Got my Murakami book for Korea era round one from a day trip to Seoul today (which was awesome, but that's not the point of this post.) I'm going to read
Norwegian Wood.
I have a funny relationship with Murakami. This may not be interesting to anyone but myself, but so be it!
I picked up
Kafka on the Shore at one of the train stations in London when I was studying in England--in fact, Kings Cross, I believe it was! For some reason, I was waiting in the station for several hours and decided to bide my time in the bookstore, duh. There was a black cat on the cover of the
Kafka on the Shore and that's what initially drew me to it. I hadn't heard of Murakami before, but I read the book very quickly near the end of my stay in England. It didn't speak much to me at the time.
I brought the book along when I left for Italy so that Carly could read it, because she was staying in Paris and had less access to English books than I did. I think she read the thing in a few hours on one of our long train rides in Italy and was not impressed.
She left it somewhere on our journey, maybe at a hostel. I have no idea where that book went, but was fine to let it go because of the weight of it.
I forgot about it while we were traveling, but when I returned to the States I couldn't get it out of my mind. It wasn't so much the story, which I have more or less forgotten since. Something about Murakami's writing style--just the way he sees and says things--kept coming back to me.
A little over a year later, when I had graduated college and was back in Massachusetts working at The Mount (some of the best days of my young adulthood,) I read book after book. For one reason or another, I ended up with a copy of
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle from Raven Books in Northampton, MA. Or maybe it was from the Bookmill. That was the year that I bought a whole library of used books from said places.
In any case, the
point of this story is that I've since read a handful of Murakami's books, including
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, most recently. I can't really say that his are among my favorite books, but I do have to say that he is among my favorite writers. It's a large distinction that's difficult to verbalize.
This has turned into a self-indulgent post as usual, but I will say one more thing. At specific subtle turns in my life over the past few years, I have read a Murakami book. It's like I have a timer inside of me now and every once in a while, it goes off and is like, "Okay. Time for a new one." Luckily, the guy is prolific extraordinaire so I shouldn't be running out of material any time soon.
And at the end of every book, I have set it free like we set free that first book at a hostel in Italy. I have only retained my copy of
Dance, Dance, Dance, which is somewhere in a box at my dad's house. It feels strange to still have it, like I'm holding it hostage.
The fact that I've picked up
Norwegian Wood says something about my state of mind right now.
It also says something about the fact that I will NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO GIVE UP ON NANOWRIMO JUST BECAUSE I MISSED TODAY. Tomorrow, I will write 3500 words. Hold me to it.
There is so little time and so much to do.
