The Moon and Sixpence

Following my short foray into Murakami's works, I read Somerset Maughum's The Moon and Sixpence. While I wouldn't rank this up there with On Human Bondage or The Razor's Edge (which I really loved), the writing is clever and the main character, which is based loosely on Gauguin, is memorable.

Norwegian Wood

This was the third novel from Murakami that I read. I really liked this book. I made the mistake of watching the movie first, which made it hard to imagine the characters being any different from those in the film. That said, the film director actually does a pretty good job of following the book closely in just about every detail. Only a few subplots have been omitted, for example, Reiko Ishida's (石田 玲子)  story. In both the book and the film, Midori's a very appealing character--brutally honest with a great sense of humor and a real zest for life. The story strikes me as being quite profound, and the sexual interactions woven into the plot really help to accent the central theme of the novel. I'm now slowly making my way through the book in the original Japanese.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

After slogging my way through IQ84, I read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I enjoyed this book more for some reason, especially the Manchurian war episodes. The evil brother-in-law character strikes me as very underdeveloped, but the thematic symbolic elements (the scar, the wind-up bird, and so on) are tantalizing and seem to work at some level. Murakami's at his best in this and his other works when his characters go off onto some seemingly unimportant tangent. I was surprised to come across so many motifs that re-emerge in IQ84. (One of the characters--Ushikawa--has even been recycled.) And then there's the well, which appears prominently in the beginning of Norwegian Wood.

IQ84

Several weeks ago, I read IQ84. Out of the three Murakami novels I've read, this has to be my greatest disappointment. I'd agree with Bryan Walsh's review...

But as it is with all magicians, the spell cast by Murakami is a delicate one. In his massive new novel 1Q84, just published in English translation, it never quite dazzles as it should. All the usual Murakami elements are there: the detached protagonist, the creepy authoritarian cult, the mysterious quest, the moments when the bizarre bleeds into the buttoned-up world of modern Japan. Yet too often the words simply lay there on the page—all 932 of them. The effort feels all too forced, as if Murakami set out to write something that simply approximated a great novel. (Murakami has said that he was inspired by The Brothers Karamazov, which is similar to 1Q84 in that it is also very, very long.) This is a jazz solo that overstays its welcome.

I don't think it merely dragged on too long. You could reduce the novel to any length and it would still be immensely disappointing.

Mike Masse collection on YouTube

I stumbled upon some covers by Mike Masse and Jeff Hall. Great stuff. Their versions are incredible, but I also love their selection. It's strange, but virtually every song they sing, whether it's Simon & Garfunkle, Pink Floyd, Radio Head, or the Grateful Dead, has been a favorite of mine.

Name this animal

Pondering priorities

This is an interesting factoid to ponder: 

 "The annual budget of the US Department of Defense is about equal to the sum total of money NASA has ever spent since its inception in 1958." 

 Richard Obousy, president and senior scientist for Icarus Interstellar

You have to wonder where we'd be if that spending had been inverted. At the very least, we'd probably have vast arrays of space-based telescopes sending us pictures of seasonal change on far off planets with plant life. We'd definitely have a colony of scientists permanently living on Mars.