Some books read, Kirino and Murakami

After finishing my research, i’ve had some time to catch up on some reading. I bought 2 books by japanese authors.

1. After Dark – Haruki Murakami

2. Out – Natsuo Kirino

I must say that After Dark, kinda bored me, as before even picking up the book to read, i sorta knew what to expect. The book was thin and fonts were rather large. Unlike Kafka on the Shore which was a brilliant book, this book failed to deliver the same impact. Maybe i was comparing his book to Kirino’s crime thriller which by nature gives the reader that page turning effect. Murakami books requires dwelling into the main characters, word for word, he really wants you to understand and feel them. How his characters are normal yet an enigma. As a result, reading Kirino right after did not give his book a complete satisfying feeling. The book was translated yet again by Jay Rubin from the japanese version in 2004, アフターダーク. The story revolves mainly around 2 sisters, one alienated and lonely, un’pretty’ and can’t sleep while the other is pretty, center of attraction but can’t seem to wake up from her long slumber! The less popular sister, Mari, spends her nights in a Denny’s reading, and meets Tetsuya, a band member who has the biggest admiration for her older sister….she also meets Kaoru a manager of a love hotel…The book tells the stories of the past of these main characters, and yes which all happens after dark, in the wee hours of the morning.

Out on the other hand is a remarkable crime thriller by Natsuo Kirino. Her first english translated book. I’ve come to learn that she is the queen of crime story telling in Japan. The main theme and moral behind this story is that people can do the unimaginable when push comes to shove. And we all know, somehow, that it has something to do with this evil thing called money. This book reminds me of a show i watched years ago called The Simple Plan, starring Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda and Billy Bob Thornton. I guess in this world, nobody is born evil, it’s probably circumstances and extremely tough choices that leads people into doing unthinkable acts. I really pity some of the characters in the book, even the character Kuniko where the author makes her the ‘bad’ one, I guess as human beings, the way we are made with such emotions, feelings and yes..pride…is really difficult sometimes to do the right thing. Sometimes, you are just way in too deep and desperate.

Some parts of the book were really well written and graphical, almost feeling and understanding the joy of pleasure and pain meeting and entwining that the author speaks of. The story was well developed, the plot excellent but from a person that reads Murakami and Mishima…adding more depth to the character would certainly turn this book to a finer read. I guess you can’t have it all…

Four women who work the night shift in a Tokyo factory that produces boxed lunches find their lives twisted beyond repair in this grimly compelling crime novel, which won Japan’s top mystery award, the Grand Prix, for its already heralded author, now making her first appearance in English. Despite the female bonding, this dark, violent novel is more evocative of Gogol or Dostoyevsky than Thelma and Louise. When Yayoi, the youngest and prettiest of the women, strangles her philandering gambler husband with his own belt in an explosion of rage, she turns instinctively for help to her co-worker Masako, an older and wiser woman whose own family life has fallen apart in less dramatic fashion. To help her cut up and get rid of the dead body, Masako recruits Yoshie and Kuniko, two fellow factory workers caught up in other kinds of domestic traps. In Snyder’s smoothly unobtrusive translation, all of Kirino’s characters are touching and believable. And even when the action stretches to include a slick loan shark from Masako’s previous life and a pathetically lost and lonely man of mixed Japanese and Brazilian parentage, the gritty realism of everyday existence in the underbelly of Japan’s consumer society comes across with pungent force.

I’ve not read a crime novel in a long time, my last being James Patterson books. I somehow went on being attached to reading books of loneliness and fixations….bummer right? Actually, come to think of it, crime novels like Out does seems to fall in that category as well. It is probably why i like it…

Murakami features Bill Evans

 

It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz
as an intellectual theorem.
It’s not.
It’s feeling.

ジャズを知性的な法則で分析しようとする試みにはうんざりさせられる。
そうではないんだ。
感覚なんだ。

Bill Evans

This is another artist featured in Haruki Murakami’s book, The Norwegian Wood. Actually, quite a number of good tracks came from this book. Here’s an excerpt from the book;

We cleared the table and sat on the floor, listening to music and drinking the rest of the wine. She (Naoko) drank 2 glasses in the time it took me to finish one. Naoko was unusually talkative that night. She told me about her childhood, her school, her family. Each episode was a long one, executed with painstaking detail of a miniature. I was amazed at the power of her memory, but as i sat listening it began to dawn on me that there was something wrong with the way she was telling these stories: something strange, warped even. Each tale had its own internal logic, but the link from one to the next was odd. Before you knew it, story A had turned to story B, which had been contained in A, and then came C from something in B, with no end in sight. I found things to say in response at first, but after a while I stopped trying. I put on a record, and when it ended I lifted the needle and put on another. After the last record I went back to the first. She only had six. The cycle started with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and ended with Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debby. Rain fell past the window. Time moved slowly. Naoko went on talking by herself.”

Murakami, H. Norwegian Wood. Vintage. 48-49

 

Bill Evans is one of my favorite jazz pianist. Those who are familiar with the genre will definitely know Bill. I can’t really describe jazz, who plays better and who is the greatest of them all. I mean there are so many, and all talented, old school to contemporary. Who’s to say that Kenny G is not better than John Coltrane? Just that old school will always be cool, so there…no one out there is ever gonna be better than Miles Davis or John Coltrane. I’m a casual listener, I don’t really have a ear for perfections or imperfections in a jazz track, what sounds nice works for me. With Bill, it was this song ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ from the Portrait of Jazz album that had me. I guess for me, how you pick a favorite is through something that captures you, probably that right moment, probably thinking of something that you thought that song you heard relates so clearly… Well, I wasn’t thinking of a prince to come to my rescue. It was just quite a charming song that caught my attention, then went on to look at the title….i thought “how charming”. I went on to get more albums from Bill, You Must Believe in Spring, At the Montreux Jazz Festival, Waltz for Debby and the highly acclaimed The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings. All of which i have enjoyed tremendously. Do you know that he was part of Miles Davis sixtet in one of the best selling jazz albums of all time -Kind of Blue? Well, after a few good albums, I decided that he was one of my favourite, his style of playing hunchback, takes his time with the piano rarely rushing a tune, and basically he is just super cool. He died several years ago due to drug overdose, a problem which he had all throughout his music career.

I have a track from the ‘Waltz for Debby’ album, a fan favourite, and one of mine as well….

download : My Foolish Heart – Bill Evans MP3

and another from the Stan Getz and Bill Evans album,

download : But Beautiful – Stan Getz & Bill Evans MP3

Watch him play My Foolish Heart and be mesmerized,

Murakami Music – My Favourite Things

Kafka on the Shore – My Favorite Things (Part 2 of Murakami’s Music)
This is a very nice track, John Coltrane, from his My Favourite Things LP, the song title incidentally. This is of course was featured in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. A few classical compositions by Schubert and Radiohead’s Kid A were in there as well. However, this really did it for me. This is the song where young Kafka Tamura listens to when he was at the mysterious library and the cabin. Yes this is the same song that Julie Andrews sang to in The Sound of Music…
“when the dogs bite, when the bees sting…when I’m feeling sad…I simply remember my favourite things…..and then I don’t feel so bad…..”
Wow…can’t believe I still remember the lyrics. Of course the legendary saxophonist does it in his old school jazz style. This one is long; I have another version that is about 20 minutes long. This is a really good jazz piece if you are attempting to explore jazz. This is one piece that i could listen to it over and over again. It’s a very good ’study’ music, it has kept me company throughout my mba research.

Something on jazz, I saw this quote the other day,

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there”
Miles Davis

Now ain’t that something else.

Download : My Favorite Things – John Coltrane MP3

Oh…and the book’s very good too

Hiroshi Matsumoto – Meditation MP3

If anyone out there enjoyed Keisuke Egusa’s version So Nice posted earlier, you should equally enjoy this from the same album, Tokyo Lounge Bossa Nova. Just another relaxing instrumental piece originally made popular by Astrud.
Download : Hiroshi Matsumoto – Meditation MP3

Oh and i have to share this, today as i opened up my email box in the office, i was surprised to see an email from the Murakami Club. Rarely they would send an update unless if there is a new book out. I stand correct, he has a new book translated ! This time it is After Dark. Coming out in May! Boy am i excited! These are the few things in life that gets my adrenalin pumping. I hope he has great music again in this book.

Here’s an excerpt from the email.

Dear Reader,

It’s almost here–Haruki Murakami’s new novel, AFTER DARK, will be published May 8th!

A short, sleek novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, AFTER DARK is every bit as gripping as Murakami’s masterworks THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE and KAFKA ON THE SHORE.

At its center are two sisters–Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny’s toward people whose lives are radically alien to her own: a jazz trombonist who claims they’ve met before, a burly female “love hotel” manager and her maid staff, and a Chinese prostitute savagely brutalized by a businessman. These “night people” are haunted by secrets and needs that draw them together more powerfully than the differing circumstances that might keep them apart, and it soon becomes clear that Eri’s slumber–mysteriously tied to the businessman plagued by the mark of his crime–will either restore or annihilate her.

A new novel from Haruki Murakami is always a publishing event. So, to celebrate, from now until June 8th, order AFTER DARK or any of the amazing Murakami books from RandomHouse.com, and receive free shipping! Simply enter the code AFTERDARK upon checkout.

South of the Border West of the Sun – Haruki Murakami

I will be posting some tracks featured in  Haruki Murakami’s books, one of my favorite writers in the world. His books and songs go together like there were a soundtrack playing behind. I especially like ‘Dear Heart’ by Henry Mancini which was featured in Norwegian Wood…such a sad book that one, which i will feature later. This song is Star Crossed Lovers by Duke Ellington, the explanation of the song is written below from the book. This is the part where the main character Hajime talks to his long lost childhood friend, Shimamoto. Hajime owns a jazz bar and for some reason the resident band always play this song because he likes it. Shimamoto asks him why is that song played each time she visits him.


“It took me a long time to work out how complex it is, how’s there so much more to it than just a pretty melody. It takes a special musician to play it right”  Hajime said. “Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote it a long time ago. Fifty-seven, I believe.”
“When they say ‘star-crossed’, what do they mean?” Shimamoto says.
“You know  – lovers born under an unlucky star. Unlucky lovers. Here it’s referring to Romeo and Juliet. Elligton and Strayhorn wrote it for a performance at the Ontario Shakespeare Festival.
“Lovers born under an unlucky star,” she said.

Sounds like it was written for the two of us.”
Haruki Murakami. South of the Border West of the Sun.

“Casablanca remade Japanese style…It is dream-like writing, laden with scenes which have the radiance of a poem’.”
The Times

“Mr. Murakami’s narrative style is as spare and unadorned as a traditional Japanese room, so seemingly empty that it needs to be furnished with the mind.” –
Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

After reading the book i knew i had to get the song….

“lovers born under an unlucky star“

it was in a way self reflecting, like me and my ex. It was a relationship that i treasured a whole lot. It came to an end one day after 8 years. She wanted out. It came at a time where nothing seemed right,  she was in a way my only joy left in life. I grew cynical to everyone around me, i became a character in the Murakami books. I was indulging at the fact that it was cool to be alone. I grew to think that nothing ever last forever. After sometime we talked again and she told me she saw a fortune teller once and told her that our star signs were conflicting and a future together would be of no good outcome. She didn’t tell me in detail but i got the picture. Fortune Telling…why do chinese listen to all this mumbo jumbo?  Oh well, what’s done is done and i’m ok now….Life and its many mysteries.
For Jazz Lovers, this is a piece you must have…

Download : Star Crossed Lovers – Duke Ellington

Haruki Murakami 春樹村上 Norwegian Wood (Borders Book Club)

Next Borders Book Club will feature Norwegian Wood, again by my favourite author Haruki Murakami. Should be quite a discussion seeing that this is my favourite book from this remarkable author. I still can remember the feeling of sadness it gave me after reading it. It was one of my first Murakami book after I read the bizarre dreamy Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I attempted many books of his and they never fail to disappoint. He just has the right touch of elements in a book that makes me curious all the time. Please note though, that all his stories has striking resemblances of his main character. Thus, if you can’t take the first book you read from him then you might as well give up on the rest. His books are usually mixing the real world and what he calls the dream world. I get lost sometimes I must admit when his characters enters this non-reality world. His books, the translated ones anyways are a pretty easy read and doesn’t leave much to ponder, unlike Mishima’s books, where almost every paragraph is like a poetry.

Fact is, Norwegian Wood is his only book (full length book, excluding the short stories) without the dreams element in it. I would recommend this book to anyone, plus, there are many great tracks in there to look out for as well…Here is a picture which I enlarged from the cover of Norwegian Wood to make it into a decorative picture in my room.. Cool ain;t it?  Date : 1^st December 2006

Place: Borders Book Store , The Curve