Book 4 (May 18 - 19)
IQ Deficiency
"Pinball" is the novel with the same narrator as in "Hear the Wind Sing". His turbulent journey through life continues and centers on his attempts to find the old pinball machine he used to play.
It seems, this wasn't the best time for me reading this, because my thoughts kept drifting away to the shores of my new book I'm currently thinking through. This is usually an intensive period for me when whatever I do I keep reflecting and planning my new literary travel, which is always exciting. So, unfortunately, I couldn't concentrate on the book and get engaged with the story.
One more reason is that probably reading two novels without a distinct plot in a row messes up with my brain. Don't get me wrong, I like meditative literary fiction that offer a lot of food for thought, not only those standard three acts and clear storylines. But two in the row was too much for me to handle. I can't really come up with a clear judgment of this novel, it left me uninterested and it was obviously overshadowed by a much better "Hear the Wind Sing" with that terrific foreword by Murakami which made not only my day, but probably my entire life - those were important words and perfect timing for reading them.
In "Pinball", the author gave further development to some characters (the narrator and the Rat) from "Hear the Wind Sing", but this time they repeated themselves, they were pretty much the same as in the prequel, and I didn't find anything new about them or any development to their characters. There were some interesting inclusions, like those about the country well-digger or the pinball story. But I found it hard to decipher what the author meant by meeting people from Saturn and Venus. Frankly speaking, that made me think my IQ was not high enough to understand that.
People say neither "Hear the Wind Sing" nor "Pinball" are best Murakami's novels to start familiarizing yourself with his books, they say one should probably start from his greater novels, such as "A Wild Sheep Chase" or "The Strange Library".
In the case of this novel, I'll refrain from giving it a score, because it was obtuse and complicated for my understanding, so I feel I'm not entitled to judge it.
Hopefully, my next piece of reading will be less intellectually challenging:) and I say it as a compliment to my next choice which is "Dial H for Hitchcock" by Susan Kandel. I grabbed the book from the shelf as soon as I had seen Hitchcock's name mentioned, since I'm a great fan of his films. Boston Globe's quote on the cover says that this "saucy, well-crafted mystery is a lot of fun to read". Well, will see. Hopefully, the author lived up to Hitchcock's high standard.
Going to share my take on this one on May 22.
"Pinball" is the novel with the same narrator as in "Hear the Wind Sing". His turbulent journey through life continues and centers on his attempts to find the old pinball machine he used to play.
It seems, this wasn't the best time for me reading this, because my thoughts kept drifting away to the shores of my new book I'm currently thinking through. This is usually an intensive period for me when whatever I do I keep reflecting and planning my new literary travel, which is always exciting. So, unfortunately, I couldn't concentrate on the book and get engaged with the story.
One more reason is that probably reading two novels without a distinct plot in a row messes up with my brain. Don't get me wrong, I like meditative literary fiction that offer a lot of food for thought, not only those standard three acts and clear storylines. But two in the row was too much for me to handle. I can't really come up with a clear judgment of this novel, it left me uninterested and it was obviously overshadowed by a much better "Hear the Wind Sing" with that terrific foreword by Murakami which made not only my day, but probably my entire life - those were important words and perfect timing for reading them.
In "Pinball", the author gave further development to some characters (the narrator and the Rat) from "Hear the Wind Sing", but this time they repeated themselves, they were pretty much the same as in the prequel, and I didn't find anything new about them or any development to their characters. There were some interesting inclusions, like those about the country well-digger or the pinball story. But I found it hard to decipher what the author meant by meeting people from Saturn and Venus. Frankly speaking, that made me think my IQ was not high enough to understand that.
People say neither "Hear the Wind Sing" nor "Pinball" are best Murakami's novels to start familiarizing yourself with his books, they say one should probably start from his greater novels, such as "A Wild Sheep Chase" or "The Strange Library".
In the case of this novel, I'll refrain from giving it a score, because it was obtuse and complicated for my understanding, so I feel I'm not entitled to judge it.
Hopefully, my next piece of reading will be less intellectually challenging:) and I say it as a compliment to my next choice which is "Dial H for Hitchcock" by Susan Kandel. I grabbed the book from the shelf as soon as I had seen Hitchcock's name mentioned, since I'm a great fan of his films. Boston Globe's quote on the cover says that this "saucy, well-crafted mystery is a lot of fun to read". Well, will see. Hopefully, the author lived up to Hitchcock's high standard.
Going to share my take on this one on May 22.
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