book update and current thoughts

Currently reading:

1Q84: This is the third Murakami book I've read (after Wind-Up Bird and Kafka, both of which I loved), but I feel like the Murakami spell is starting to wear off on me now. It's still got the usual stuff you'd expect from him- cats, woman's ears, lonely people, kinky sex, and stories about the war in Manchuria- but somewhere down the line it starts to fizzle out. The first half of the book felt fairly engaging, and there were a few chapters that really struck out to me, but by the last third of the book I was just wondering when it would end. I mean, Murakami's writing does tend to go on and on and on and- well, it's written in such a way that I don't mind it as much; you're just going along for the ride and seeing where it takes you. But even this was a bit much for me. Technically, I guess it makes sense considering that it is longer than the former two books... but really, I think it could've been a lot stronger as a novel had it been shorter and more concise this time. There really wasn't enough going on to justify how long this book is.

(To be honest, I'm not surprised that he didn't win the Nobel Prize last year... but that's another story.)

Dune Messiah: Finally starting this. James mentioned something about how Children of Dune- the third book in the Dune series- is the real Dune so to speak (as in, represents the true message of the series or something along those lines I'm guessing), and I'm starting to get a sense of that here. The foreword got across the point of how this book sets the situation up for the rest of the series by expanding on elements that would only make sense in the aftermath of the original Dune: because what's important isn't the ending, but what happened in the long term because of it. Essentially, there's a vision underlying the series that isn't entirely made clear in the first book (and it stands on its own pretty well anyway as a science fiction epic), but the overarching theme comes more to light with this one and the books after. I'm a bit curious to see what that is and how well it gets conveyed through the later installments, particularly since I get the sense that opinions on this seem to be rather polarized online for some reason.

Pale Fire: A 999 line poem with a foreword and commentary essentially attempting to one up the poet, that reads somewhat like a literary jigsaw-puzzle-choose-your-own-adventure with traps, or at least so far. I started the practice of writing in the margins of books that I expect to keep around (which began midway through 1Q84), and this book is definitely a keeper; it's so fun to write in! The "author" (as opposed to the author of the author) is rather full of himself and tends to make obscure references to things that have nothing to do with the poem itself, which ends up turning into its own story. It's amusing.
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Other thoughts:

- It's funny how much a simple smile + hello from a random person will do to brighten your day.

- I feel pressure sometimes when writing here to have to discuss something profound or witty or whatever, as if the total sum of my life experiences has granted me the wisdom to have a voice about such things. If anything, I'm more confounded by how much I don't know in the process of trying to write, and it can be paralyzing in a way. Like at the outset of this post, I felt like I had so much energy coming in from this week that I could just talk about life, the universe, and everything, but as with every post it's turned into a struggle to say something cohesive enough to merit posting. That and there are subjects I'd like to broach but question the appropriateness of in a public/semi-private setting as the one here... you can't take back what you've said once you've said it, especially online (where Google Reader happens to store copies of posts you've published even after deleting them).

- This may have been said here before, but lately it's been coming to a point where I really appreciate a lot more those folks with whom you don't need to be in constant contact with in order to enjoy hanging out with them when you do. High school and college really spoils you on that apparent need to talk to and see the same people all the time in order to "be in the loop" so to speak, and at some level that can easily lead to burnout if you overdo it, when in reality it's more normal to not see people for days, weeks, months or years even sometimes. But really, how much trust and effort does it take to be confident in your relationships with other people when they aren't immediately accessible? Too often now I find myself switching hats between enthusiasm and discouragement all over appearances and how people first seem to respond, without really trying to look at the situation for what it is.

- I'm finding that sometimes it suffices to simply enjoy the presence of other people being themselves when they do happen to be present. This applies even when you aren't that close to them; closeness is a privilege you end up receiving or partaking in as a result of life circumstances and other factors, not a right that you're entitled to just because you've been around or known each other that long. As such, it isn't something worth fretting over or idolizing. Be thankful for those chances you do get to talk about something meaningful and make the most out of them while they last.

- This past weekend + week might've been the best experience that I've had in a long while, and the antithesis of a lot of the personal issues I've been struggling with for the past few months. If you were a part of it in any way, even if it didn't seem like much: thanks. :)