I picked up this book by Haruki Murakami and i must say, it's a damn good read!! While the title suggests acrobatic movements, muscle stretching and sensuality, the book, so far, is nothing about that. I had picked it up because i thought it's related to dance. But i couldn't be more wrong. My guess is that this book, with its whimsical plot and even more whimsical characters --without denial of them being so real -- gave it the element of being very fluid and that feeling of expectancy and unexpectancy, just like a dance.
I'm still at it, page 69. It's an accomplishment for me to read that far already because I simply can't quite handle novels. Most simply don't appeal. Flat plots with even flatter writing. My patience was tenuously tested when i tried to read Sophie's World and when i reached the 80-something page, I declared that enough was enough. The hype surrounding it certainly didn't live up. Much as i hope I'll be able to go "Yes!!! It's such a wonderful read!!" and join in the group who revelled in the read, things just were not heading that way. To me, it was one of the crappiest and most boring books I've ever read.
Parts from "Dance Dance Dance" which drew out laughs from me. Bus rides couldn't be more fun when you have a good book with you. And i say that even when i have to wrestle with more problems of being short-sighted and nausea from the jerking that bus-drivers from hell are way capable of.
"Due to the nature of these magazines, most of the people i had to interview were in show business. No matter what you asked them, they had only stock replies. You could predict what they'd answer before you asked the question. In the worst cases, the manager would insist on seeing the questions in advance. So it always came with everything written out. Once i asked a seventeen-year-old singer something that wasn't on the list, which cause her manager to pipe up: "That wasn't what we agreed on -- she doesn't have to answer that." That was a kick. I wondered if the girl couldn't answer what month followed October without this manager by her side. "
"Latter-day capitalism. Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right and wrong has been subdivided, made sophisticated. Within good, there's fashionable good and unfashionable good, and ditto for bad. Within fashionable good, there's formal and then there's casual; there's hip, there's cool, there's trendy, there's snobbish. Mix 'n' match. Like putting on a Missoni sweater over Trussardi slacks and Pollini shoes you can now enjoy hybrid styles of morality. It's the way of the world -- philosophy starting to look more and more like business administration."
"If left me wondering how the ancient Egyptians filled their days, what little pleasures they enjoyed as they whiled their weary way to death. Learning to swim, wrapping mummies. And the sum accomplishment of that you call a civilisation."
