1Q84 Book Review

1Q84 Haruki Murakami

      I just finished this monster of a book, the whole three books that total a hefty 925 pages. Notes about the name, interestingly the phonetic Q in Japanese sounds like 9. So when the name of the book is said, you actually say 1984 in Japanese, regardless of the Q change. 

      This book follows two main characters Aomame (her name meaning green pea, which causes her annoyance throughout the whole book), the fitness teacher/assassin. As well as Tengo, the large oddity of a novelist/cram school teacher. The novel switches between their stories, from chapter to chapter. The characters are unique and have oddities that certainly defy commonality. The two step out of their normal lives for just a moment only to be dipped into a world that is increasingly dangerous and confusing. Trying through thick and thin to accept the reality or unreality of the situation. 

     While watching the characters circle each other in an ever closing spiral, meeting the side characters that have their own quirks and oddities, I get the feeling that many of the things I learn about most of the characters are frivolous and don't actually come to have meaning to the rest of the story. Yes, you could break down the various literary elements and derive meaning from them. They are interesting, but much of it seems like threads that are just made to hang out of the braid, swinging in the wind. There is a secondary character, Ushikawa, that the book has several chapters in his viewpoint. His entries seem frivolous and odd since the other side characters don't have chapters to themselves either. He does so little and seems fit to narrate about his background, it seems, to distract from the fact that in the present he is doing so little. 

       There is also something about how often all the characters assume something nonsensical without any evidence at all and succinctly imagine it as truth. The Ushikawa character does much of his "detective work" via this method of looking at things and picking one that he assumes is true, then running off with it. He does it most often, and is very frustrating for those readers who are looking for tangible lines between reasoning. Several other character just have the sense of "knowing" things, based solely on a feeling. It feels sloppy to have character move forward based on a series of thoughts alone, rather than any kind of evidence. "I think, therefore it must be true.", seems to be a common theme through the novel. 

       Many of the characters just flow in and out of the story without leaving much mark. The strange NHK man who terrorizes the people staying indoors, the nurses of the cat town, and Fuka-Eri's family just seem to slip in and away without any tangible change other than to take up the main character's time and page space. 

       

        There are indeed moments where I feel pestered with random bits from certain characters lives. I say this now that I'm finished reading. I feel the waste now, after the 900 pages. The characters who contributed words, but without purpose. To say it's just talk is precisely how it seems. Conversations that go no where, but sounds profound. The ending is simple and unadorned, the path clear. The rest of the characters that were left behind are nary a thought, which is unpleasant as they seemed to matter during the book.

        My thoughts of the book at the end differ greatly to how I saw it when I was reading it. The simpleness of the ending is a huge contrast to the complexity of the story that was created. The abandonment of all the characters we'd been taking the time to dissect and investigate. The frivolousness of so many things that are left back in the middle of the book and never talked about again. The incongruencies in actions of characters, how they seem to be in their own orbit without much destination. The side characters who hop in to have a profound conversation, then continue to do random things without much provocation. 

      In the end, I enjoyed reading it and got lost in the story. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to friends of mine though. Perhaps if they read it we could have a discussion, try to figure out the ideas about the ends that were left undone. If we did that however, we would be doing the same thing, creating assumptions and trying to figure out which one is more likely. There are very good moments throughout the books, but overall I would not ask someone else to read them, especially if they aren't familiar with his particular style of wandering story and characters. 

     Currently reading: Shades of Gray: A Sholan Alliance Novel (Lisanne Norman)

         This installment is more than 7 years past the previous one. Trying to figure out who people are and what is going on is pretty crazed. Read this series from the beginning, and if you don't like cliffhangers, stay away. Back to the grind for me. 

     Picture of the post: 

 Also Nanowrimo starts in a few days. Time to pick up Scape again and start weaving the rest of it.

Mastreif, Book Festival, Oslo Culture day!

Mastreif

       So this past weekend was Mastreif (The Oslo Farmer's Market). So the producers that usually go to all the farmers markets all around the country are for one weekend in one place. Amazing amounts of good food, great produce and interesting things. Tons of cheese and sausages though. So it started on Friday afternoon which is when my friend and I showed up. I wanted to beat the rush....

         

        Yes.. this is before the crowd...

    Notice how easy it is to get into the stalls.. as we were here longer the more crowded it became.. be ready for bits of people's arms and such in pictures.

     So lots of handmade goods, olive oil, herbs, fruit, veggies, sausages, artisan cheeses, artisan juices. I picked up mountain picked raspberries and blueberries. Which I enjoy every morning for breakfast now.

  Salmon was huge also, these were small gourmet creations, 3 tastes for 20 kroner. Which was a decent price. I wasn't really thinking and ate before coming to the farmer's market.. silly me.

        They were having a meat grading contest as we walked by, they were staring at various cuts of meats and grading them. It was pretty interesting.

       This lady is a honey producer who is at my farmer's market usually, I picked up some unfiltered honey from raspberry flowers. I found the lavender flowers a bit too sweet for me, but still amazing. She was very adamant about the differences, and they were extremely differing in flavor. I'm very happy with my new, not extremely sweet, with a bit of fruity , honey!

     Hand made amazing chocolates too!
     Yes, I passed them up, I decided that the fruit was a better investment for my money. I'm still very happy with my choice, but I'm also happy I have a picture.

  

  Book Fair!

     We went looking for coffee after Mastreif, and stumbled on a book fair. Not just on this street, but it was all over the area in tents everywhere. Cheaper books, free bags, author's signings. I have a novel I want to read very badly, but it's in Norwegian. I'll get there soon. Here are some pictures from the book fair. Interestingly, not just of stacks of books (of which there were tons!)

     The people running this tent were very kind in letting me take pictures and the typewriter was very neat! I was extremely happy to have run across it!

Oslo Culture Day

      It was also brought to my attention that this day was (also, in addition to everything else that day) Oslo Culture Day. Which meant that all the museums, parliament, the palace, ect were open and had events going on all day and night. My friends met up that night for dinner and headed to the Munch-museet (The Munch Museum)  

     Famous for the painting The Scream

(this image is from the Munch Museum, and copyright to the artist, obviously)

      Interestingly this painting is also one of the most expensive publicly held paintings, thus making it extremely popular to try and steal. So, security at the museum was tight, but not oppressive. Also, we didn't even get to see any of the paintings because as soon as we whisked into the museum, enjoyed the live jazz playing in the cafe, we headed downstairs. We were off to make masks. 

     Masks using our own faces for a base! How do you do this? I'll tell you... (someone else has to make your mask on your face, thus requiring two people)

•        Vaseline your face (all of it, including eyebrows and hairline)- I recommend someone helping you with this, also you can't have enough, put it on thick.
•        Take a strip of saran wrap and lay it across your eyes, protecting them. The strip can go all the way to both temples and into your hairline.
•        Take (max ~1in.) strips of plastercast, dip into water and place on face (make the mask)
•        Be sure to swirl your fingers around to smoothe the plaster around so you dont have so much linen grid showing. 
•        Make sure that the nose ridge is strong enough (or else it will crack when removed. 
•        Wait until it is dry, and slowly remove. You have a mask
•        Add more plaster cast to smooth out edges, fill parts in. Take tissue paper and watered down glue and apply to top and edges to smooth the whole thing out. Paint, or whatnot as liked. 

       It was terribly messy! Also tons of fun. 

       We were not the only adults doing this, but we weren't all adults either and everyone was having a good time trying to make scream masks. 

       After a nightcap of hot chocolates and cortados(expresso with milk, in my case; double expressos) we headed back to the bay to watch the fireworks show. I did take pictures of it, but they never turn out quite as I expect. I should look into taking pictures of fireworks, they are quite hard. All in all a very full, fun, and lovely day. I highly recommend being around for these events next year around September 14th, 2013! See you there :)

Here is your surprise picture, enjoy!

       

Godspeaker Trilogy - Karen Miller

Yes! It's a book review. Shock of shocks. Horror of horrors! Run for your lives, batten the hatches and lock the children in the cupboard.

I finished the Godspeaker trilogy by Karen Miller, Empress (of Mijak), The Riven Kingdom, and The Hammer of God. I found the premise of the first book intriguing. I found the second book less so and the third even less. It was a downhill slope into an abyss of mundanity unfortunately. (no it's not a word, but we are making it one for the next few moments.)

Interestingly you can learn a lot about yourself by how you felt about the first book. Lets take a look.
 
By the end of the first book you:

• Still like the main character - You are an extremely forgiving human being! Perhaps you should fix that a bit.
• Don't understand why Zandakar stopped - Might have a bit too much bloodlust in you, perhaps should seek anger management classes.
• Thought Hekat was a horrible person from the beginning- Perhaps some soul searching is in order for why you are so angry at a child for their initial strugglings.
• Think she's evil for clawing her way up - Try to rethink your ideas about where women are supposed to be in the world. I'm pretty sure they aren't sound. 
• Thought Vortka was weak- I'd look back at the different definitions of silent strength, moments where people survive and try to help in horrible circumstances. 

I actually found the Vortka was the most interesting and unfortunately, pleasant character to follow around the series. Even if you started out liking the main character in the beginning, the author's goal is to have you hate her/despise what she's become by the end of it. I'd say that she is pretty cut and dry about how she does that. The lack of empathy that I had for most of the characters in the story after the first third of the book is an interesting indication of how unpleasant I thought they were.

That being said, watching her change and claw her way to the top, regardless of if I didn't like her, did make for a very interesting story. 

The second book however shows us the kingdom of Riven. A "forward" thinking society. (keep in mind that Mijak has men and women training together equally and nothing is thought of it, but this is seen as barbarous)

So forward thinking that their crown princess must wed in order to become queen. Because of course, she can't become queen by herself without a man around.

This *ahem* tough, strong *ahem* leading lady, then proceeds to be lead around by a random toymaker who is randomly being used by their god to prove to the populace that she is the rightful heir to the throne. 

So... if there weren't god's intervention, there would be no book. She wouldn't be able to do anything on her own, since she doesn't do anything that isn't lead by the godspeaker on Riven side. It's a depressing jaunt around the countryside, generally feeling like their god is leading you, as the reader, around by the nose. Problem shows up! Oh no! The god will come solve it! When in doubt you can be assured that this will occur often and with great annoyance. Between Hekat and Rhian, Hekat is a much more interesting person to follow around, and that should worry you. 

This book and the one after set up Mijak as the Evil Kingdom, where they are worshipping a anceint evil blood demon (dun dum DUUUH!) Hekat's love and devotions are misplaced! Our hearts are broken, askew, torn asunder! How could the author do this to us, kind readers that we are? 

The remainder of the second book is them preparing for the underwhelming fight between Mijak and the Riven Kingdom. After an extremely anticlimactic section, the book ends, and I was left feeling extremely unsatisfied. The ends were messy and haphazard, it gave the impression that she didn't actually know how to end it well. 

As far as basic fantasy novels go, the last two are very par for the genre, with themes we've seen before, women not being able to rule, males in authority over religion, war coming to bear, ect ect. The "good kingdom" looking extremely, sounding extremely like something you'd find in Europe somewhere, and the sand laden Mijak somewhere in Africa, not to mention their friends from the (not Asian country) that sounds terribly like China when I read about their dress and action. So if you are looking for those, you might as well pick them up, they aren't terrible, but not my cup of tea. 

Because I did actually find Empress (of Mijak) entertaining for the most part, enough to try the second book.(And even to give the third a valiant effort) It shows to me that she can write a compelling novel with interesting characters, I would be interested in checking out some of her other two part series to have a gander at. 

In the mean time however, I will continue to read 1Q84 (I'm on book 2 :) ) and eagerly await the next Dresden with a fresh pot of tea.