The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

 

I first learned of Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami about three years ago when I read an interesting review of his novel, Kafka on the Shore. I've gone on since then to read four more of his novels, although two of those - 1Q84 and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - were originally published as trilogies, so I suppose you could say I've read nine in total.

In 1Q84 a particularly nasty character named Ushikawa plays a crucial role. After finishing that book, I learned that Ushikawa had appeared in the earlier The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle so I made it a point to read it as soon as I could fit it in.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, reading Murakami brings to my mind the works of Franz Kafka and Mikhail Bulgakov with perhaps a bit of Dostoevsky thrown in for good measure. In my review of Kafka on the Shore I described Murakami's writing as "surreal and hallucinatory". The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle certainly fits that bill. I might even add that this novel reads like a Salvador Dalí painting - dreamlike.

While reading this novel, I was reminded of a novel I read back in the days when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth - The Steppenwolf  by Hermann Hesse. I'm placing that one in the queue to be re-read very soon.

The Son of Tarzan

 

I recently came across a meme on social media which featured characters from the MGM film series of the 1930s and 1940s, Tarzan. This series, starring Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane and Johnny Sheffield as Boy, was a hit with me when the movies were shown on TV in the 1950s. Feeling nostalgic, I tracked down the six MGM films and the six RKO movies with Weissmuller on the ok.ru website.

I had read the first three of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels a few years ago - one in 2011, one in 2012 and # 3 in 2016. Looking for a change in pace from my reading material, I decided to read # 4 in Burroughs' Tarzan books, The Son of Tarzan.

Anyone even vaguely familiar with the Tarzan franchise knows that the books are very different from the films. Never the less, I could not have expected anything like The Son of Tarzan. At the beginning of the novel, we find Lord John Clayton II (AKA Tarzan), his wife Jane née Porter and their son Jack living in England. Due to a series of events, which I won't go into, Jack makes his way to Africa accompanied by an ape named Akut. One thing leads to another, whereupon Jack takes the name Korak and becomes another Tarzan, so to speak. He is unable to return to England. He is lost to Tarzan and Jane.

The story is interesting enough, in that pre-World War I adventure story sort of way. Lots of characters (human and non human) - lots of adventures - twists and turns.

I was a bit taken aback by the amount of killing done by Korak - which it turns out is ape language for "Killer". A hero today couldn't get away with the killing done by the young man.

As I say, the book is interesting and I imagine I will go on to read more in Burroughs' Tarzan series. Just not any time soon.

The April 2024 Reading List

 The latest list:

Spiral (Ring 2)  by Koji Suzuki
Replay  by Ken Grimwood
Loop (Ring 3)  by Koji Suzuki
Past Master  by R. A. Lafferty
Utopia  by Thomas More
The Double  by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Small House at Allington  by Anthony Trollope

The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope

 

In April of 2021 I set out on a quest to read strictly dystopian novels during that month. As a result, I read 15 novels with a dystopian theme. I had previously read a few of the books that would make my list, but most were new to me (though not exactly new books). The last book in that series was first published in six installments in Blackwood's Magazine in 1881–82 - The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope . That book turned out to be one of my favorites in the dystopian series.

Reading a Wikipedia article on The Fixed Period, I learned that this was Trollope's only Sci-Fi/futuristic novel. He is best remembered today for two six book series of novels - the Chronicles of Barsetshire and the Palliser novels (AKA - the Parliamentary novels ). In May of that year, I began reading Chronicles of Barsetshire. After reading the 4th novel in the series, I decided to take a break from Trollope. I began reading the entire collection of Agatha Christie's mystery novels and soon forgot about Trollope.

He was forgotten until his books were mentioned by John Podhoretz on the Commentary Magazine podcast recently. Podhoretz highly recommended Trollope's Palliser novels and I felt I needed to finish the last two books in Chronicles of Barsetshire before I could read something different by Trollope.

I started book five - The Small House at Allington. I'm glad I did. This one is my favorite (so far) of Trollope's novels.

Generally, I'm not one for spoilers but I want to compare parts of The Small House at Allington with an earlier novel in the series, Doctor Thorne . In the earlier novel, a Mr. Moffat breaks off his engagement to Miss Augusta Gresham because he had found a more "advantageous match." To avenge his sister, Frank Gresham and one of his friends horsewhip Moffat within an inch of his life. Most of the characters in the novel appear to be OK with the beating, as does Trollope, for that matter. In The Small House at Allington, after Adolphus Crosbie jilts Lily Dale in order to marry Alexandrina de Courcy, Crosbie is simply given a black eye by John Eames.

In his autobiography, Trollope is amazed by the number of letters he'd received from readers of the installments of The Small House at Allington who loved Lily Dale (who he considered a prig) and wished that Trollope would have Lily and John Eames marry. Trollope did not unite the two. Several of the characters from The Small House at Allington return in The Last Chronicle of Barset. Judging by Trollope's comments, I would be very surprised to see the couple marry in the final book.