Back to Reading

After a spell of inconsistancy, my holiday rejoined the world of reading as I dove headfirst into South of the Border, West of the Sun by Murakami (bottom photo). I read it in about five hours: two in the evening and the remainder after babysitting Tim Eads. The title refers to a Nat King Cole song and a term for Russian Fatalism (as Nitezsche termed it). It is within the realists mode for Haruki this time, much like Norwegian Wood and his journalistic efforts. There are no samurai within.



Is it an uncanny coincidence or not, perhaps Murakami's predilection for jazz, reading and beer led him to own a jazz club - task which nearly killed him, perhaps it is his identification with the marginalized nerd that has endeared him so to my own taste. Perhaps it was that I first broached his pages in 2001 with my future wife, perhaps it is all this, the World Cup and a fodness for calimari which has unsheathed this melange of a posting.



I am 25 pages into Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.