The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

Title: The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

Author: Haruki Murakami

Number of pages: 608

Started: 11 April 2010

Finished: 28 April 2010

Opening words:

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

I wanted to ignore the phone, not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical climax.

Plot summary:

Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.

What I thought:

This book was an interesting read. A book of two halves. If I were to say what I thought of it purely based on the first half, I would use a word like “brilliant”. It was really engrossing and engaging. A good story and told in a way that I really liked. But then there was the second half of the book and somehow those observations on it no longer seem to apply. I found the second half more of a mish mash of stories and occurrences and absurdities. I just didn’t get where the second half of the book was coming from and why it was taking so long to come to its conclusion.

So it was a strange read. A lot of Murakami’s books are odd (in a good way) and tell a good story be that through a narrator or a talking animal. But somewhere along the line I thought this book lost its way and it took a lot to make me see it through to the end. Having said that, I liked the closing pages. It was a well written and moving end to the book, but it didn’t half take a long time to get there.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Title: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

Author: Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Burrows

Number of pages: 248

Started: 4 April 2010

Finished: 10 April 2010

Opening words:

8th January, 1946
Mr. Sidney Stark, Publisher
Stephens & Stark Ltd.
21 St. James's Place
London S.W.1
England

Dear Sidney,
Susan Scott is a wonder. We sold over forty copies of the book, which was very pleasant, but much more thrilling from my standpoint was the food. Susan managed to procure ration coupons for icing sugar and real eggs for the meringue. If all her literary luncheons are going to achieve these heights, I won't mind touring about the country. Do you suppose that a lavish bonus could spur her on to butter? Let's try it—you may deduct the money from my royalties.

Now for my grim news. You asked me how work on my new book is progressing. Sidney, it isn't.

English Foibles seemed so promising at first. After all, one should be able to write reams about the Society to Protest the Glorification of the English Bunny. I unearthed a photograph of the Vermin Exterminators' Trade Union, marching down an Oxford street with placards screaming "Down with Beatrix Potter!" But what is there to write about after a caption? Nothing, that's what.

I no longer want to write this book—my head and my heart just aren't in it. Dear as Izzy Bickerstaff is—and was—to me, I don't want to write anything else under that name. I don't want to be considered a light-hearted journalist anymore. I do acknowledge that making readers laugh—or at least chuckle—during the war was no mean feat, but I don't want to do it anymore. I can't seem to dredge up any sense of proportion or balance these days, and God knows one cannot write humor without them.
In the meantime, I am very happy Stephens & Stark is making money on Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War. It relieves my conscience over the debacle of my Anne Bront biography.

My thanks for everything and love,
Juliet

P.S. I am reading the collected correspondence of Mrs. Montagu. Do you know what that dismal woman wrote to Jane Carlyle? "My dear little Jane, everybody is born with a vocation, and yours is to write charming little notes." I hope Jane spat on her.

Read more of the book here

See the publisher’s website of the book here including a video about the book.

Plot summary:

January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.

What I thought:

I read this book while I was on holiday in Jersey because I like to read a book based where I am staying. I couldn’t find a book about Jersey so went for its neighbour Guernsey instead (which is probably not the done thing, as they are not the best of friends).

This book was enjoyable, but lacked depth. I never really felt that I truly cared about the characters or that they were always necessarily that believable as people. The style also changed at the end of the book and moved away from letters to a brief diary like conclusion, which perhaps was not the most appropriate way to finish it. That is perhaps overly critical though. It is a light read about a dark subject – the German Occupation of the Channel Islands - and it is an enjoyable read and there is always something intriguing about reading other people’s correspondence, or perhaps that is just me! It was also a book that touched on a number of issues that I learned about while I was in Jersey – the way people responded to the Occupation, how they were left to fend for themselves by the British government, how desperately they needed Red Cross food, but weren’t allowed to have it and so on. These things meant more to me when I read them in the book because I had found out about them during my trip to Jersey already.

It was a pleasant read, and good for a holiday or as a light take on life, but not one of the better books that I have read.

After the Quake

Title: After the Quake

Author: Haruki Murakami

Number of pages: 132

Started: 31 March 2010

Finished: 4 April 2010

Opening words:

Five straight days she spent in front of the television, staring at crumbled banks and hospitals, whole blocks of stores in flames, severed rail lines and expressways. She never said a word. Sunk deep in the cushions of the sofa, her mouth clamped shut, she wouldn't answer when Komura spoke to her. She wouldn't shake her head or nod. Komura could not be sure the sound of his voice was even getting through to her.

Komura's wife came from way up north in Yamagata and, as far as he knew, she had no friends or relatives who could have been hurt in Kobe. Yet she stayed rooted in front of the television from morning to night. In his presence, at least, she ate nothing and drank nothing and never went to the toilet. Aside from an occasional flick of the remote control to change the channel, she hardly moved a muscle.

Read a longer excerpt here.

Plot summary:

The economy was booming. People had more money than they knew what to do with. And then, the earthquake struck. Komura's wife follows the TV reports from morning to night, without eating or sleeping. The same images appear again and again: flames, smoke, buildings turned to rubble, their inhabitants dead, cracks in the streets, derailments, crashes, collapsed expressways, crushed subways, fires everywhere. Pure hell. Suddenly, a city seems a fragile thing. And life too. Tomorrow anything could happen. For the characters in Murakami's latest short story collection, the Kobe earthquake is an echo from a past they buried long ago. Satsuki has spent 30 years hating one man: a lover who destroyed her chances of having children, and who now lives in Kobe. Did her desire for revenge cause the earthquake? Junpei's estranged parents also live in Kobe. Should he contact them? Miyake left his family in Kobe to make midnight bonfires on a beach hundreds of miles away. Four-year-old Sala has nightmares that the Eathquake man is trying to stuff her inside a little box. Katagiri returns home to find a giant frog in his apartment on a mission to save Tokyo from a massive worm burrowing under the Tokyo Security Trust Bank. "When he gets angry, he causes earthquakes" says Frog. "And right now he is very, very angry."

What I thought:

This was a short, but good, read. It was made up of a series of short stories that told the tales of different people affected by the Kobe earthquake. It was a well written and slightly quirky read that told an engaging story. I really like Murakami’s writing style and this book was one of rather shorter works and a nicely observed tale.

The Brooklyn Follies

Title: The Brooklyn Follies

Author: Paul Auster

Number of pages: 304

Started: 24 March 2010

Finished: 31 March 2010

Opening words:

`I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning, I traveled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain.'

Listen to an interview with Paul Auster about the book here.

You can find a reading group guide here

Plot summary:

Set against the backdrop of the contested US election of 2000, it tells the story of Nathan and Tom, an uncle and nephew double-act. One in remission from lung cancer, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter, the other hiding away from his once-promising academic career, and, indeed, from life in general. Having accidentally ended up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood, they discover a community teeming with life and passion. When Lucy, a little girl who refuses to speak, comes into their lives, there is suddenly a bridge from their pasts that offers them the possibility of redemption.

What I thought:

I enjoyed this book. I didn’t think it was one of Auster’s best, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was a tale of intertwined stories and people reflecting on life and the decisions that we make. I really like Auster’s writing style and he writes in a way that you can hear the narrator’s voice – they are books that are suited to being read aloud and shared. It was a book that I would like to read again some day and I am sure that I will find things in it then that entirely passed me by this time.

I did think the very end of the book was perhaps a bit contrived (that being the reference to 11 September), but it was a thought provoking book and one that had moments that were just so well written that they had to be savoured or at least pondered. A good read.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Title: The Count of Monte Cristo

Author: Alexandre Dumas

Number of pages: 1462

Started: 18 February 2010

Finished: 23 March 2010

Opening words:

On the 24th of February 1815, the lookout at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste and Naples.

As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d'If got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and the Isle of Rion.

Immediately, and according to custom, the platform of Fort- Saint-Jean was covered with spectators; it is always in an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharoon, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an owner of the city.

Plot summary:

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering and retribution.

What I thought:

This was a big read! All 1462 pages of it. It was a decent read, but I have to say that the size of it was daunting and meant that I perhaps skimmed over some of the finer points of it. It was a book of captivity and vengeance and much more.

I have heard a few people say that this was one of the best books they have every read. I would not put it in that category, but it is certainly worth a read. Vengeance is a dish best served cold, as they say.

The Master and Margarita

Title: The Master and Margarita

Author: Mikhail Bulgakov

Number of pages: 564

Started: 7 February 2010

Finished: 17 February 2010

Opening words:

At the hour of the hot spring sunset two citizens appeared at the Patriarch's Ponds. One of them, approximately forty years old, dressed in a grey summer suit, was short, dark-haired, plump, bald, and carried his respectable fedora hat in his hand. His neatly shaven face was adorned with black horn-rimmed glasses of a supernatural size. The other, a broad-shouldered young man with tousled reddish hair, his checkered cap cocked back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousers and black sneakers.

The first was none other than Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, editor of a fat literary journal and chairman of the board of one of the major Moscow literary associations, called Massolit for short, and his young companion was the poet Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyrev, who wrote under the pseudonym of Homeless.


Read a longer extract here.

Plot summary:

The devil comes to Moscow wearing a fancy suit. With his disorderly band of accomplices - including a demonic, gun-toting tomcat - he immediately begins to create havoc.

Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves ...

Read a major analysis of the book (by an “amateur”) here

What I thought:

This book wasn’t really my kind of read. I didn’t really get into the plot very well and found it all a bit odd and unsatisfying. This might, in part, be down to the translation, particularly as there seems to be much debate about which of the many translation is “best”. Perhaps if I had read another version, I might have found it to be a different read. But, for me, I didn’t really find the book flowed, I thought the plot was odd and a bit to surreal in some places for my liking and I just didn’t find the book very coherent. Not a book that I would particularly recommend.

Lolita

Title: Lolita

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Number of pages: 309

Started: 31 January 2010

Finished: 6 February 2010

Opening words:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

Read the opening chapters of the book here.

Plot summary:

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he’ll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? …Or is he all of these?

What I thought:

This was an interesting read and clearly one that is affected by the narrator telling the story. Humbert Humbert is the narrator and the protagonist with a liking for young girls. It’s a controversial story and one that some might feel rather uncomfortable with, not just because of the storyline itself, but because of the narrators explanations and, perhaps, because he might draw some emotion (about him as a person) other than abhorrence at times. It’s a challenging concept for a book and it starts with a foreword (that you should read before you read the rest of the book, as it is part of the plot) which gives a very strong indication of where things will end up. But the story takes some interesting paths to reach its conclusion and you see the ‘morality’ of Humbert and how the standards that he applies to other are not necessarily the same as he applies to himself.

Nabokov was a Russian, and this book, which was written in English, was an experiment in using the English language to its full extent – although he does throw in quite a lot of French too. The book at times seems to get caught up in using the most obscure words that can be found to convey the message, which does nit always enhance the book. But as a work of literature it is also a challenging read, but perfectly readable.

Did I enjoy the book? It is hard to say. I thought it was a clever story in its own way and one that was challenging on a number of levels, but I find it hard to be enthusiastic about a book that involves a subject of this nature.