2011: Challenges and how I fared

I signed up for a few challenges in 2011, something I did for the first time. I am glad I got to read new authors and books as part of this challenge, which I would not have otherwise.

• Nordic Challenge
  Challenge: 3-5 books
  Read: 3 books

I took this challenge mainly because I was so ignorant of the books coming from this beautiful region. I discovered a beautiful book (Sophie’s World) and a wonderful author (Henning Mankell).

• Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge
  Challenge: 3
  Read: 3

I am so happy I took up this challenge. I discovered such a great author. I absolutely loved After Dark, but the other two books were a disappointment. I will definitely read more from this author.

• New Authors Reading Challenge
  Challenge: 15
  Read: 15

Read a few new authors, some were great, some were not.

• Seconds Challenge
  Challenge: 3
  Read: 3

I gave Gabriel García Márquez and Amitava Ghosh a second chance as part of this challenge. I could not read Márquez’s A Hundred Years of Solitude, but A News of a Kidnapping was a surprisingly good read. On the other hand, Ghosh disappointed me further with his A Circle of Reason.

• 1001 Books to Read Before You Die
  Challenge: 5
  Read: 1

Disappointing. Both the challenge and the book I read as part of this challenge.

• TBR Challenge
  Challenge: 12
  Read: 3

I finally read 3 books that I had wanted to read from a long time. An interesting thing to note is I did not like any of them. That should say something about my TBR list, huh?
I have decided what challenges I will be taking up in the coming year. Sign up post coming soon.

 

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

 

Title: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Original Writer (Japanese) : Haruki Murakami
Translated to English by: Jay Rubin, Philip Gabriel
Published in English: 2006
Genre: Fiction, short stories
My Rating: 2 on 5

I feel writing a short story is much harder than writing a full-fledged novel. The writer has to tell a story, etch his characters, convey his emotions and opinions in a limited number of words. I am in awe of writers who are great at short stories. I picked up Murakami’s short story collection with a lot of expectation, hoping that someone who can write about such a surreal atmosphere in After Dark, he can definitely write great short stories.

Most of the stories (if not all) have this element of being surreal, out of the world, some implausible element which adds to the mystery of the book. It could be the blind willows or the gigantic wave which gobbles up a boy, there is one such element which makes you wonder what this is all about. I really liked some of the short stories, but for the most part, I found the story either confusing or making me wonder ‘Is that it? That is the end?’ or simply disappointing.

I found the stories to be too short, for my taste. By the time the author sets a tone and you get to know the character, the story ends leaving you hanging in mid-air. I wish Murakami had aimed for slightly longer stories – in short encapsulating a whole novel in a short story. I find Archer’s earlier collections like A Twist in the Tale or Alice Munro’s Runaway to be perfect examples of what I am referring to. The stories are long enough for the writer to etch stronger characters and for the reader to get into the story and when it ends, it is a good ending with both the writer and the reader having complete satisfaction of doing something worthwhile.

 

Norwegian Wood

Title: Norwegian Wood
Original Writer (Japanese) : Haruki Murakami
Translated to English by: Alfred BirnBaum
Originally Published in Japanese:  1987
Translated to English: 2000
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 2 on 5

Regular readers of this blog know that I have signed up for Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge and I read my first Murakami book After Dark as part of this challenge and also that I was thoroughly impressed with the book. Ever since I read that book, I have been itching to lay my hands on any of the other Murakami books and it was only natural that I chose one of his most popular books, Norwegian Wood.

Norwegian Wood is about Toru Watanabe and Naoko who are bound together by the death of a common friend, Kizuki. Toru learns to deal with the grief of his best friend whereas Naoko becomes emotionally unstable after her boyfriend’s death. Toru continues his study at the college and Naoko goes to a sanatorium to deal with her emotional instability. Toru has his group of friends and goes on with his life and continues to exchange letters with Naoko. Their relationship is uncertain and strange because they act like lovers but neither wants to admit it.

The trouble with reading a popular book is you would have built high expectations before you even read the first word. If the book turns out to be good, then all is well, but in my case, more often than not, a popular book fails to impress me. Sadly, Norwegian Wood falls under the second category. The book has this monotonous voice which is depressing, which is right considering this book is about dealing with death and grief, but what irritates me is how the characters behave sometimes. Toru and Naoko and the other characters are in their late teens or early twenties and they act as if they know the world and give out intellectual insights which make me cringe.

I am not sure if it’s the original text or the translation, but the writing is really poor and amateur. There are places where you want to tell the writer, forget what she is wearing and move on with the story already! Toru and Naoko are supposed to be having a very intimate conversation when Toru visits the sanatorium. He is seeing her for the first time after she vanished a couple of months back and he really wants to know how she is doing emotionally. When the scene has this emotional momentum going, does it really matter whether Naoko slid the clip off her hair or if she transferred it from the right hand to the left? The captivating, surreal tone which I liked the most about After Dark is non-existent in Norwegian Wood. Both the books are so different, it makes me wonder if they really have the same author. If I hadn’t known this was a Murakami book, I would have never guessed!

The ending is very predictable and left me wondering what the point of the book was. This vaguely reminds me of Catcher in the Rye, another over-hyped book which I just could not stand. There might be a message hidden for me underneath: do not read popular books! I plan to pick up The Hard-boiled Wonderland and End of the World next.

After Dark

Title: After Dark
Original Writer (Japanese) : Haruki Murakami
Translated to English by: Jay Rubin
Originally Published in Japanese:  2004
Translated to English: 2007
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 4 on 5

There are very few writers who can convey their inner thoughts and feelings and transport the reader to the world that exists only in the writer’s mind. Haruki Murakami is one such writer for whom this comes naturally. After Dark was my first Murakami book and I am kicking myself why I didn’t read this author earlier. I wouldn’t have tried Murakami if not for The Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge. I do not have anything against him, but never felt the urge to read his books. I ignored him as one of the Dan-Brown-type-hyped-up authors who doesn’t really have anything to offer. How wrong I was!

After Dark, as the title suggests, is set in Tokyo in the dark hours of midnight. The book spans over 7 hours in a cold night where we see interesting characters. We meet Mari, who is killing the night in Denny’s by reading a book where she bumps into Takahashi, a trombone player who is practising in a building nearby. He claims he has met her and her sister, Eri, at a summer date a few years back. The night proceeds and we see Mari’s help being sought by a female wrestler who runs a love hotel where one of her clients is injured and can only speak Chinese, which Mari is fluent in. One thing leads to another and many characters enter the scene only to realize they are all tightly bound together through one string or the other. Meanwhile, Eri – Mari’s sister, is deep asleep in a quasi-coma state and finds herself being transported to another world inside her television and back to her original room. We see a character’s image being reflected in the mirror even after the character has long gone. These scenes add to the already established surreality of the book.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It’s important to combine the two in just the right amount

People’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn’t matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They’re all just fuel.

Nothingness means there’s absolutely nothing, so maybe there’s no need to understand it or imagine it

Time moves in its own special way in the middle of the night. You can’t fight it

From the first word, Murakami’s surreal tone casts a spell on you. As soon as you open the book, you are transported to that cold night in Tokyo where you see Mari and Takahashi and still feel as if you are floating on air, watching the happenings beneath. The characters come out so beautifully that you can feel their pain and the loneliness. The book is divided into small chapters based on the time of the event and a clock at the beginning of every chapter keeps reminding us of the time.

Even after I finished reading the book, it still lingers over in my mind. I am constantly reminded about a dialogue or a scene or an action and I keep going back to that book. I can’t wait to start reading my next Murakami book. I am thinking of picking up his popular book Norwegian Wood. Any other suggestions?

This book qualifies for Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2011 and The New Author Challenge 2011.

Life is full of challenges

The coming year is going to be eventful and interesting for me – atleast in terms of books and reading. I am going to sign up for challenges (and quite a few at that) which I have never done before.

1. I have already signed up for the Nordic Challenge 2011. I am aiming for Freya which requires me to read 3-5 books from Nordic authors.

2. I have always wanted to read Haruki Marukami and God knows why I haven’t done so till now. Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2011 will urge me to finally get down to doing that. I aim for Sheep Man which requires me to read 3 Murakami books.

3. Since I am always trying out new authors, The New Author Challenge 2011 suits me just right. The challenge here is to read a minimum of 15 new authors which sounds a bit difficult, but that’s why it’s called a challenge, right?

4. After I read a new author or a first book in the series, more often than not, I go back to read a second book from the same author or the second book in the series. So, it’s only natural that I sign up for the 2nds Challenge 2011. I am aiming for Just a Spoonful – 3 books. I already have a candidate for this – Amitava Ghosh. I read his The Calcutta Chromosome and wasn’t particularly impressed with it. I want to give him a try again and read The Hungry Tide or Sea of Poppies. This list will draw inspiration from the previous challenge.

5. There are so many books on the 1001 books to read before you die list that I want to read. I am signing up for the 1001 books to read before you die challenge and hoping to reduce the size of my TBR list. I aim for High School Diploma which requires me to read 5 books on the list.

6. I want to reduce the size of my TBR list, so I am signing up for The 2011 TBR Pile Challenge.

The most difficult part of this challenge is to make a list of books that you plan to read for this challenge. I had a tough time choosing only 12 from my humongous list.

1    The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
2    In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
3    Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
4    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig
5    Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
6    Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
7    Daddy Long-Legs    – Jean Webster
8    A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
9    The Color of Magic – Terry Prachett
10  For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
11   Frankenstein – Mary Shelly
12   The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka

Alternatives

1  The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
2  Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
3 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
4 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
5 The Art of War – Sun Tzu
6 The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle

I am ready! I can’t wait for this year to end and the next one to begin.