derpinsel.com - pixels, stories and texts by angela solis

Kitchen

And so I finished reading Kitchen by Yoshimoto Banana last night. The story is about Mikage, a young woman whose grandmother had just died. She was taken into “custody” (or rather, invited) to live with Tanabe Yuichi, a young man who used to work at the flowershop that Mikage’s grandmather used to go to, and Yuichi’s mother, Eriko. I’ll leave it at this because as soon as I give another bit of information, I feel like I’ll be spoiling everyone already.

It is again, easy to read, but the characters are complex and often think too much. What attracted me to this book is the story itself, how these two young people seem to know what is going on between them, and yet are afraid to face what it is in front of them. Or are they really oblivious about it? I can’t seem to tell, but even though that is the case, the book isn’t frustrating.

Of course, Yoshimoto Banana left me hanging again because I didn’t know what’s going to happen between the two characters! Did they end up together? Did they stay as friends? I guess it’s up to me to imagine that, but really, a part of me wanted them to be together (just like the two characters in NP).

Included in the book that I borrowed is a translation of Yoshimoto Banana’s short story, “Moonlight Shadow,” which I haven’t read yet.

South of the Border, West of the Sun

I think I like this book for certain reasons, but if you’re going to ask me what do I think of the characters, particularly the protagonist, Hajime, then my comments will be different. What I like this book is that, again, Murakami never fails to develop his characters, the way they sound so “human”, with all their flaws and weaknesses exposed to the reader. I think that the “it” factor isn’t as strong compared to his other novels that I’ve read, but I think it’s unfair to do such comparisons because South of the Border, West of the Sun is a short novel.

However, I was detached to the protagonist from the start of the novel to the last couple of pages. Why? Because I think that Hajime is a worthless person. Sure, he admitted that in the end, but I cannot stand the way how he (and his father-in-law) justified their actions (i.e. sleeping around even though they are married), implying that it’s “healthy.” It’s not freaking healthy; there’s no other way to justify their actions. And I was a bit disappointed with Hajime’s wife, for I thought that she was strong, but they way she stated her opinions… I don’t know. Something’s just wrong. Is it a middle crisis kind of thing? I doubt it.

Personally, this novel didn’t made much of a mark on me. I don’t know why. I think the way Murakami wrote Hajime’s uncontrollable passion was really great, but I don’t think it was really striking or anything like it. I enjoyed reading it, nonetheless.

NP

This is the first time that I’ve read a book written by the Japanese author Yoshimoto Banana, but I’ve heard some information about her in my class, so I decided to check out one of her books. Kelly of Aqua Books got a copy of NP, so I dropped by and bought it yesterday.

One of the things that I’ve noticed about NP is Yoshimoto’s seemingly relaxed writing style. Her book NP is an easy read, although I find her characters a bit complicated (their situation, that is). The narration is in first-person, so I think this gives a very comfortable feeling, as if the reader is reading his/her own life story.

But what I really like about NP is that it managed to capture such complex emotions using simple words. I think this is what I appreciate about this book since I wouldn’t be too happy myself if the way the story was narrated was too… stiff, for the lack of better word to use. I think Yoshimoto’s aim is not to (over)simplify the way we see things in her book, but rather to help us understand the characters and their situation more.

I just don’t like the book cover.

The Elephant Vanishes

I cannot say that I love the whole book, but I enjoyed some of its stories. Basically, most of the stories I’ve enjoyed are the ones in which the plots are “real” and not “magical” or something like that. When I started reading The Elephant Vanishes, I thought that the book would let me down because I found the first few stories boring. My interest picked up after (re)reading On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning. I also enjoyed Lederhosen, although I thought that the mother’s reaction was a bit over the top, and doesn’t really explain anything about her relationship with her daughter. Barn Burning left me confused, and scared of the guy at the same time. I picture him more as a villain, and I can feel no sympathy for him.

The stories that I enjoyed the most are Family Affair and The Silence. The narrator of Family Affair, his character, I mean, he is stubborn all right, but he makes sense. He is someone that I cannot stand to hate even though he would eventually get into my nerves. With regards to The Silence, Ozawa’s reaction after seeing his mortal enemy is priceless. I think that when we have enemies, it is so hard to get over what they said or did to us. We might have forgiven them, but we cannot easily forget what happened. But I admired Ozawa here because he showed a different strength that most of us do not have. Not only that he saw that there is no point to hate the person (but feel pity), their presence actually made him feel unsafe — because he recognized the fact that these people are dangerous even though they are really pitiful.

So there you go, my two cents worth of comment about the book. I’m off to read An Abundance of Katherines this week.

The Elephant Vanishes

Sa tinagal-tagal na paghihintay, sa wakas! May kopya na rin ako ng The Elephant Vanishes! Sa US pa ako um-order, salamat sa PayPal at ABEBooks. Nagka-problema pa nga eh. Dapat kasi noong February ko pa ‘to nakuha, kaso nagkaroon ng delay sa shipping from the publisher to the bookstore, so ayun, in-email ako ng may-ari at sinabing made-delay nga. Okay lang naman, hindi ko naman ‘to mababasa kaagad dahil madami pa akong dapat basahing school-related readings.

Ang kulang ko na lang: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, at saka A Wild Sleep Chase.

Vampire Hunter D

I finished Vampire Hunter D in one sitting.

For someone who haven’t read a lot of books by Kikuchi Hideyuki, I admit I was impressed with the way the story was written — it was as if I am watching the whole book unraveling in front of me! It was gripping. The way the movements were narrated were really good because it was very detailed but not to the point that it will bore the readers to death. Yoshitaka Amano’s illustrations were also effective because it provided visuals for the gruesome characters present in the book.

And then there’s D. I find him very enigmatic compared to, uh, say, Anne Rice’s vampires (sorry! I don’t know any other vampire books aside from Stocker’s and Rice’s). I find him very strong and mysterious and I cannot blame why some people love to have a short encounter with him despite of the aura that is surrounding him, or despite knowing his background. I thought that his intimate encounter with Doris (before the rest of the stupid townsfolk went to her farm — curse you stupid townsfolk *clenchfist*!) as a very sexy and erotic scene.

I am wondering about the genre where this book might fall off. Is it horror, suspense, action? Actually, I don’t know. It’s more like a mix of everything I guess, also, throw off a little romance on the story.

Sad to say, I read the English translation of the book so I cannot say whether the Japanese narration was equally gripping. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading this book a lot, so props to the translation (and I guess it’s safe to assume that the orginal version was great as well).

Norwegian Wood

I finally finished it! Before buying this book, I managed to get a copy of the song by The Beatles with the same title. I just want to know how it sounds like and probably think (speculate) of reasons why this song became the inspiration (I suppose) of this novel.

I cannot say that I didn’t like this book, but I cannot say that I really love it, either. In some ways this is another taste of Murakami’s style of writing because this is the first of his books that I read that is fiction, but does not involve magical stuff and things like that. I think I nodded on the right places (i.e. Midori’s conversation with Tooru about the “guys with big words”, pertaining to some members of the student movement who protested during the 1960s but in the end worked for big companies and such) or something like that. What I didn’t like is Tooru’s promiscuity, which was defended by Nagasawa (or to state it correctly, Nagasawa defended the reason why he sleeps with different women even though he has a steady girlfriend). I remember not hating Nagasawa while reading the book because we share the same philosophies in life, but thinking how he “rationalized” this whole thing… I was so disgusted by him.

I guess, another reason why I didn’t really appreciate the book was the fact that I was sick (with flu) for a couple of days and that was then I stayed at home and finished the book. Also, taking ASIA3600 meant that my professor has mentioned this book earlier. This book is not really extraordinary or something like that, not because it is just a “mere love story” but because it played on the idea of nostalgia, which is a very popular element in Japanese stories (anime, drama, movie, books, manga, etc.).

I still like Kafka on the Shore more.

Underground

First of all, I just want to say that this is not my typical book entry wherein I comment about what I think of the characters, of the writing style, etc. While I do read a lot of books, only a handful of titles that I own really move me, and I can say that this book hit the right spot. I am glad that this is my last “read” for the year for what I am going to say in this entry is going beyond than my regular review.

I read Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche because I want to see how Murakami writes outside his “comfort zone.” But what I get from this book is not what I was really looking for in the first place, in the sense that I really didn’t pay much attention to Murakami’s writing style. Instead, I learned something more important, and is appropriate to be my last entry for this year.

I have no idea about the Tokyo Gas Attack prior to reading this book. After reading, I just thought to myself that in some cases, even the countries that we think highly of can be also caught off-guard with certain circumstances. More »

After the Quake

It’s been a month or so since I finished reading Murakami Haruki’s After the Quake so I kind of forgot what I am supposed to say. I should have written my thoughts about the book a long time ago instead of letting it pass. Knowing that I don’t really like remembering stuff in my head, I am sure that I will forget it. I’ll try my best to recall my comments about this book, and specifically about the stories that I really liked.

Anyway. This is the first time that I read Murakami’s short stories, so I cannot really decide whether I really like him as a novelist or as a short story writer. But After the Quake only has six stories in it, so it is not hard for me to pick the ones that I really like. The stories all have the same theme and atmosphere as his other novels (that I have read, so far), the only difference in After the Quake is that the stories are based from Hanshin Awaji Daishinsai in 1995. Probably there are some scenes and events in real life that are present in the book, but nevertheless most of the stories are magical and sometimes out of this world. More »

Genji Monogatari

Where should I start? Genji Monogatari is not a required reading for my ASIA2620 class but I bought the book anyway just to give me an idea what courtly life is all about. While I did get the idea how things worked then (i.e. people die because they are too sad, people cry a lot, etc.), there’s something about this book that annoyed the hell out of me. That something (or rather, someone) is no other than Hikaru Genji.

He’s so stuck-up and he needs to be put on a leash. During our discussion, it was pointed out that Genji doesn’t know how to control his desires. This is so true. I don’t want to point out that it is probably his age and his eagerness to explore the world contributed to his earlier decline in the story, but heck, he was this devil-may-care type of guy. I just… don’t like him. I appreciated the way Murasaki Shikibu wrote the story, but having a main character like Genji spoils it all for me.