean until I bend down to take a closer look. Now, without any intended offense to that great nation, for me Japan was one of those apparently clean but very dusty surfaces of my brain.
This course was the perfect place for me to start remedying the situation. Ravina is a wonderful lecturer and a vivid storyteller. More importantly, he is also an expert on the subject, having lived there, learned the language, and devoted his life to the study of its culture. The course is designed for people like me—the wretchedly ignorant—but nevertheless manages to include a surprising amount of depth. Like any great educator, Ravina makes the subject accessible without dumbing it down. He also, wisely, does not focus solely on conventional history (emperors, warlords, battles), turning his attention to the cultural aspects that are most interesting to the layperson. Even more wisely, he does give the listener enough conventional history to provide intelligible context for these cultural achievements.
I was most impressed by Ravina’s ability to tackle such a wide variety of topics. On gardens, literature, religion, food, cinema, the economy, and more, he is a lucid and compelling guide to the topic. And his enthusiasm for Japan is certainly contagious. Speaking for myself, what fascinated me the most was the mixture of familiarity and foreignness. Many aspects of Japanese history and culture seem to have close European parallels—samurai and knights, Shinto and Elizabethan theater, with religious monasteries and sophisticated court culture—and yet, within these similar structures, there can be profound differences in values or attitude. Ravina captured this most clearly in his comparison of Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story and the American movie on which it was based, Make Way for Tomorrow—films with almost the same plot, but strikingly different emotional effects.
Suffice to say, now that I have a floorplan, I look forward to giving this part of my brain a decent cleaning one of these days....more
This is my first Murakami novel, and I am struggling to articulate my response. On the surface, I feel as though I should have disliked the book. MuraThis is my first Murakami novel, and I am struggling to articulate my response. On the surface, I feel as though I should have disliked the book. Murakami’s style is simple, almost comically so; and his themes are quite masculine and adolescent. This does not sound promising. But somehow, for me, this book seemed to defy the gravity of badness, floating mysteriously above the mediocre novel it could so easily have been.
I suppose the best way to describe this mysterious Murakami magic would be ‘uncanniness.’ As in a realistic dream, his writing evokes the feeling that not everything is quite right, that there is something untoward in the offing, something unknown beneath the surface. Thus, even quite ordinary situations and interactions are suffused with a strange power, as we try to figure out what exactly is amiss. In this, I suppose the most natural comparison is Kafka, though Murakami is far less terrifying.
Murakami’s characters also skirt the edges of being thin cartoons. They speak very frankly, willing to be strikingly open with one another, even emotionally raw in a way that real people seldom are. And yet, they often seem held back despite their best efforts, cut off from their innermost selves. This is arguably the main theme of the novel: the perpetual struggle to be emotionally honest. Maybe this would be a bit trite, were not Murakami able infuse these characters with a genuinely charming oddness.
I suppose, what I am trying to say is that I liked the book, far more than I expected to. Yes, it could have been trimmed down, the plot tightened, some redundancies taken out. But I can forgive that. The conclusion, then, is that I will have to read some more Murakami, even if he is masculine and adolescent....more
I think I enjoyed this book more than its slim contents really justify. This is due to a confluence of interests: Murakami is a marathon-running novelI think I enjoyed this book more than its slim contents really justify. This is due to a confluence of interests: Murakami is a marathon-running novelist, and I, too, am a writer (amateur) and runner (very amateur). So a lot of the pleasure of this book was aspirational life-envy. Waking up, working on a piece of fiction, and then heading out for a long run in some scenic spot—this sounds like a perfect day to me.
The book is a kind of meditation on the act of running and what it means to Murakami and his work as a novelist. I cannot say that any of it is especially profound; but if you write or run it will likely be compelling. Not that Murakami has any special knowledge about training methods or the history of running or anything along those lines. Rather, his reflections are purely introspective. Why does he run? What role does running play in his life? How has his attitude towards running changed as he got older?
This was my first Murakami book, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed his writing style. He comes across as humble, private, and introverted, but full of a determination to live life on his own terms—which is by far his most attractive quality. In fact, as I listened to this audiobook on my own runs, I found Murakami’s quiet determination so inspiring that I ran faster and farther than I have in quite a while. Now, that’s a quality book....more
This is certainly one of the great books of the previous century. It is superlative in many respects. Most obvious is the book’s historical value, whiThis is certainly one of the great books of the previous century. It is superlative in many respects. Most obvious is the book’s historical value, which needs no further elaboration. Hiroshima is also a stylistically innovative and influential book, pioneering the dramatic writing techniques that would come to characterize some of the best journalistic writing after the war. And Hersey also deserves praise for his stylistic restraint. Virtually no event could have been more liable to evoke overwrought prose or vain attempts to capture the broad sweep of the tragedy. Hersey’s decision to focus on only six survivors, and to narrate what they saw with simple directness, was an act of great authorial self-control.
But this book is great for more important reasons than these. The power of atomic weapons is such that most of us can barely imagine it, much less picture ourselves their victims. Thus, as with many historical atrocities, the stories of survivors bridge the gap between imagination and experience, and allow us—at least dimly—to grasp the extent of the horror. Merely being faced with the reality of the bomb is enough to make a point. Without any explicit preaching, Hiroshima utterly convinces us that weapons which wreak such indiscriminate violence and widespread destruction have no possible rational use, even in war.
Last, the book is a wonderfully humanistic document. The people in this book were struck with a weapon they did not even suspect existed. They lost their homes, churches, and businesses, and they lost parents, children, spouses, and friends. And yet Hersey shows how these ordinary people often proved capable of extraordinary heroism and resilience, not only in the immediate aftermath, but in the years that followed. I found this especially moving, as I am often ashamed of my own inability to deal calmly with petty frustrations and minor setbacks. Books like this may not make me any wiser, but they at least leave me with a little hope—for myself, and for us all....more
I set to work with this boundless pile of paper to fill it to the last sheet with all manner of odd things, so no doubt there’s much in these pages
I set to work with this boundless pile of paper to fill it to the last sheet with all manner of odd things, so no doubt there’s much in these pages that make no sense.
This is an utterly delightful book. Indeed, it is fair to say that this is a book about delight in all its manifold forms.
This is all the more remarkable given what we know about the author’s life. Sei Shōnagon was a kind of lady-in-waiting for the Empress Teishi. However, not long after her marriage, Teishi was supplanted by another Empress, Shōshi (whose own lady-in-waiting, Murasaki, wrote the classic Tale of Genji), and soon thereafter died in childbirth at the age of 23. Thus, Shōnagon’s life in the capital was tense, humiliating, and short-lived. It is not even rightly known what became of Shōnagon after Teishi’s death. Even the date of her death is in doubt.
One might expect the writings of such a person to be tinged by melancholy or motivated by revenge. What we have, instead, is an elegant series of reminiscences and observations about the beauty of her world. Shōnagon appears to have loved court life—the ceremony, the pomp, the artificiality, the formality, the refinement, the elegance—in short, everything. Her taste for her role in court is striking to the modern reader, as her life cannot but appear incredibly confined to us. She spends all her time literally cordoned off, separated from the men by a screen, and is constantly at the Empress’s beck and call. I would have lost my mind.
But Shōnagon wrings as many drops of aesthetic pleasure out of her circumstances as humanly possible. She is, for example, enchanted by the subtleties of dress—what ranks of court officials can wear which articles of clothing, what colors are appropriate for which season. The sounds of words delight her, as do the specific characters used to write them. Seasons, trees, flowers, birds, and insects all attract her attention.
These items are gathered together into lists, which comprise the bulk of this volume. Indeed, Shōnagon must be one of the all-time masters of the list, as she is inexhaustibly brilliant at thinking of categories. True, there are pedestrian ones such as bridges, mountains, ponds, and so forth. Some of these are so short and perfunctory that one wonders why Shōnagon thought it worthwhile to jot them down. But most lists are based, not on the thing itself, but on how it makes Shōnagon feel: dispiriting things, infuriating things, things that look enjoyable (but aren’t), splendid things, regrettable things, things that are distressing to see, things that are hard to say, common things that suddenly sound special, things that look ordinary but become extraordinary when written…
These lists were so quirky and, often, so hilarious that I was incongruously reminded of Wes Anderson’s films, which often feature odd lists. (Come to think of it, if anyone could turn this book into movie, it would have to be a pretentious aesthete like Anderson. He also shares Shōnagon’s love of colors.) But the list, in Shōnagon’s hands, becomes more than just a tool of organization. It reveals a kind of aesthetic philosophy—in part, that of the society she lived in, but to a great degree idiosyncratic—wherein the sensations evoked by things are ultimately more important than the things themselves.
This is exemplified in what is arguably the dominant theme of this book: poetry. To an extent that is very difficult to imagine today, poetry pervaded court life in Heian Japan. Virtually everyone at the court, it seems, had memorized a great deal of poetry, and their conversations are littered with erudite references. (Unfortunately for me, most of this poetry relied on puns that are untranslatable, making it rather baffling in English.) Moreover, it was common to correspond via poetry, and the ability to compose on the fly was highly prized. Stories abound of someone (usually Shōnagon herself) finding the exact perfect reference or quote for an occasion, or completing the opening lines of a poem with brilliant aplomb. It is as if everyone at the White House were expected to freestyle.
It must be said, however, that despite Shōnagon’s attempt to reach a state of pure aesthetic appreciation, her strong and sharp personality very often breaks through. And good thing it does, for without it the book would not be even half as enjoyable as it is.
Admittedly, Shōnagon the person is, in many respects, unpleasant. She is snobby in the extreme and not a little vain. Her attitudes toward common folks is one of utmost condescension, and her need to be refined at all times sometimes verges into the ridiculous (in one section, she pretends not to know the word for “oar,” as it is too vulgar an object for her delicate vocabulary). Shōnagon is even capable of cruelty, which is exemplified in a section when a commoner comes in tears to report that his house burned down, and Shōnagon breaks into laughter and writes a satirical poem about his predicament. (The poor man, being illiterate, mistakes the poem for a promissory note.)
This opinion of Shōnagon was, apparently, shared by at least some of her contemporaries. Lady Murasaki, for example, found her to be “dreadfully conceited” and predicted: “Those who think of themselves as being superior to everyone else in this way will inevitably suffer and some to a bad end.” For my part, however, I think that the tension between Shōnagon’s very human shortcomings and her airy aesthetic focus creates a kind of dynamic tension that makes this book become fully alive as a human document.
I cannot finish a review of this book without mentioning its immense value simply as a window into another time. I was constantly thrown to the endnotes (which I wish had been footnotes) to understand some obscure reference or puzzling custom, and in the process inadvertently learned much about Heian Japan. Somehow, both Shōnagon’s numerous poetic references and her love of gossip combine to make her age come fully alive in these pages, in a way that few other books accomplish. In other words, this book is wholly delightful....more
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