Laura

I listened to this while crocheting and/or taking apart something I had crocheted badly and/or lying in bed trying and failing not to fall asleep. The tone of Murakami‰ЫЄs personal writing is very similar to the tone in his novels (particularly 1Q84): simple and laid back and matter of fact with occasional attempts at descriptive passages that usually come off as awkward. The parts where he went on about New England weather were unnecessary. Of course I enjoyed most the parts where he talked about writing. The audiobook narrator‰ЫЄs voice reminded me at times of Tom Hanks‰ЫЄs voiceover readings of his emails to Meg Ryan in You‰ЫЄve Got Mail which was cute at the beginning but got annoying.

I don‰ЫЄt read many memoirs (or any non-fiction) so of course this reminds me of probably the only other memoir I‰ЫЄve read in the last year, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, because it similarly explores the concept of pushing your body to certain limits and learning that the difficult things can be proportionately rewarding, and using that concept as a metaphor for pushing your mind and your identity beyond your instinctual/socially-imposed/self-imposed limits and learning that you can become a better person or a better writer.

I can very much see the connection Murakami draws between pushing himself as a runner and as a writer. They are not just metaphors for each other; they are tied together, because the same principles are at work in being a good runner and being a good writer – practice, discipline, motivation, perseverance, willingness to move beyond perceived limits. The idea is so clear to me and I can envision myself as someone who exercises regularly and writes every day and keeps learning and growing – and yet, here I am, not exercising enough and not writing the kind of thing that I really want to write, allowing myself to spend most of my energy at my day job. I know I can be so much better – and yet I need something more to get me there, and that can only come from myself.

Still loved this the second time around.

“And so when I returned to Ulsgaard in this frame of mind and saw all the books, I fell upon them: in a great hurry, almost with a bad conscience. Somehow I had a premonition of what I've so often felt in later life: that you didn't have the right to open one book if you weren't prepared to read them all. Wich every line you made a break in the world. Before books, it was whole, and perhaps after them it would be whole again. But how could I, who didn't know how to go about reading, take them all on? There they stood, even in this modest library, hopelessly outnumbering me, shoulder to shoulder in closed ranks. Defiant and desperate, I plunged from book to book and fought through the pages like someone who has to perform a task out of all proportion to his strength.”

“In later years I would sometimes wake up at night and the stars would be standing there so real and advancing with such clarity of purpose that I couldn't understand how people inured themselves to so much world. I had a similar feeling, I think, when I'd glance up from my books and look outside—where the summer was, where Abelone was calling from.”

“Hearing my voice making more or less pertinent professional comments was a shock to me, as it often is. How can my voice keep talking and my head keep operating when the rest of me is such a mass of unsorted emo-tion? I've never understood it. I think I would respect myself more if the woman could obliterate the professional once in a while. Why should a man love me if I'm that mechanical about things? On the other hand, I would hate to be the kind of woman who flings her emotion at the world until she has nothing left to fling.”

“Craft, not art. Art happens like love, but craft is loyalty, like marriage. To do it good is what's necessary, and that's all that's necessary. Maybe a few times in your life you get lucky and do it better than good, but that's irrelevant. Loyalty is what's necessary, if you want to get something good out of the union.”

Feeling Small

“Of course, it is in some situations harder to be willing to feel small or unimportant. It is harder to be willing to feel small in relation to family members than in relation to the universe and to eternity.  It is hard to feel small and still feel strong, and good. 

“You have to come full circle. You may start out in your life feeling small, and bad. Then you learn to feel larger, and good. Then you learn to feel smaller again, and still good.”

Ugly?

“I'm not sure if this lamp here in this shop is ugly. 

“It may be ugly, but it may simply be unusual, colorful and strange.  On the other hand, everything else in this shop is ugly. 

“So the lamp is probably ugly too.”

“To divest oneself of unnecessary possessions, and mainly of other people: that was the business of life.  “One had to find out what things were not necessary, what things one really needed. A little music and liquor, still less food, a warm and beautiful but not too big roof of one's own, a channel for one's creative energies and love, the sun and the moon. These were enough, and contact with Gos in his ultimately un-defiled separation was better than the endless mean conflict between male and female or the lust for power in adolescent battle which led men into business and Rolls-Royce motor cars and war.”

“Walking home tired in the Sunday dusk, it became obvious that it had been a good day. While one was in the act of being busy with these small creations, the mind travelled lucidly about its humble errands, gently skirting and mantling round the little problems of ash or hazel. Pre-occupied with simple, tangible constructions, looking before and after, the Biscay of the brain was stilled to a sweet calm: and in this calm vague thoughts created themselves unconsciously - sudden, unrelated discoveries.“

This book contains some utter bullshit, but on the whole it made me feel invigorated and inspired.

“No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself. If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of a leaning into the light.” (from the Epilogue)

“Turns out the real reason for growing up was to learn what to do with suffering. Not being surprised was the answer. What else do you want to know?”
(from “Powers”)

“I think if you read a poem, then forget you've read it, and then much later you read it again, it really does get better.” (From “Stop Thinking & End Your Problems”)

“She had all the heroism of principle, and was determined to do her duty; but having also many of the feelings of youth and nature, let her not be much wondered at if, after making all these good resolutions on the side of self-government, she seized the scrap of paper on which Edmund had begun writing to her, as a treasure beyond all her hopes, and reading with the tenderest emotion these words, ‘My very dear Fanny, you must do me the favour to accept' ‰ЫУ locked it up with the chain, as the dearest part of the gift.”

Every Barbara Pym novel gets 5 stars from me.

Christmas break is the perfect time to read this sort of thing (especially since I also had to re-read the fifth book to refresh my memory). These terrible obsessions can‰ЫЄt possibly be quenched somewhat and then put to rest during regular working days, oh no. Holidays are the only time for it, and only if you don‰ЫЄt have much else planned.

It's a rare pleasure to enjoy a book where at least half of what goes on goes entirely over your head.

Exciting read, although as usual with most crime/detective/mystery novels I felt unsatisfied with the ending. But at least now I can watch the movie without guilt.

‰ЫПThe first thing that happened was the realization that the new story was going to be a tragedy. Previous books, written while their author was struggling through a black slough of misery and frustration, had all been intellectual comedies. The immediate effect of physical and emotional satisfaction seemed to be to lift the lid off hell. Harriet, peering inquisitively over the edge of her own imagination, saw a drama of agonised souls arrange itself with odd and alluring completeness. She had only to lift a finger to make the puppets move and live. She was a little startled, and (rather apologetically) brought this interesting psychological paradox to Peter for treatment. His only comment was: ‰ЫчYou relieve my mind unspeakably.‰ЫЄ‰Ыќ

“I never exchanged a word with the Colonel. He has no significance at all in what happened during my stay in Oxgodby. As far as I'm concerned he might just as well have gone round the corner and died. But that goes for most of us, doesn't it? We look blankly at each other. Here I am, here you are. What are we doing here? What do you suppose it's all about? Let's dream on. Yes, that's my Dad and Mum over there on the piano top. My eldest boy is on the mantelpiece. That cushion cover was embroidered by my cousin Sarah only a month before she passed on. I go to work at eight and come home at five-thirty. When I retire they'll give me a clock – with my name engraved on the back. Now you know all about me. Go away: I've forgotten you already.”

‰ЫПSeeing the open pits in the open air, among farms, is the wonder, and seeing the bodies twist free from the soil. The sight of a cleaned clay soldier upright in a museum case is unremarkable, and this is all that future generations will see. No one will display those men crushed beyond repair; no one will display their loose parts; no one will display them crawling from the walls. Future generations will miss the crucial sight of ourselves as rammed earth.‰Ыќ

‰ЫПThen before me in the near distance I saw the earth itself walking, the earth walking dark and aerated as it always does in every season, peeling the light back: The earth was plowing the men under, and the spade, and the plow. No one sees us go under. No one sees generations churn, or civilizations. The green fields grow up forgetting.‰Ыќ

I picked this one up as a recommendation for those who enjoy Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey. Winspear is not in the same league as Sayers (one of my favourites) or even Tey (I‰ЫЄve only read one of hers and just liked it, but more than this).

I dropped it in part because of all the dark hints about Maisie‰ЫЄs own troubled past that were so clearly supposed to pique my interest that I quickly lost interest. If her history is supposed to be relevant to the story‰ЫЄs mystery, why not just reveal it up front rather than attempt to give it more significance than it (I‰ЫЄm guessing) deserves, by delaying the revelation? I might seem like keeping the reader interested in how things will unfold, but it comes off as heavy-handed.

But also, the story didn‰ЫЄt grab me. It seemed so – thin? There are too many good mysteries out there to waste time with ones that don‰ЫЄt interest me. The first part was boring enough but then the book launched into the history of Lady Rowan and Maurice. Seriously? No thank you.

Fun, sweet, propulsive. I gobbled it up. I never heard Calvin‰ЫЄs Irish accent in the dialogue so it was weird to be reminded of it every time he said think/tink. I loved the fleeting parts where Holland talks about the music. Some of the dramatic bits didn‰ЫЄt make much sense, but who cares! A fake marriage is always a fun situation to maneuver two characters into in order to develop a relationship.

Not a perfect collection of essays, but it made me so happy to read this.

Weird fun dystopian sci-fi thousands of years in the future, with dragons flying overhead and two rich spoiled
affianced teenagers and a feral girl raised on a trash island and a city perpetually on fire and lots lots more.

Beautifully written, heartbreaking in places. I wanted to devour it but it was too much sometimes.

This was a fun teenage romance, a story about two people coming together with very different plans and learning to rethink their future. Dimple and Rishi introduce complications into each other's lives about things that are fundamentally important to them, but ultimately they are both better people for being together. (Also: the polarizing reviews of this book here on Goodreads are fascinating.)

February 2018:
YEP. This book is basically The Life-Changing Magic of Nurturing Your Inner Artist. I didn't ‘do' the course in the same way that I didn't ‘do' the decluttering process prescribed by Marie Kondo, but I still got so much out of this book. The exercises (“tasks”) are great and so are the pep talks. I don't care that it comes across as a little woo-woo. If you're not willing to tolerate a little woo-woo, I don't know how you can be creative. Creating things is magic – I don't know how else to explain it. But I get it if the tone isn't for you.

I loved that so much of this book is about self-care, just packaged in a somewhat dated style. It would be so interesting to see this book reframed from a feminist millennial perspective. Same concepts with a tone and examples more suited to our current times. A Call Your Girlfriend or Two Bossy Dames or Forever 35 version of The Artist's Way would be amazing.

I started taking this book a bit more seriously than I had initially because I really like The Artist's Way Everyday, which I did not finish. I wrote about it on my blog.

November 2017:
Trying this again. Might be the right time, this time.

August 2012:
I wasn't planning on “doing” the book but now I can't even face reading it. The first few chapters were enough for me. I will try reading it again another time but now is not that time.