Reading list for December, 2024

 

Today is the final day of December and the time has come for the list of books I've read this month. Unlike in most months, I was able to post onto the blog a little bit about each book read. Clicking on the titles listed will, of course take you to the individual blog post.

There are only six books listed; I was certain that I'd have more, but that was not to be. A few days ago, I had created different images with the book covers - one image showing eight books, another showing seven just in case. Sadly, I was unable to finish End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland in time to make this month's list.That book will be the first in 2025. That's just as well. I'll be doing an additional blog post on the book.

Here is the list of books I read in December, 2024.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls  by Haruki Murakami
Crime and Punishment   by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Kafka on the Shore   by Haruki Murakami
Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End   by Bart Ehrman
The Stranger   by Albert Camus
The Plague   by Albert Camus

End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami

As I write this post, I am approximately 65% finished with a re-read of Haruki Murakami's novel from 1985, Sekai no Owari to Hādo-Boirudo Wandārando. This past October, I read Alfred Birnbaum's 1991 translation, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The novel was recently released with a new translation by Jay Rubin as End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland, reversing the order in the title.

I wanted to re-read the novel, mainly because I had just read Murakami's latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which is a rewriting of the "End of the World" portion of the earlier book.

I'm hoping to have this re-read finished in time to make my December,2014 reading list. I'm writing this post now while the book is fresh in my mind.

Not being able to read the original Japanese, it's difficult for me to be totally objective as to which is the superior translation. I'm leaning toward the later Jay Rubin translation - after all, why would a newer translation be needed if Birnbaum's translation had been up to the job? Still, I do feel that Rubin's version flows better.

It's odd. I seem to have a good recollection of the "End of the World" section, although in many ways, the "Hard-Boiled Wonderland" section seems almost completely new to me. It's still difficult for me to connect the two sections. With luck, I'll be able to do that when I finish this re-read.

I follow a Haruki Murakami fan page on Facebook. Another follower asked if The City and Its Uncertain Walls was a stand alone novel, or if it was necessary to read End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland first? Of course, The City........ is certainly a stand alone novel, I answered that I thought it best to read Hard-Boiled..... (or the later translation) first, if for no other reason than because it was written first.

Reading Murakami is a good way for me to learn about musical recordings and writers that I'm not familiar with. In this book, the narrator of the Hard-Boiled Wonderland section reads Stendhal's The Red and the Black. I had a difficult time reading that particular book in 2021. I believe the problem may have been the translation. Murakami and Jordan Peterson both give the novel high marks. Perhaps I should consider reading a newer translation.

Another writer mentioned by the narrator of the Hard-Boiled Wonderland section is the author of 87th Precinct novels, published under the pen name Ed McBain. I've downloaded the entire series. I'll try to read a few of those next year.

Albert Camus' The Plague.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, most of the books I'll read in December will be books that I've read before. I also mentioned in that post that one of the books I'll re-read this month will be Albert Camus' The Plague.

I last read The Plague in April, 2020, during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. According to wikipedia, I wasn't the only one reading the novel at that time - the novel's British publisher Penguin Classics reported struggling to keep up with demand for copies of the book:
"Sales in Italy tripled and it became a top-ten bestseller during its nationwide lockdown.Penguin Classics' editorial director said 'it couldn’t be more relevant to the current moment' and Camus's daughter Catherine said that the message of the novel had newfound relevance in that 'we are not responsible for coronavirus but we can be responsible in the way we respond to it'."

While the reading of the novel during a global pandemic was certainly relevant, it's not exactly what I'd call Christmas reading. Yes, the novel is a masterpiece, but reading the novel doesn't give one an abundance of hope and joy that might be associated with yuletide reading choices.

Camus published the novel in 1947 - the story takes place in the French Algerian city of Oran sometime in the 1940s. No exact date is given. The photo at the beginning of this post is a view of Oran in 1943 , taken from the above mentioned wikipedia article.

Rereading Albert Camus' The Stranger

After reading The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, I wanted to spend some time this month rereading some of my favorite novels. I managed to stay on track with Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore . I took a little detour with Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End by Bart D. Ehrman. I'm now back on schedule with my rereading  of Albert Camus' The Stranger.

I can't recall when I read The Stranger the first time - probably back in the 1980s. I began making note in my PC in 2011 of the books I read and I have it on record that I read the book in 2014 and 2020. Now, I've read the book once again. (December - 2024) Assuming that I'd managed to read it twice between 1980 and 2011, it's fair to say I've read The Stranger about five times - each time the Stuart Gilbert translation. There are other English translations, although I haven't been able to download copies.

Needless to say the book is one of my favorites.

In his 1956 analysis of the novel, Carl Viggiani wrote:

On the surface, L'Étranger gives the appearance of being an extremely simple though carefully planned and written book. In reality, it is a dense and rich creation, full of undiscovered meanings and formal qualities. It would take a book at least the length of the novel to make a complete analysis of meaning and form and the correspondences of meaning and form, in L'Étranger.

I'll be staying with Camus. I'm now reading The Plague which I last read in 2020 during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End by Bart D. Ehrman

In his book, Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End , professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Bart D. Ehrman puts foward the notion that the New Testament book of Revelation (aka The Book of the Apocalypse) has been misunderstood and misinterpreted in modern times. This misinterpretation has been going on, basically since the early 19th Century. Ehrman describes the book's writer, known as John of Patmos, as a misguided Christian who did not understand the teachings of Jesus Christ as proclaimed in the Gospels.

Not only is the book of Revelation not a prophesy of future events as maintained by many Evangelicals, (and certainly no "rapture") but the vengeful nature of the events - not to mention the glorification of materialism and violent retribution - is in no way Christ-like. Ehrman examines how the Christ of Revelation differs from the Christ of the Gospels. A God of love and mercy versus a God who is cruel and unmerciful.

Ehrman's arguments are compelling. After reading this book, I cannot believe that the Book of Revelation belongs in the Biblical canon.

Rereading Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

I began December by reading Haruki Murakami's latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. This novel is a retelling of a short story of the same name (which is no longer in print) and a novel from 1985, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World which I read in October of this year. The two novels share several similarities and in some ways I thought of  my reading "The City" as almost like reading the earlier novel a second time.

This idea led me to consider rereading novels I had actually read before. With that in mind, I reread Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Riding that same train of thought led me to once again read Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

With Murakami being Murakami, in each these three novels, a library plays a significant part, as does Ludwig van Beethoven. Add the Oedipal aspects, the old, disabled man with the uncanny ability to talk to cats, and the feeling of moving in and out of alternate realities and we're in for quite a ride.

In a blog post from November, 2021, I said of Kafka on the Shore:
The story takes several bizarre twists and turns. In an interview posted on his English-language website, Murakami says that the secret to understanding the novel lies in reading it several times. That may well be the case.

I can say that upon my second reading of the novel, I do have a somewhat better understanding of the work. Reading the wikipedia article on the novel was also a help in my (partial?) understanding.

I'm certain that I will follow Murakami's advice and read the novel again, although I suspect that will not be in the near future.

Rereading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

I first read Fyodor Dostoevsky's highly acclaimed novel, Crime and Punishment in 1979. I found the story of the protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov's murder of an elderly pawnbroker and her handicapped sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, absolutely shocking. Over the years, I've reread the novel several times - first, in the middle 1980s, and again in 2012 and then in 2021. All of these readings and re readings were of the Constance Garnett 1914 translation.

I recently wanted read it once again - this time, a translation by Michael R. Katz.

I mentioned in my blog post after the 2021 rereading that I had forgotten a number of sections which seemed almost new to me. This time, I would not be surprised, although sections were not exactly fresh in my mind.

The novel was originally published in installments in 1866 and first translated into English by Frederick Whishaw in 1885. From a review of the 1885 translation:

"Dostoieffsky [sic] is one of the most remarkable of modern writers, and his book, ‘Crime and Punishment’ is one of the most moving of modern novels. It is the story of a murder and of the punishment which dogs the murderer; and its effect is unique in fiction. It is realism, but such realism as M. Zola and his followers do not dream of. The reader knows the personages—strange grotesque, terrible personages they are—more intimately than if he had been years with them in the flesh. He is constrained to live their lives, to suffer their tortures, to scheme and resist with them, exult with them, weep and laugh and despair with them; he breathes the very breath of their nostrils, and with the madness that comes upon them he is afflicted even as they. This sounds extravagant praise, no doubt; but only to those who have not read the volume. To those who have, we are sure that it will appear rather under the mark than otherwise."

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

I first became aware of the Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami in early 2021 when I had come upon reviews of two of his novels, Kafka on the Shore, and Norwegian Wood. I was later able to download mobi files for the two and read the books in November and December of that year.

This year, I managed to read six more of his novels - or eight if you count 1Q84 as three books as was originally done when released in Japanese in 2009 and 2010.

The remaining five include - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, After Dark, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and now The City and Its Uncertain Walls.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls was published in Japanese in 2023 with the English translation released on November 19, 2024.The novel shares its title with an earlier short story of the same name, which was published in the September 1980 issue of a Japanese monthly literary magazine, Bungakukai. Unfortunately, Murakami has not permitted this short story to be reprinted but Murakami expanded that short story into his 1985 novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Like most of Murakami's novels, this latest one has a surreal quality. I'm not inclined to give spoilers, but like in the earlier novel, the character in The City..... spends a good deal of time in a library. This recurring library reminded me of Kafka on the Shore where a library also plays a prominent role. In my earlier blog post on Kafka on the Shore, I wrote that in an interview posted on his English-language website, Murakami says that the secret to understanding that novel lies in reading it several times. I've decided to do just that. First, I plan on rereading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (in a more modern translation than the one I've read so many times before).

I've also learned that a new translation of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World will be released sometime this month. That will probably wind up in the queue.