Soooo. Yesterday at work I picked up The Polysyllabic Spree, by Nick Hornby, and ignoring my personal ethics of reading (i.e., try not to read more than one book at a time), ended up reading a good half of it last night after my DVD player refused to read my current disc of Mad Men.
A few things, first. I've been busy working (busy for me means working about 35 hours a week, sometimes even 40), and when I'm not doing that or hanging out with the two friends I have left in Canada, I've mostly been watching TV. In my defense, it's mostly been Mad Men, which is stunningly good, but still. Given that I work in publishing and also at a bookstore, I feel a little guilty about how little I've been reading. I keep picking up books at work-- 30% staff discount, it's trouble-- and not reading them.
That said, I've been slogging through Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie for honestly the last month and a half. Embarrassing. Not to mention that I failed to finish the last book I was reading-- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami-- because, even though I was enjoying it, it was just taking too damn long. I brought it to Chicago with me, figuring that spending 40+ hours in a van would be the perfect opportunity to finish a 600 page novel that I was halfway through. However, a combination of friends, WireTap and my apparently inexhaustible delight in staring out the window of a moving vehicle all conspired to ensure I did not, in fact, get any reading at all done on that trip. That was at the beginning of August.
Which brings us to my current book, which I found on top of a pile of books that had just come in at work. I love books about reading, and I assume I love Nick Hornby although I've never actually read any of his books, but I have seen High Fidelity like fourteen times. And, as I said, my shitty ancient DVD player wouldn't read Mad Men, and the book is so small, so I crawled into bed with that instead.
And it was so comforting and delightful! Reading another reader writing about how, sometimes, even if you really like the book you're reading, you are just not that into it, really helped with the guilt. Sometimes life gets in the way, and sometimes the thought of sitting down and turning pages, for whatever reason, seems repulsive. You think about all the times you whipped through a novel in three days and loved every minute of it-- like when I read Middlesex this summer-- and wonder "What happened?" All in all, the almost 100 pages I've read have been reassuring to me as a reader.
So, with the hope of getting back on the Book Horse in mind, I think I am going to put aside Wednesdays as my day to myself, to read. My roommates aren't home, so I can sit in my armchair, which would not fit into my room, make a cup of tea, and just go for it for a few hours.
It is also hilarious, which brings me to another point. Most of the novels I have read or intend to read (and so, I suspect, most novels at all) are just not very funny. Which seems odd, because I would say that I'm someone who values fun in the things I enjoy. Like music-- some of my very favourite bands-- Spoon, The Decemberists, Of Montreal-- when it comes down to it, one of the main reasons I like these bands because they're fun. It often seems like, if literature is going to be serious, it has to be heavy. Like, for example, some of my other favourite things. The National. Arcade Fire. Mad Men. Not funny.
Obviously there are exceptions, but I wish more so-called "serious" literature was more fun, if beauty and humour could exist side by side more often in literature. And maybe it's not even true that they don't. Maybe it's a cultural construct-- there's Art, and then there's things that make you laugh. And maybe I'm just not looking hard enough, or maybe I can't find the humour in beautiful, serious books (or the beauty in funny ones). But I think I'm pretty safe in my assessment of Ondaatje as Not Funny.
Not intentionally, anyway. Some of those sex scenes are out of control.
Showing posts with label haruki murakami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label haruki murakami. Show all posts
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle/The Suburbs
Okay, here we go, fourth post; I am making a really concerted effort to keep this up.
I was going to try to keep this for books only and avoid my passion for indie rock, but fuck it, I've got nothing really to say about Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I found it sitting around my house at the beginning of the summer and started reading it now-- and when I say now I mean probably a solid month ago-- because it is a long book and I thought I was going to have to give it back. Turns out a former resident of the house somehow acquired a "free-for-all box" of books, so it's come with me to Chicago, moved to a new house, and I'm still only about two-thirds through it. It's approaching the point where I'll have put it down for too long to pick it up again, which is nowhere close to a verdict on the quality of the book-- same thing happened with The Idiot last summer, and not only is that Dostoevsky and so practically Scripture, but I genuinely loved it, with the sort of emotional attachment that gets increasingly rare the more time and money one spends Studying Literature.
Anyway. I really am enjoying the book, but have not put the effort into reading it what with road trips, friends leaving and moving; plus, I still don't have much of an idea what is going on, philosophically, yet, at page 367 out of about 600 (so two-thirds was maybe a generous guess)-- I don't really have an idea to hold on to and so I'm just wandering sort of aimlessly through the book. Which is maybe fair enough; I feel a lot like protagonist Toru Okada, who is wandering through a sort of bizarre dreamworld without any idea what's going on. Who knows.
More thought-provoking, in terms of pop culture, for me, has been the release of Arcade Fire's third full-length album The Suburbs, which came out on August 3rd, just before our big road trip to Minneapolis to see The National and Chicago to participate in a day of Lollapalooza crazy. It is getting generally great reviews; the most interesting thing I have read, probably in the Pitchfork review or a column somewhere on the site, is that, whereas Neon Bible was a little too bleak, a little too accusatory, The Suburbs maintains an awareness of our inevitable complicity in the structures we criticise-- consumer culture, religion, whatever. My favourite lyric on the album is in City With No Children: "Never trust a millionaire who will quote the Sermon on the Mount/I used to think I was not like them, but I'm beginning to have my doubts/have my doubts about it." And this idea comes up again and again. I was a little nervous when I heard the title for the album and early comments because I am pretty disinterested in taking cheap shots at hipsters and yuppies; it's too easy, it's boring, and there are definitely moments on the album where this happens-- Rococo is a great song, musically, and it is really fun to sing "rococo" over and over along with Win Butler, but the lyrics are a little too accusatory and condescending to be interesting on its own, so thank goodness it gets balanced by the more sensitive and nuanced moments on the album. I was arguing about this with a couple friends last night, but to be honest, there was free wine and I can't quite remember if we came to any sort of conclusion about that particular song.
As a side note, I was listening to The A.V. Club's August Music Wrap-Up, which of course was mostly a discussion of The Suburbs, in which Steven Hyden (I think) pointed out potentially my biggest problem with Arcade Fire, in general, which is that they are pretty humourless-- those guys take themselves pretty friggin seriously, which is generally something I can't stand. But, I think their over-the-top, super-emotional musical arrangements really save their lyrics from being completely unbearable-- I find their larger-than-life musical pretentiousness entertaining enough to balance the more thought-provoking pretentiousness of their lyrics.
This entry is pretty scattered, but I guess I will just say that I've succumbed to writing about indie rock, not because I am an aspiring music journalist (boy, am I ever not), but just because I am interested in literature as a sub-category of popular culture; I want to study and think critically about what people are watching, reading, listening to-- the cultural canon, maybe. Obviously I am not as dedicated as I could be to this, because it is pretty easy for me to forget that the vast majority of people are pretty happy to consume shit, but I think there are a lot-- a lot-- of people interested in producing and consuming really quality "popular" media, and I think one of the places where this is happening is in the world of indie rock, pop, whatever. There is also a lot of garbage there, but bands like Arcade Fire and The National are making some really important cultural statements. So I will be there.
I was going to try to keep this for books only and avoid my passion for indie rock, but fuck it, I've got nothing really to say about Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I found it sitting around my house at the beginning of the summer and started reading it now-- and when I say now I mean probably a solid month ago-- because it is a long book and I thought I was going to have to give it back. Turns out a former resident of the house somehow acquired a "free-for-all box" of books, so it's come with me to Chicago, moved to a new house, and I'm still only about two-thirds through it. It's approaching the point where I'll have put it down for too long to pick it up again, which is nowhere close to a verdict on the quality of the book-- same thing happened with The Idiot last summer, and not only is that Dostoevsky and so practically Scripture, but I genuinely loved it, with the sort of emotional attachment that gets increasingly rare the more time and money one spends Studying Literature.
Anyway. I really am enjoying the book, but have not put the effort into reading it what with road trips, friends leaving and moving; plus, I still don't have much of an idea what is going on, philosophically, yet, at page 367 out of about 600 (so two-thirds was maybe a generous guess)-- I don't really have an idea to hold on to and so I'm just wandering sort of aimlessly through the book. Which is maybe fair enough; I feel a lot like protagonist Toru Okada, who is wandering through a sort of bizarre dreamworld without any idea what's going on. Who knows.
More thought-provoking, in terms of pop culture, for me, has been the release of Arcade Fire's third full-length album The Suburbs, which came out on August 3rd, just before our big road trip to Minneapolis to see The National and Chicago to participate in a day of Lollapalooza crazy. It is getting generally great reviews; the most interesting thing I have read, probably in the Pitchfork review or a column somewhere on the site, is that, whereas Neon Bible was a little too bleak, a little too accusatory, The Suburbs maintains an awareness of our inevitable complicity in the structures we criticise-- consumer culture, religion, whatever. My favourite lyric on the album is in City With No Children: "Never trust a millionaire who will quote the Sermon on the Mount/I used to think I was not like them, but I'm beginning to have my doubts/have my doubts about it." And this idea comes up again and again. I was a little nervous when I heard the title for the album and early comments because I am pretty disinterested in taking cheap shots at hipsters and yuppies; it's too easy, it's boring, and there are definitely moments on the album where this happens-- Rococo is a great song, musically, and it is really fun to sing "rococo" over and over along with Win Butler, but the lyrics are a little too accusatory and condescending to be interesting on its own, so thank goodness it gets balanced by the more sensitive and nuanced moments on the album. I was arguing about this with a couple friends last night, but to be honest, there was free wine and I can't quite remember if we came to any sort of conclusion about that particular song.
As a side note, I was listening to The A.V. Club's August Music Wrap-Up, which of course was mostly a discussion of The Suburbs, in which Steven Hyden (I think) pointed out potentially my biggest problem with Arcade Fire, in general, which is that they are pretty humourless-- those guys take themselves pretty friggin seriously, which is generally something I can't stand. But, I think their over-the-top, super-emotional musical arrangements really save their lyrics from being completely unbearable-- I find their larger-than-life musical pretentiousness entertaining enough to balance the more thought-provoking pretentiousness of their lyrics.
This entry is pretty scattered, but I guess I will just say that I've succumbed to writing about indie rock, not because I am an aspiring music journalist (boy, am I ever not), but just because I am interested in literature as a sub-category of popular culture; I want to study and think critically about what people are watching, reading, listening to-- the cultural canon, maybe. Obviously I am not as dedicated as I could be to this, because it is pretty easy for me to forget that the vast majority of people are pretty happy to consume shit, but I think there are a lot-- a lot-- of people interested in producing and consuming really quality "popular" media, and I think one of the places where this is happening is in the world of indie rock, pop, whatever. There is also a lot of garbage there, but bands like Arcade Fire and The National are making some really important cultural statements. So I will be there.
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