Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

 

This is a book that I remember buying with my dad as a Christmas gift for my mom when I was a little kid. Back then, Banana Yoshimoto was becoming a literary sensation in Italy, then I forgot about her existence until a friend mentioned her a couple of weeks ago. 

Kitchen has largely stood the test of time, in particular as a result of the frank way in which it talks about loss, and the presence of the transgender Eriko Tanabe and the people who gravitate around her world. 

In many instances I was even willing to "forgive" the book's sentimental passages, but I really didn't feel the need for the ending with its melodramatic night taxi ride to deliver a portion of katsudon. 

Killing Commendatore - Haruki Murakami

 

I'm not about to become a Murakami fan. Not even close. But with a dwindling supply of readable books from the Southwark e-library I found myself picking this 700-page novel that at times seems to struggle to find its own purpose. 

Yet, for a good 500 pages, I found this to be my favourite Murakami book so far (which, admittedly, is not saying much). Then it really jumped the shark, or - literally - it went down a delirious imaginary (rabbit?) hole for 150 pages before a couple of final chapters that try to provide a semi-coherent end to this story. 

Not really a great read, but to be completely frank my expectations were so low that for large sections it managed to exceed them. 

An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo, don’t let me down (you have found her, now go and get her)! Seriously, I picked this book from the Blackheath book sale because it was meant to be one of his best novels, and I was really quite disappointed.

While it is interesting reading about an artist who was “on the wrong side” during WWII and his justification for his actions, I find the prose and its tones to be, quite frankly, way too bland and pastel-like. On top of that, I’ve always found artists who don’t engage in politics because they are preoccupied with the “floating world” (or at least they are telling themselves that) to be the antinomy of a true artist.

Maybe, had I not had high expectations from this book, I would have enjoyed it more – but I hold Ishiguro to a (much) higher standard than this…

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami

A thoughtful gift received by one of the nicest visitors we’ve ever had in London. This book is one of the few non-fiction works that I’ve read over the last few years and it was a nice departure from my standard readings.

Short and straight to the point, this is an easy read (maybe too easy, as it often feels like articles from Runners’ World – and I believe one of the chapters was actually that!) but extremely interesting, although in many ways for the wrong reasons: I am often afraid of turning obsessive with my running (I mean, I have all my runs for the past 5 years recorded on a spreadsheet…) and some of the things Murakami talks about act as clear warning signs.

He often talks about his weight (which I find bizarre), about his problems training when he has a lot of work or when he is travelling (just chill!), about his determined attempts to very marginally improve his technique, about his commitment not to ever walk in a marathon (I walked six miles in my only marathon, and finished with a time that was faster than most of his) etc. So yes, I am really glad I’ve read this book, which I think should very much serve as a cautionary tale: have fun running, but don’t take it (and yourself, unless you’re Mo Farah) too seriously! 

Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

The first book from my office’s book club that I actually bother writing about. And why is that? Because over the years I’ve heard a few people too many talking about Murakami as if he was a writing god.

With every passing chapter of Norwegian Wood I kept on thinking about Irwin (from Alan Bennet’s The History Boys) handing essays back to his students: “Dull. Dull. Abysmally dull. A triumph… the dullest of the lot… I didn’t say it was wrong. I said it was dull. Its sheer competence was staggering. Interest nil. Oddity nil. Singularity nowhere.”

Seriously, despite a very impressive suicides/pages ratio, the book’s most noticeable characteristic is the author’s ability to express feelings, impressions, and thoughts with the vacuity (not to mention limited vocabulary, since at least in my translation everyone is “special” and has complex “issues”) of a teenager.

I’m also not quite sure why pretty much every cultural reference (with the exceptions of a few books, and one song) is actually linked to the Western world. Has Japan not produced a single musician or actor of note, does Murakami hate Japanese culture, or was he desperately trying to appeal to Western audiences? I can rule out the first option, not sure about the other two.

And for all the respect that the main character shows for the complex “issues” of the women he sleeps with, can I point out that the way in which he uses his roommate’s autistic traits as a conversation starter is just not funny?

But maybe Murakami is a genius (and if the book is even remotely autobiographical I’m impressed by the ease with which he used to get laid as a teenager!) and I’m hating on the book only because I’ve always liked The Rolling Stones so much better than the Beatles…

Confessions of a Mask – Yukio Mishima

The first, and so far only, Japanese novel I’ve ever read. Somehow I don’t feel the need to read much from the Far East (yet another display of my limitations as a Euro/American-centred reader). That said, when I was six I did buy a book of Banana Yoshimoto for my mom for Christmas, but that was just because I liked her name (show me a six-year old who wouldn’t)…

I have read countless novels about homosexual identity, and loved a good bunch of them, but I probably struggled to find interesting a story about a society that is so far away from my own (despite the fact that Japan in the inter-war period obviously had some striking similarities with Fascist Italy).

Yes, I agree with Kochan that everyone wears a mask, at least in certain situations, but isn’t that, nowadays, something really rather trite and banal?!?