Effy Lindström > Recent Status Updates

I am putting this one on hold for the time-being. I love Ishiguro, and Surrealism is consummately my jam. But I have no idea what is going on in this book. I think too much of my mental bandwidth is being expended on work stress for me to comprehend this at the moment. Will come back to it…

I hate to say it, because the author was apparently a far-right nutjob, but this novel has me hooked. It’s exactly what I like: Surrealism, satire, absurdist humour, lyrical yet unfussy prose. My only gripe is that this man clearly hates women, but that’s par for the course with male authors. Definitely seems to have inspired Murakami, in spite of his denials of that fact.

I am definitely going to finish this one, but I need to read it when my attention span has, well, a greater span. The stream-of-consciousness, sans-quotations-marks writing style is very challenging to read.

Funnily enough, I find the autistic character’s thought processes to be the easiest to follow. I guess that’s not that surprising, though…

I love Baldwin’s prose (big surprise), but I have to take a break from this one. The protagonist’s feelings about being a preacher’s kid hit too close to home. I had a really bad nightmare the first night I read it.

A novel as short as this should not be this difficult to complete. But the writing style just doesn’t chime with me. Disappointing, since I find the topic to be very interesting.

Not sure how to feel about this one yet, but I like that there is a Surrealist element to it.

This novel remains inscrutable. One moment, it seems positively silly—almost Douglas Adams-esque. It thumbs its nose, laughs at you. Then, without any obvious transition, you realise a good measure of that silliness was a metaphor for Japanese imperialism and colonialism.

What the hell.

I am loving this novel—much more so than Norwegian Wood. It is the first work of Murakami’s that I’ve read that feels not only Surrealist but also Dadaist. It seems to revel in its own illogic and (at times) pointlessness.

I also appreciate the absurdist humour. I was pleased to discover Murakami’s funny bone in Blind Willow, so it’s fun to get to know this side of him better.