Murakami

The New Yorker costs almost 10 euro in Greece and is always a week behind, but it's a luxury I feel I can't afford to deny myself. This week, John Updike writes an incisive review of Haruki Murakami's new book, "Kafka on the Shore." I came across Murakami completely by chance in 1998 (when I found "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" in a discount bin in America) and have since made a point of reading most everything he has written. I've loved it all. As Updike points out, he is a master of both narrative and form. His books are about disjointed pasts and fragmented realities, intersecting fates, mysterious quests, lost identities, wells, tunnels, and shafts, unlikely affinities, death, sex, complacency, desire, and alienation. Of course, they're also about love; Murakami's weltschauung is endearingly, inscrutably, oriental, but nothing is as simple as love. Updike includes the following dialogue:

“We’re not metaphors.”
“I know,” I say. “But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me.”
A faint smile comes to her as she looks up at me. “That’s the oddest pickup line I’ve ever heard.”
“There’s a lot of odd things going on – but I feel like I’m slowly getting closer to the truth.”
“Actually getting closer to a metaphorical truth? Or metaphorically getting closer to an actual truth? Or maybe they supplement each other?”
“Either way, I don’t think I can stand the sadness I feel right now,” I tell her.
“I feel the same way.”

It’s going to be a long wait for the paperback.