A Mouthful of Murakami

Murakami is one of those rare authors with a cult following, and I've read all of his works and wait in anticipation of his next book (I hear there is a new one coming not too long from now)!  I was thrilled to go to the library to pick up Murakami's new book, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.  The novel tells the story of Tsukuru and his group of friends in high school, all who have a color in his last name except for him.  Feeling the most colorless and bland of the bunch (similar to other Murakami protagonists), Tsukuru goes off to college to study engineering and while there, learns that his friends want nothing to do with him anymore and cut him off completely.  Tsukuru, now 36, is hoping to form a serious relationship with a girl he has recently met, but she encourages him to find out why his friends cut him off as this seems to be preventing Tuskuru from forming a deep, trusting relationship with her.  Tsukuru decides to meet up with his friends to discover why they cut him off years ago.  This is classic Murakami - impossible to put down but I couldn't really tell you why.  On the one hand, Murakami often pays attention to very small seemingly bland details (we hear all about characters daily rituals and ablutions), but also writes in somewhat of a dreamlike manner.  All in all, I love Murakami's writing.  This wasn't my absolute favorite of his, but it was interesting and engaging.   

Wow! Ozeki

I didn't know much about A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki, before I opened the book, other than that it is a nominated for the 2013 National Book Critic's Circle Award.  And wow!  It was such an inventive, readable, heartbreaking, intelligent, funny novel.  The story links together the lives and voices of a 16-year old girl named Nao who lives in Tokyo, after moving to Japan after her father loses a good tech job in Sunnyvale, CA, with Ruth, a writer in Canada.  Picked on mercilessly in school and dealing with her overworked mother and suicidal father, Nao takes to journaling to express herself, and to try and tell the story of her 104-year old great grandmother Jiko, a Buddhist zun.  Nao's diary is found on the shore by Ruth, a writer living on an island in British Columbia after the Japanese tsunami in 2011.  I found myself more considerably more interested in the parts of the novel told by Nao's perspective, but overall, this was like nothing I've read before.  Refreshing - read it!