"After Dark" by Haruki Murakami

"After Dark" was the last novel by Haruki Murakami before 1Q84 and it is a little bit different than most Murakami's novels.  First, it is very short, which is very unlike Murakami, only 206 pages.  It was published in 2004 but the first English translation was done in 2007, while the audio book one even later.  The novel happens in only 6 hours between midnight and 6am, mostly in a Denny's restaurant and a nearby love hotel "Alphaville".  Mari, a 19 years old student and Takahashi, trombone player and student who met Mari and her beautiful sister Eri some time back for a pool party.

There is a former female wrestler involved, who is now the manager of the love hotel.  A few maids in the hotel also appear on stage, as well as a 19 years old, beaten up and robbed of all belongings, start naked Chinese prostitute.  A representative of a Chinese prostitution gang and a sadistic computer programmer who works night shifts and uses prostitutes regularly to get away from his ordinary wife and kids round up the main characters in the book.  A main character who spends most of the book sleeping is Eri, Mari's beautiful sister who one night declares she will go to sleep for a longer time and continues to sleep for the next two months.

The book is written more like a movie script or a teleplay than a true novel.  Often the author tells us directly about what point of view we have, at what angle we are seeing things and uses declarative descriptions like in a play script.  This detracted from the book for me and made me unable to enjoy it as much as his other works like The Wind Up Bird, Norwegian Wood, Dance dance dance, Kafka on the shore, etc.  There are not too many magical elements, except for Eri sleeping in a non-deterministic room in a non-deterministic space and world.  An interesting read overall, but below Murakami's usual standards.

"Flash Fiction" by James and Denise Thomas

This was the required reading book for my Junior Creative Writing class in college.  I never finished reading it then, and didn't find the time to do it in the following 13 years or so... until now.  All of the stories are 750 words or less.  It has become a kind of a fad in the last decade for notable magazines to put very short word limits on accepted fiction work, like 1200 words, or 900 words or even 750 words.  I never believed that one could express proper emotion and build proper characters in such short space.  The only thing you could do in such short space is write "mood pieces", a bit in Rimbaud style, a bit like emotional safety valve going off in a more-or-less connected and relevant emotional rambling.  For the most, it is true of the stories in this book.  These are the kind of fiction stories one might find inside general interest magazines or tabloids.  Not too much time investment, but still a certain payoff for reading them.  Writing short-short fiction requires meticulous planning - or none at all. It depends.

There are some definite gems in this collection.  Some of my favorites are:  232-9979, Subtotals, How to touch a bleeding dog and Deportation at Breakfast.  Still, it is difficult to get emotionally involved and dis-involved (in order to move to the next story, the next involvement) in only 750 words.  A writer can write for a certain word length (comics authors do it all the time, and the outcome is good), but that does not give the writer the freedom to let the imagination flow, there are limits, artificial ones that stifle and smother.  That is not the way.  If a writer expresses a full emotion or idea and the result happens to be under 750 words (very unlikely) then so be it, but the word limit should never be one of the starting parameters of a work of art.  This book can be read over many days, and that is probably the way to do it, but in that way it is easy to forget it it, and remember it 10 years later.  You can also read it in one day, a few hours, but then it results in a jumble of images and emotions in your head.  I am not sure which is worse.

"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami

One of the last Murakami's books, it is also one of the more experimental ones.  Though "The Wind-up Bird Chronicles" has plenty of riddles and points left for the reader to figure them out, in "Kafka on the Shore" one feels that this kind of structure is taken to the next level where it forms the basis of the entire book.  It is a story of Kafka Tamura and Satoru Nogata, two lines of narrative that intertwine and depend on each other without the two characters ever actually physically meeting.  Murakami has mixed some US army reports from the occupation period of Japan about mysterious occurrences which have to do with the story, but also to remind the Japanese reader about that psychologically painful period in Japanese history which some contemporaries refuse to believe it ever happened, as does one of the characters in the book.

The first 300 pages seem to talk about unconnected events and some parts are so meticulous in details (like Kafka washing himself, pointing to every body part as he goes over it) that to the the Western reader, used to instant-everything and "jumprightintotheaction" narratives it might be unnerving, but, in classical Murakami style, everything comes together in the last 100 pages in a brilliant and fascinating way.  One of the main story lines is the Oedipal myth, where the 15 year old Kafka Tamura has sex with a woman who could (and yet, also does not have to) be his mother.  He also has sexual encounters with a much younger woman, Sakura, who could be his sister, but yet, does not have to.  There are strong sexual descriptions, typical for Murakami, who wants to shake up the Japanese conservative establishment.

The second main theme is the connection of the human with the spiritual or otherworldly, drawn mostly from Shinto worldview of spirits, both in woods and in cities, and gateways through to the other world hidden in special stones, forest clearings and deep woods guarded by entities which are more concepts than anything else.  This view is contrasted by the everyday reality of boring jobs, city lives that go nowhere, and work/life routine that kills the spirit of the human being, one atom at a time.  However, "Kafka on the Shore" is also an uplifting book, hinting at ways of finding oneself in the modern world as well, as long as one stays true and close  to certain symbols and meanings that make the difference between and empty, routine life, and life filled with meaning and excitement.

"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins

I started reading this book a long time ago, but it is not the easiest book to read, though Dr. Dawkins is trying to make evolutionary mathematics accessible by the regular popular science reader.  Although it took some time it was eye-opening, especially in the areas of the reasons for genetic altruism, which one can perceive as a critique or explanation of the core and extended family relations and maybe even why you feel love for your close relatives, the closer the genetic relations - the stronger the love.  Dr. Dawkins' main hypothesis is that evolution is driven on the level of genes, not organisms, and that we, humans, and all other organisms are merely "vehicles" for the survival and propagation of genes.

Dr. Dawkins shows that most established group dynamics and other social groups and relationships are not the result of "independent" altruism, but a result of "Evolutionary Stable Strategy" or ESS which has been achieved by the quality of the relationships among the individual of the group, and the main criteria is always the survival and propagation of the gene itself.  In that sense Dr. Dawkins calls the gene "selfish", although he suggests that a  better title for the book would be "The Immortal Gene".  While making the gene the atomic force behind driving evolution forward, the author still concedes that in most combinations, what is best for the gene is also best for the larger organism or "vehicle" of the gene, though this is not always the case.

This is Dr. Dawkins' first book and already his dynamic style can be glimpsed, which makes for a better reading than most popular science books.  Since the publication in 1976 Dr. Dawkins has published many other influential books but this one would be remembered as the one which launched his career.  One can witness the development of the first stages of his recent atheist crusade already in this book, and some of the ideas are presented, though the book is definitely about biology and evolution and not atheism or religion.  Overall an enjoyable and enlightening reading, if a little difficult at times.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway

Considered by many as the best Hemingway's work and on the required reading lists in many schools around the world (including this blogger's High School), this is a seminal work of human passion, compassion and the meaning found in death for a worthy cause.  Hemingway reported from the Spanish Civil War for several years and from behind the Republican/Communist battle lines.  The main character, Robert Jordan, might have been modeled by the leader of the International Brigades, and American as well.  The novel happens in 4 days and 3 nights and is written in the typical Hemingway minimalistic style, where each word and sentence have a meaning and a role to play in the overall intent, and artsy embellishments are kept down.

Robert Jordan is a dynamiter who is send behind fascist lines to destroy a bridge to support the republican offensive for breaking the siege of Madrid.  He knows he is probably going to die in the assignment and so do most of the people he meets and who help him.  He is attached to a guerrilla unit lead by Pablo and his palm-reading wife Pilar, who is the actual leader of the band.  He meets the young girl Maria who was gang-raped by the fascists in the beginning of the war and with whom Jordan falls in love and sees that love as giving meaning to his short life soon to be over.  Another band who was supposed to help, that of El Sordo, is destroyed by fascist planes and Jordan's and Pablo's mission becomes increasingly suicidal.  This causes Pablo to betray, but he comes back eventually and is essential in fulfilling the goals of mission.

Jordan blows up the bridge, but his leg is cut off by a tank shot.  He remains behind in order not to slow down the survivors after a heart-rending farewell from Maria. The novel ends as he prepares to die in ambush in order to avoid falling alive in the hands of the fascists and be tortured.  The last sentence of the novel is describing how Jordan is waiting for the incoming fascist detachment and could feel "his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest."  This work is rightfully among the classics and "must-read" of world literature describing the worst and the best of the human condition.  The sacrifice of the one for the good of the many is given its rightful esteem and the horrific nature of war, especially civil war in modern times is described with all the honesty and disgusting detail, crushing the ideal of "noble" and "gentlemanly" wars.  "La Guerra Es Puta" say the characters many times throughout.

"Count Zero" by William Gibson

The second book of 'The Sprawl' Trilogy.  The first one, "Neuromancer" set the standards for creative Science Fiction and the beginning of a whole new genre 'Cyberpunk', dystopic, corporations-dominated future with ubiquitous and invasive technology coupled with development of new kinds of artificial consciousnesses which has somewhat ambivalent predisposition towards humanity.  Although the previous book was quite convoluted, using way too much "in-world" jargon and with way too many things to track - this one is even worse.  Unfortunately we don't find compelling characters like Case and Molly here, which were well developed if not completely likable. In Count Zero we have the title character Bobby Newmark, the hired gun Turner and the very flat Marly Krushkova, all of which are not at the level of the previous work.

The book builds on the creation of 'free' AI from the previous tome, which then mysteriously breaks into many pieces.  Here we see that each of those pieces is a sentient being which decide that the most appropriate representation for them in order to communicate with humanity is to become Voodoo gods with the appropriate symbolism and ritualistic 'possession.'  Newmark is setup to try a new ICE breaker which almost kills him but he's saved by a sentient entity in cyberspace which turns out to be the daughter of a scientist trying to escape the corporate giant Maas which Turner is hired to help, before being betrayed by his connection Mitchell.  Krushkova is hired by the super-rich and aging Joseph Virek which is trying to upload his consciousnesses into the cyberspace and become one of the AIs there, thus achieving immortality, which the other, real, AIs, do not look kindly upon.  The largest chunk of Wintermute and Neuromancer's unification and subsequent fragmentation from the previous volume is making Joseph Cornell-style boxes with hidden meanings describing very advanced technology.

Everything winds down to the orbital dwelling where the box-maker intelligence lives where the final showdown occurs and the good guys win, in a way.  The post-modernistic style of writing  does away with much descriptions and explanations, but drops you right in the middle of the actions and makes you figure things out for yourself.  It is a hard book to read, but rewarding if you are a Gibson or Cyberpunk fan, as this is the second part of the cult Trilogy that solidified the genre.

"The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking

I started reading several books at the same time (like 4) again, and the first one I finished was from the great Dr. Hawking.  I wanted to read it ever since it came out, but only got around now to getting it on audio.  I was expecting something revolutionary like the "Short history of time" but the book is actually more of a science popularizing kind than anything else.  It is exposition of cosmological theories from the ancient Greeks to modern times.  The last 1/4 of the book deals with Creationist arguments about the necessity of having intelligent designer because some of the physical constants are so finelly tuned, very small alterations would cause life never to appear, as if our universe was created with human beings in mind.  Dr. Hawking, however proves that this universe HAD to exist, i.e. there was never an option of it not existing, regardless of any external influences, if we can even discuss 'external' in the cosmological sense.

It is fascinating how the good professor explains the most complicated facets in Physics like M-theory or string-theory and the "no-boundary condition" by building from the simplest blocks that everyone understands and makes these complicated physical concepts available for the lay reader.  His dry humor comes through quite often and gives that special flavor to the presentation.  Large tracts of the book are dedicated to how scientific thought developed through the ages, the fallacies that were popular but eventually rejected and the constant thread of scientific progress building on previous body of knowledge.  Throughout the entire book one can feel Dr. Hawking's enormous love for humanity and for life itself.  He and his fellow physicists are the modern priest, the shepherds of the ignorant flock of the human race, guiding it towards a better and glorious future of knowledge.