Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

I've realized that I've got a poor track record as far as blogging about the audiobooks I read and my goal is to do better. I listened to seven audiobooks in April, the most recent being Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami [Naxos: 19 hrs].

The two main characters are 15-year-old Kafka (narrated by Oliver Le Sueur) and Nakata, a simple-minded old man who can talk to cats (narrated by Sean Barrett).

Miss Saeki, a former singer, is the enigmatic manager of a private library. Her name is pronounced in two different ways by the audiobook narrators. Barrett: Sah-eh-ki. Le Sueur: Psyche. I don't know which is closer to correct Japanese pronunciation, but I know which one I found more fitting. One of the other characters is Oshima, a transgender librarian, whom I wish had a greater role in the story.

There was a third audiobook narrator who performed the voice of a female teacher, but I couldn't find her name listed anywhere. I downloaded the e-audiobook from OverDrive and it had no publication credits at the beginning or at the end of the recording, which is something I've never encountered before. Searching for more information online, I learned that the translator is Philip Gabriel, who was awarded a PEN/Book of the Month Club Translation Prize for this work.

As I listened, I found myself checking off ingredients common to other books by Murakami that I've read:

• multiple narratives that come together
• parallel worlds
• a central character who feels alienated
• a ghostly, very beautiful girl
• music is significant
• libraries and books
• lost cats
• a menacing black dog
• supernatural entities
• sex while asleep or dreaming
• brief episodes of gruesome violence
• metaphysical musings

When I was about 11 hours into the story, I lost enthusiasm for a while. There's stuff about patricide and sleeping with both his mother and his sister and details about his cock and I needed a break. I switched to a different book for a while, then felt renewed interest in Murakami's use of symbolism and where he was going with this tale. 

I was glad that I finished it, because his work always makes me feel changed. Even so, I liked The Wind-up Bird Chronicles better.

The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Me: [Searching through house for a book.]
Sweetie: "What book are you looking for?"
Me: "The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up."
Sweetie: [Falls over with laughter.]

The book was found, sitting in a stack of other library materials. In my defence, it's a slim, small-format volume. I listened to the audio* edition back in January, then waited two months for the paper edition so that I could quote some of the lines that made me laugh. I'm not sure if Japanese author Marie Kondo intended her book to be funny or not.

By the way, no de-cluttering magic has taken place since reading the book, but, to be fair, I haven't tried her KonMari Method. It requires piling every single thing you own on the floor, handling each item, and then only keeping the ones that spark joy. Everything else goes.

"Do not even think of putting your things away until you have finished the process of discarding."

Apparently, once you complete the KonMari Method, there are no relapses. Your mind-set has been changed and you will never be untidy again. You will also be someone who anthropomorphizes everything around you. Is that a Japanese thing?

You will announce: "I'm home!" to your house when you come in. You'll take off your shoes and thank them for their hard work. You'll take off your outdoor clothes and tell them "Good job" as you hang them up or place them in the laundry basket. You'll empty everything from your purse/messenger bag/backpack/pockets and put each item away, expressing gratitude to each. You'll put the purse/messenger bag/backpack away saying, "You did well. Have a good rest."

"The purpose of a purse or messenger bag is to carry your things for you when you are away from home. [...] it carries them all without complaint, even if it is full to bursting. When you put it down and it scrapes its bottom on the floor, it utters no word of criticism, only doing its best to support you. What a hard worker! It would be cruel not to give it a break at least at home. Being packed all the time, even when not in use, must feel something like going to bed on a full stomach. If you treat your handbags like this, they will soon look tired and worn."

This is Rhoda.

When my sweetie and I spent an experience week at Findhorn back in 2001, we encountered an attitude something like that described by Kondo. My work contribution at the commune was to clean the floors with a vacuum named Buttercup. Buttercup was included in the prayer circle of intention and gratitude both before and after our shift was done. I had always disliked vacuuming, but treating the appliance as if it was a sentient helper changed that. When I got home, I bought a new vacuum--a red upright named Rhoda--and now I don't mind when it's time to clean the rugs. That, however, is as far as I'm willing to go with this business of personifying household objects. We all draw the line somewhere.

Okay, so back to The Life-changing Magic. Organizing has been a lifelong obsession for Kondo. She started reading home and lifestyle magazines when she was five. When she was in junior high, she became so absorbed in a book called The Art of Discarding (by Nagisa Tatsumi) that she almost missed her train stop on the way home from school.

I am in awe of her passion as she urges readers to aim for perfection, and feel swept up by the desire to be a better person. Then she shares another anecdote that makes me question her sanity.

"I visited the home of a client in her fifties. [...] when she pulled open her sock drawer, I could not suppress a gasp. It was full of potato-like lumps that rolled about. She had folded back the tops to form balls and tied her stockings tightly in the middle. I was speechless. [...] I pointed to the balled-up socks. 'Look at them carefully. This should be a time for them to rest. Do you really think they can get any rest like that?'"

"Vertical storage can be used anywhere. Messy fridges are common, but their content can be organized quickly and simply by standing things on end. [...] If you open my fridge, you'll find carrots standing in the drink holders on the door."

I tried Kondo's method of rolling
clothing and standing them up
in my dresser drawers. It's easy
and I like the immediate visual
access and efficient use of space.

There are things that I can learn from Kondo, like how to deal with the avalanche of paper in my house. Her rule of thumb is to discard everything. That's refreshing... and impractical. Under the heading "How to organize those troublesome papers that must be kept" she advises making three piles: 1) Currently in use, 2) Needed for a limited period of time, 3) Must be kept indefinitely. I'm willing to give this a try, since I'm losing library books under piles of paper.

And speaking of books, you must also pile these onto the floor before evaluating them.

"Just like the gentle shake we use to wake someone up, we can stimulate our belongings by physically moving them, exposing them to fresh air and making them 'conscious.'"

Kondo's method may be foolproof, but I'm not ready for it. "Putting your house in order is the magic that creates a vibrant and happy life." Someday, maybe.

*The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up Tantor audiobook is 5 hours long and read by Emily Woo Zeller. English translation by Cathy Hirano.

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

Murakami window display, December 2014 in Victoria, BC at the bookstore started by Alice Munro.

Strange Library UK ed. left, American right.
Book pocket is stamped 2 Dec 2014.

I'm comparing two editions of The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami. I received the UK (Harvill Secker) edition as a Christmas gift and I borrowed the North American (Knopf) edition from the public library. The text content is the same, translated by Ted Goosen, but the book designs are very different.

The tale begins when, on a whim, a boy on his way home from school asks at the public library for books about tax collection in the Ottoman empire. Then he is held captive in a labyrinth while forced to memorize them. A man in a sheepskin and a mute girl look after him. The story unfolds like a dream--or possibly a nightmare.

   "But, hey, this kind of thing's going on in libraries everywhere, you know. More or less, that is."
   This news staggered me. "In libraries everywhere?" I stammered.
   "If all they did was lend out knowledge for free, what would the payoff be for them?"
   "But that doesn't give them the right to saw off the tops of people's heads and eat their brains. Don't you think that's going a bit too far?"

Designer Chip Kidd (for Knopf) combines magnified, brightly-coloured Japanese paper miscellany, and photos, with text in oversized Typewriter font. The mute girl's dialogue is printed in blue ink.

Strange Library American edition. Look closely to see #BlueandBlack text on left. 

An effective series of illustrations begins with the close-up of a dog's eye, then incorporates a bird image that becomes increasing larger in the pupil of that eye. The moon is an important story element and I like the way Kidd includes it throughout. The overall effect is playfully moody in a fun-house-horror kind of way.

Strange Library American edition detail

Strange Library American edition on left, UK edition on right. Note difference in text size and layout.

Designer Suzanne Dean (for Harvill Secker) has opted for a standard serif font (maybe Dante? which, now that I think of it, would be appropriate for the name alone). The size of the text changes to emphasize words and sometimes is incorporated into illustrations. The lens of vintage eyeglasses magnifies a few letters on one page, for example. The mute girl's dialogue is in angled brackets, like a foreign language.

Strange Library UK edition detail

According to an article* I read online, Dean selected old images from the British Library. As with Kidd, some of the images are greatly enlarged. In both editions, experimentation with size contributes to an Alice in Wonderland-like feeling of disorientation.

The heavy use of black, plus pictures of insects, looming black dogs, and angled walls of books, give it a surreal, sinister atmosphere. Together with the marbled endpapers and an actual date due book pocket stuck to the front cover (brilliant!), the effect is of an arcane volume, unearthed from the stacks.

Both images are from UK edition. Effective use of large size font and manicules!
BTW, Keith Houston has an entire chapter on manicules in Shady Characters.

In their own way, each edition does a good job of emphasizing one of the central themes: coping with fear. I cannot choose which one I like better. I'm a huge fan of Chip Kidd, yet the UK edition may become my favourite simply because I will read it more often.

   "The kiss had shaken me up so much I couldn't think straight. At the same time, my anxiety had turned into an anxiety quite lacking in anxiousness. And any anxiety that is not especially anxious is, in the end, an anxiety hardly worth mentioning."

Strange Library UK edition detail.

If you are already a fan of Murakami's writing, you won't need any encouragement to pick up this lavishly illustrated little gem.

If you haven't yet dipped into his still waters to discover the hallucinations lurking beneath, then The Strange Library is a good test to see whether examples among his works that lean towards the bizarre--like The Wind-up Bird Chronicles--are for you. If you prefer more realism, Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage might be more to your taste.

*A review by Buzz Poole in The Millions, comparing three different editions of The Strange Library.
See also an interview with Chip Kidd by Roland Kelts in The New Yorker about illustrating The Strange Library.

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

The Guest Cat is a quietly luminous novella by Japanese poet Takashi Hiraide, translated by Eric Selland. There isn't much of a plot: a young couple renting a cottage in the suburbs of Tokyo interacts with a neighbour's cat.

It took a little while for Hiraide's descriptive prose to draw me in. I had to let my mind slow to the meditative rhythm, to the contemplation of moments of beauty, the inevitability of change, the natural cycles of life and death.

 "In mid-July, as the seasonal rains came to an end, the blue figure of a white-tailed skimmer dragonfly appeared on a large rock beside the pond in a perfect spot to catch the sun. Could it be the offspring of the skimmer who in the summer of the previous year came back again and again to kiss the arc of water produced by the spray from the hose? United in the shape of a distorted heart, the blue-and-yellow male and female had flown from branch to branch among the trees. Could this be their child, now emerged from its pupa?

Scout, the cat who lives at our house.

    The male skimmer I'd become friends with had vanished by the end of August. For a while I regretted the disappearance of my winged friend and his wife from the garden, which had now also been left behind by the old man and the old woman. But I felt as if that same skimmer had been brought back to life along with the bright light of summer. Then--between the effacement of death and this birth that was in a sense a kind of rebirth--I found vividly recalled to me those who had left and would never return."

The Guest Cat won Japan's Kiyama Shohei award in 2002, was a bestseller in France, and the English translation made several best-of-2014 lists. I finished reading it a couple of weeks ago, but I'm still thinking about it.

Contemplative readalikes: The Fur Person (May Sarton); Glaciers (Alexis Smith); Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dillard). Also, a couple of picture books that capture somewhat of the same feeling: Once Upon a Memory (Nina Laden & Renata Liwska); House Held Up by Trees (Ted Kooser & Jon Klassen).

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

In the introspective new novel from Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, a young man eventually discovers his sense of self worth after being cast out from a tightly-knit group of friends. It's a melancholy, realistic story set in contemporary Japan.

The Books on Tape audiobook [10 hr] is a totally hypnotic performance by actor Bruce Locke, who uses a slight Japanese accent for lines of dialogue. I was transported by Murakami's descriptions of sensory quotidian details. The mystery that lies at the heart of the story, the reason why his friends rejected Tsukuru, is another thing that kept me hooked.

On the same morning that I started listening to this book, I read an article in The Week about Murakami's use of music in his writing. Because of that, I took note any time a particular musical piece was mentioned. Franz Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage Suite (Annees de pelerinage) is the most significant. (Also the obvious source for the book's title.) I listened to this piano composition streaming via Edmonton Public Library's Naxos Music Library database. It captures the mood of Murakami's sorrowful and lovely tale about being human.

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

Naoki Higashida was 13 years old when he wrote The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-old Boy with Autism. He communicates by spelling out words on an alphabet grid, which are then transcribed by a helper.

The Reason I Jump was translated into English by author David Mitchell and his wife KA Yoshida, who have a son with autism. In the introduction, Mitchell writes that Higashida's writings offered them "transformative, life-enhancing knowledge" that people with autism do experience empathy. "The conclusion is that both emotional poverty and an aversion to company are not symptoms of autism but consequences of autism, its harsh lockdown on self-expression and society's near-pristine ignorance about what's happening inside autistic heads."

The book is small and attractively-presented, with full page artwork by Kai and Sunny. The question and answer format is broken up by brief fables composed by Higashida. Even so, it took me a long time to get through it because I read only a little at a time, much the way I read short stories.

Higashida answers questions like Why do you ignore us when we are talking to you? and Why are you always running off somewhere? and Should we listen to every word you say? The answer to that last one is no. "Just because some of us can make sounds or utter words, it doesn't follow automatically that what we've said is really what we wanted to say."

This unusual memoir is suitable for readers from about age 11 and up. It's a remarkable look at the inner  emotional, intellectual and spiritual life of someone with neurological differences.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki

Shigeru Mizuki says that 90% of his historical manga is based on his own experiences in the Imperial Army in the South Pacific during World War II. His artwork contrasts cartoonish figures of people against very realistic background drawings of Papua New Guinea's tropical setting. It is a moving account of what happened to the troops who survived after their commanding officer ordered them to die in battle in a suicide mission. From the blurb on the cover: "Mizuki deftly addresses and critiques the moral depravity of war."

Readalikes: Alan's War by Emmanuel Guibert for another graphic novel about the senselessness of war from a soldier's point of view; The Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa for its similar art style; and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami for the storyline (among several) that is about a Japanese soldier's experiences in Manchuria.

Wandering Son by Shimura Takako

Gender nonconformity is the central theme in this gentle manga story set in contemporary Japan. Shy Nitori Shuichi is a boy who could easily be mistaken for a girl. All of his friends are girls, including Takatsuki Yoshino. Takatsuki-san is tall and handsome. She wishes she could be a boy. Both children are about 10 years old and are classmates in Grade 5 at school.

In a longish afterword, translator Matt Thorn explains some of the word choices he made, since gender and language are inextricably linked. Shimura's artwork is clean and straight-forward, although I sometimes had a little trouble distinguishing similar-looking protagonists.

In volume 1 of Wandering Son, Nitori-kan and Takatsuki-san make hesitant explorations of opposite gender identity, experimenting with clothes and haircuts. Nitori-kan derives a secret pleasure when he buys himself a girl's hairband, for example. Takatsuki-san makes forays into the city while dressed as a boy. The awkwardness typical of their years is portrayed with warmth and humour. They are surrounded by their loving, happy families and school teachers who show genuine care for them. It adds up to a reassuring sense that all will be well for these two as they continue on their journeys to self-knowledge. I look forward to volume 2.

Suitable for Grade 4 and up.

The Snow Day by Komako Sakai

A young rabbit stays home from kindergarten because it snows all day. The child, who leaps out of bed wearing yellow pyjamas, could be either male or female and the apartment setting could be in any city where it snows. There are only subtle clues that it is actually Japan, like shape of the electrical outlet on the wall. I found it particularly charming that the child makes a snow dumpling outside.

It is a quiet, cozy day spent cooped up indoors until, finally, the mother relents and allows for an excursion into the silent streets after the snow stops, even though it is bedtime. The contrast between inside and outside is beautifully done in Sakai's atmospheric paintings, which are created on a black ground.

The action happening off-scene is that the father cannot get home because his airplane is grounded. This scene is illustrated on the title page; an excellent way to avoid breaking the mood in the body of the text. The final line maintains the gently reassuring tone: "Daddy will be home tomorrow, because it stopped snowing." Ages 3 - 6.

Emma by Kaoru Mori

I had read glowing reviews and was really looking forward to reading Emma, which is historical romance in manga format. The 19th century London setting is beautifully drawn by mangaka Kaoru Mori. Emma is the only servant in the home of a retired nursemaid, Kelly Stownar. At the start of volume 1, Emma is introduced to William Jones, son of a wealthy businessman, when he pays a surprise visit to his former nursemaid. The two young people are immediately attracted to each other.

Later, William gets a surprise visit from his friend Prince Hakim Attawally, who arrives by steamship from India with an entourage of about a dozen male servants in turbans, four languorous young women wearing more jewellry than clothing, and five elephants depicted much larger than natural size. All (except the elephants) have bindis marking their foreheads. Hakim meets Emma and falls for her.

Serious-minded Emma seems to get a lot of love letters - a half-dozen at a time in one comic panel - but she has always turned down her suitors. Kelly's health is fragile and she worries about what will happen to her maid when she dies. She can see that there is a romantic attraction happening, so she subtly encourages Emma to consider William as a marriage prospect. It is clear, however, that William's father would never approve of a match between his son and a lower-class maid.

Ho hum. This book was a disappointment and I have no interest in reading further volumes (I think there are 7 in this storyline) to find out what happens in the end. The blatantly stereotypical treatment of the party from India and their inclusion for the obvious purpose of comic relief were also off-putting. Romance readers are the audience for this series. Grade 9 - adult.

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi

An adventure fantasy set in a world much like Japan of the middle ages, starring a woman warrior. Basha is a bodyguard hired to protect a young prince from his own father, the Mikado, as well as from a monster who lives a parallel world. Skillful with her short spear and a master of martial arts, Basha needs all of her strength, courage and wisdom for this job.

It was the cover art, reminiscent of Hokusai's woodblock print, The Wave, that first drew me to this book. The story drew me in from Basha's spectacular initial saving of the prince, when he was thrown from a high bridge into the river (the scene depicted on the cover). In the author's note at the end, I learned that there are ten more tales in the series, that it is available in manga format and that it was recently made into an animated series for television. Good news!

Moribito is an excellent choice for a reader looking for something like Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otari.

One Piece by Eiichiro Oda. Volume 19: Rebellion

It isn't often that I'm caught without a book to read, but that's what happened when I bailed on The Luxe. So, for the bus ride home from work, I read a manga. I've been curious about One Piece for quite a while, since it is so popular. I learned that it is not a good idea to start on volume 19.

The format appears to be about 10 chapters in each volume, so I was starting with chapter 167. As you can imagine, I missed a whole heap of backstory. The larger story is that of Luffy and his dream to locate the One Piece treasure and become the Pirate King. I studied the characters introduced at the start of volume 19, but it still took me a couple of chapters before I began sorting out who was who.

It's shonen, which is action/adventure manga. I had so much trouble figuring out what was happening in the action scenes that I gave up trying to decipher those images and relied on the word balloons and non-action panels to get the gist of what was going on. Some of the sound effects in the background seemed out of place to my western mind. I associate WOOOO with spooky scenes and AHHH with happiness or satisfaction, not fight scenes. I realize that this is a culture difference, like dogs barking ruff ruff in English and ouah ouah in French.

In between chapters, the author has little chats with the reader. At first, I dismissed these as annoying interruptions. Then I found them really funny. The explanation of the three kinds of transponder snails on page 146, for example.

So anyway, in volume 19, Luffy and his band of pirates get into a scrape and get out of it but their getaway is obviously temporary, with Sir Crocodile hot on their trail and the kingdom of Alabasta embroiled in civil war. I discovered that the next volume is not due out until February 2009. I would pick up One Piece again... but probably only if I'm stuck with nothing else to read.