Category: I FLIP PAGES

It’s still work in progress. Still have a few more books to shelve. And the rest of the room is still a mess. But I’m loving my reading nook. I pretty much read everywhere else, but this is where I read at night, a few steps away from the bed where my husband snores away. That floor to ceiling shelf filters the light so he does not complain so much now about the light getting in the way of his beauty sleep.

It is as cozy as it looks. And it is my corner. At least, it’s mine until we get cable, and then this lounge chair will double up for TV watching, and the battle for the remote and the comfy chair resumes. In the meantime, this corner is mine.

I also do my knitting and daydreaming here.

So I have decided to be a Murakami fan. And this book made me do it. Not because it’s the best one I’ve read of his thus far, even though it is. But because Murakami’s voice is becoming a familiar one, and I’m liking it. Of course, a big part of that voice is that of translator Jay Rubin. And then there are the voices of his characters, each one distinct and to me quite endearing.

Toru Watanabe narrates in a voice reflective of Nick Carraway’s in The Great Gatsby, Toru’s favorite book. His is a voice that tries to subdue itself as the other characters assert themselves, loudly, emotionally. Just a few steps away from being a fly in the wall, he observes life around him and lets the other characters move him. He moves as the seemingly sane and stable character in a sea of broken souls.

I fell in love with the most broken among them, Naoko. Naoko and her beautiful sadness. And her hair slide. And her troubled past. And her attempts to set her life right in an asylum where the objective is not just to “correct the deformation” in their characters but to recognize and accept them, and still continue to live. “That’s what distinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities are a precondition. Just as Indians wear feathers on their heads to show what tribe they belong to, we wear our deformities in the open. And we live quietly so as not to hurt one another.” She makes me think about my deformities, those I acknowledge and those I hide.

Like Toru, I was also torn between Naoko and Midori. Midori, the light against Naoko’s dark spirit, the one who represents hope amid and despite a life filled with death and pain. Lively, wild, offbeat, her voice is a necessary one in a novel that would otherwise be too dismal for enjoyment. Her quirky language, her micro-minis, her bizarre dreams, her even stranger daydreams and fantasies, all lovable.

And then there’s Reiko, the one who should have had the life of a successful pianist. Instead, she lives her days in an asylum to escape the outside world, a world which has battered her soul. Her voice is the most musical of all in a novel that’s typical Murakami, heavily spiked with music. Reiko plays her guitar for her healing as much as for the healing of others around her. The Beatles’ Norwegian Wood is among her repertoire.

There are other voices as well. The voice of Japanese youth in the 60s. Nagasawa’s (Toru’s college buddy and sexcapades mentor), charismatic, intelligent. The world is his for the taking, and he takes all that he possibly can. Kizuki’s (Toru’s childhood best friend and Naoko’s boyfriend) voice from the dead, that continues to haunt and affect Toru’s and Naoko’s life.

But Toru speaks back to Hizuki: Hey there, Kizuki. Unlike you I’ve chosen to live – and to live the best I know how. Sure, it was hard for you. What the hell, it’s hard for me. Really hard. And all because you killed yourself and left Naoko behind. But that’s something I will never do. I will never, ever, turn my back on her. First of all, because I love her, and because I’m stronger than she is. And I’m just going on getting stronger. I’m going to mature. I’m going to be an adult. Because that’s what I have to do… I have to pay the price to go on living.

These voices haunt me even weeks after the reading. And I’ve got Murakami to blame for it.

Japanese litfest continues.

3 novellas comprise Yoko Ogawa’s The Diving Pool.

The first novella, with the same title as the book, is narrated by Aya. She is the daughter of a couple running an orphanage. Ironically, she feels the least privileged among the orphans living under their roof. They, at least, have the chance of being adopted and moving away. It’s from that dreary perspective that Aya sees her world.

The only bright spot in her life is Jun, an orphan in their home. He dives to compete, but to Aya, he dives so she can watch his graceful body cut through air, water, time, and her emotions “to reach the deepest place inside of her.” Stealthily, Aya watches him dive, admiring the grace of his motions, the line of his muscle, the alignment of his wrists. Ogawa narrates with a focus on the minutiae, on the languid but not innocent thoughts that run through Aya’s head.

The other novellas are told with the same languor. Drama kept at a minimum. Emotions not over emphasized; merely suggested. The narration of events calm. Yet, the reader’s reactions would be anything but. Because what the novellas have in common is the theme that danger lurks underneath a surface of tranquility, evil behind a facade of normalcy.

The second novella, Pregnancy Diary, merely hints at the diabolical. And it is the most sinister of the three stories. In the end, you’re left to using your own imagination, which is probably more frightening than anything the story could narrate.

The third novella, Dormitory, is the one most likely to become an episode of Twilight Zone if that show were to be revived. Again, the ending does not spell everything out for you. You’re left imagining the worst.

The Diving Pool is a light, easy read of themes that are heavy, disturbing, haunting. Not quite satisfying, because I’m left wanting more.

Another Japanese authored book. There are two more posts on the way. Our book club, Flips Flipping Pages, discussed Japanese literature last March. And we had the liberty to choose any title for as long as it fell under the broad category of Japanese literature. I read 2 books before the discussion, and followed up my JapLit education with 2 more.

Thus far, the one thing I found that all these books had in common is: cats. Cats figure prominently in every piece of Japanese literature I have read. The last one I read, Norwegian Wood, almost did not meet this criteria. Then, near the end a cat named Seagull entered the picture. In A Pale View of Hills, the loathsome creatures play a central role, symbolizing dispensable relationships and responsibilities. People who know me know that I hate cats – the animal as well as the topic. So, let’s move on.

I also noticed that Japanese authors like to tell their stories the way they serve their tea. Slowly, lyrically, patiently. Maybe a bit mysteriously. Testing your ability to sit still, an underdeveloped skill in this time when people and events move in the speed of light just to catch up. Storytelling that forces you to slow down, linger, hold your breath, and wait for something to happen. A Pale View of Hills is self-indulgent narration. By that I mean, the author asks you to indulge him, to patiently read through the long meandering thoughts, and you just hope that somehow, somewhere, some time in the novel, there is a point. Halfway through the book, I still had no idea what this was all about. You just simply make a decision to drop the book or just enjoy the narration and hope that it would be worth it.

It’s a bit like walking through the forest; trees, shadows, and mist obscure the path, and you’re not certain if it’s going somewhere…ah wait, I’m doing that right now, am I not? I am waxing Ishiguroesque. Ah, I am so easily influenced by the things I read. Anyway, let’s get on with it.

A Pale View of Hills is about Etsuko. Transplanted to London, recent events have made her recall a summer after the war, right back when she was in Japan. She was newly married, pregnant with her first child, and like her fellow Japanese, trying to rebuild a life.

Two sub-plots develop, One concerns her neighbor, Sachiko, a single mother obsessed, but not quite upfront, with the idea of finding greener pastures in another land. Kazuo’s Ishiguro’s use of dialogue hints without telling that this is a woman you can’t trust.

Sachiko’s story is interspersed with a seemingly unrelated story — the conflict between Etsuko’s husband and her father in law.

These 2 stories move in parallel lines, and how they come together and affect Etsuko’s present eventually emerges at the end in a surprise twist that reveals how her past shaped her present. History repeats itself. The generation gap between Etsuko’s husband and his father is echoed in the strained relationship between Etsuko and her daughter, Niki. This time, culture differences, as well as a generation gap, test their kinship.

After all that, yes, there is a point. But you do have to slow down to enjoy the telling. Kazuo’s gift for description, characterization, and narration makes the slow meandering journey through the pale hills worth it.

In the Introduction, Murakami likens the writing of short stories to planting gardens and writing novels to planting forests. In this book, he planted a lush, colorful collection of stories written from 1981 to 2005. The book is like Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebook, containing studies for bigger works, studies that are complete art by themselves. One story, Firefly, is a study that he eventually developed into the novel, Norwegian Wood, the work that brought Murakami into the nova of international bestseller authors.

One gets the feeling that a lot of the stories are autobiographical. In Chance Traveler, for instance, he specifically names himself as the narrator and places himself in the story.

I’m not fond of short stories. Most of the time, they’re weird, vague, ending abruptly leaving me scratching my head muttering, what the fafaya was that about?!? (Interrobang intended.) And then there’s Haruki Murakami, known for his delving in the bizarre and surreal.

The combination of short stories and Murakami really intimidated me.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is very low on the weirdometer; not intimidating at all. And the biggest surprise is that most of the stories have very neat, complete plots, with dénouements not usually seen in short stories. Some are so well developed, they seem more like novellas than short stories.

Wiki describes Murakami’s work as “accessible yet profoundly complex.” With this book as basis, I have to agree. His prose is easily understandable, the narrative simple and fluid, and the themes universal. Though some stories have a touch of the bizarre and most exhibit Murakami’s style of magical realism, they are stories that are easy to relate to. Because underneath the fantastic plots are emotional themes most people can identify with.

The one that resonated with me best was the story of Tony Takitani, whose wife was obsessed with the accumulation of clothes. In my case, my obsession is amassing books. I’ll spare you the spoilers so I won’t say much about it except that it shows Murakami’s dry humor as well as his splendid way of taking what’s ordinary to weave extraordinary tales.

A Poor Aunt Story is more fantastic but still very easy to grasp, which is not to say that it is simplistic or dumbed down. The narrator in the story suddenly finds himself bearing on his shoulder a poor aunt that just won’t go away. It’s great how this metaphor can be interpreted in different ways by different readers. The shoulder-borne aunt may represent limiting mindsets, bad habits, debilitating fears, and counterproductive behavior. Or whatever you think it is.

So relatable are the stories that if you take away the Japanese names of people and places, these stories could happen to anyone anywhere in the world. Anyone who suffers loss, experiences love, and wonders at life. Maybe because of it being so universal, what is missing is the “Japaneseness” of it. If you look closer though, the issues can be those which are prevalent in Japan. Suicide, for instance.

Expectedly, the stories show Murakami’s obsession with death, particularly suicide. A character says, “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” Even then, death is not trivialized; his characters ponder much on the loss of life and the sorrow that comes with it.

Before this, the only Murakami piece I’ve read was Kafka on the Shore, which wowed me with the writing but freaked me out with the oedipal theme. After reading this, I have not yet decided if I should become a fan. This might not be the book to convert me into a Murakamite. It is not iconic like Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, or Kafka on the Shore. It is rarely listed among his notable works. But if this well written book is not one of his best, then I would certainly like to read the rest of Murakami’s works.

…maybe even more. I came from the ninja party of book lusters. I was so drunk with books I wasn’t sure. And it’s all because I’m a member of www.bookmooch.com. I’ll let one of the bookmoochratis explain what all this is about.

Blooey tells you the story of how a bunch of Filipino bibliophiles revived the surface mail industry. It’s an exciting story that involves worldwide treasure hunts, destroyed canvas bags, and a subpoena for a hapless customs officer.

And me, I’m just on the fringes of this story. 14 books is a slow day for Blooey and her ilk.

My memory is playing tricks on me. Sometimes it tells me that I haven’t yet read a particular book, and then I read it thinking for the first time, and everything just seems so familiar. Or sometimes I think I have read a book, but when I try to recall the plot, I haven’t a clue. Pride and Prejudice is an example of the former; Carol Shields’ Stone Diaries, of the latter.

And then there is this — Erich Segal’s Love Story. I don’t know if it belongs to the former or the latter category. I must have read it. Everybody did. But I can’t tell for sure.

Most of the people in my book group have read it so they were able to compare the feeling of reading it in their youth to the feeling of reading it now.

Reading it produced the strangest situation of everything being familiar. Why not? Love Story is a composite of tried and tested formulas for love stories. Rich boy meets poor girl. With all too familiar elements that spice up novels and movies — opposing parents, a sense of you and I against the world, love against all odds, tragedy, and other love story clichés. That was intentional, according to our book club moderator. Erich Segal, literature professor, really wanted to use all those elements to, I guess, prove a point. And he wrote a movie that was so well loved; it could now be considered a classic. And the book that followed the movie sold millions.

The most fluid and clearest of writing makes this a very easy read. Segal is a talented and disciplined writer. The dialog is witty and just a smidge cheesy. You don’t want to, but you find yourself saying awww. It’s good. Yes, a “but” is about to follow. But I am a very selfish reader. Good writing is not enough. Plot and characters are important, but ultimately it is about the book striking a chord, serving as a mirror to my own life and thoughts. Yes, there has to be something about me somewhere. Stop rolling your eyes; I admitted I’m self-absorbed. And Love Story, to me, is just a story.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m too old and jaded to appreciate Love Story. Not that I’m too old to appreciate falling in love, but this story really just skims the surface of love and relationships and marriage and family. My own relationships are way more complex, certainly not as pretty or novel-worthy, but they carry the scars of deeper hurts, uglier sins, graver losses. The wit and the kilig (romantic thrill) of the novel are nothing compared to the joys of real-life love. Death, cancer, and the premature end of a marriage are not things to be blasé about, but these have become all too common. So many movies and books have come after Love Story, employing the same basic plot but with more dramatic twists. More real-life dramas have hit closer to home. Love Story is a nice read. And, well, that’s it.

I confess I chose this book by virtue of its attractive cover. And the intriguing title.

The Muse Asylum is what it says it is, “an institution for the artistically gifted mentally ill.” This is where Andrew Wallace is voluntarily detained as he receives treatment for being crazy — seeing people on his trail, smashing his professor’s car, imagining conspiracies against him. Conspiracies led by Horace Jacob Little — the subject of his thesis, a reclusive writer, whose face, identity, and whereabouts have been an enigma to fans and the media.

Part of Andrew’s therapy is to write a memoir. In the memoir, which he calls Confessions, he writes, “Horace Jacob Little had been my password to love and happiness. My relationship with Lara tangled up in his fiction.”

Lara Knowles is Andrew’s fiancée. She is also the former love of Jake Burnett, a journalist who is assigned to write a scoop on Horace Jacob Little.

This threesome of former Princeton students gets entangled in a drama-filled chase for answers about love, truth, and Horace Jacob Little. Who is Horace Jacob Little? Where is he? What does he look like? Is he really after Andrew? As soon as you get the answers, the plot shifts and all your previous assumptions are blown out the window. And new answers emerge as even more new questions arise. The alternating narrations by Jake (the sane but seeking voice) and Andrew (the paranoid, tortured voice) give this novel a deep, interesting texture.

From the front cover blurb to the last pages of the novel, this is branded as a post modern novel. Frankly, I wouldn’t recognize postmodernism even if it hits me on the face with a metanarrative. Regardless, this is an entertaining read. Because Czuchlewski can write, albeit in a raw, first-novel, trying-hard-to-please-my-mentor-Joyce-Carol-Oates way. But he can write. He weaves words that make me feel the grime and heat of New York and the irony of isolation in the density of its people. He narrates in ways that make me empathize with every character. He inundates you with mush as Andrew describes his love for Lara, but hey, he’s a mad, love-sick, deeply troubled man and the author writes him as such. He knows how to lay it on and build it up, so much so that I was gearing up for a climax that would blow my mind away. Twenty pages away from the end of the book and I realized that that fantabulous, mind-blowing ending was not going to happen. The ending was satisfactory, with all the loose ends tied neatly and all the boggling questions answered. Satisfactory, but not fantastic.

Maybe Czuchlewski had a word count limit, or he ran out of time, because it seemed to me the novel could have been longer. Maybe by a couple more chapters. Long enough to properly explain how Jake Burnett, who started enamored by Lara and irked by Andrew suddenly became attached to Andrew and no longer in love with Lara. How the change of heart happened is not sufficiently developed. Or maybe that’s postmodernism playing with my head.

And is it postmodern to have a story within a story? Little’s novels and short stories expectedly have striking parallelisms with the first narrative being played out within the quirky love triangle of Andrew-Lara-Jake. I like it, but lately, I’ve been reading a lot of those types of twists, they’re no longer twists.

This is probably one of those books that I would like better after the reading. I’m still chewing on it even after having finished it days ago. There are clever surprises at the end that made me appreciate the author, his humor, and okay, postmodern literature.

My copy: Hardbound with Dust Jacket

I was itching to read this book because there are very few English grammar books written by Filipinos and primarily for Filipinos.

Why are such books important? Because a list of common grammar mistakes among Filipinos would differ from a list of common grammar mistakes committed by Americans. It has to do with the Filipino language’s nuances that affect how we translate Filipino to English. Our misuse of prepositions, for example, owes itself to our having very few, hardworking, multi-tasking prepositions; the Filipino preposition sa, for example, takes the role of to, from, in, on.

Americans tend to make a big deal of the difference between lay and lie, when that does not bother us as much as matching subjects with verbs. Subject-verb agreement is very tricky for us because our verb conjugations are rarely affected by the number of the subject. (Si Juan ay pumunta sa palengke. Kaming lahat ay pumunta sa palengke.)

I like that Carillo focuses on the 10 Most Annoying Grammar Mistakes instead of attacking every grammar rule.

The blurb on the front cover says that this is a highly instructive book. It is. Carillo knows his stuff. I have learned, or at least been reminded of, a few things from this book.

I also like that the book is very slim. It makes it a handy guide that can occupy prime work station realty; you can keep this beside the computer.

The 120 peso price tag is one of the best things about this book. I want a book like this to be readily available to as many Filipinos as possible.

I’m with Carillo when he talks about squinting modifiers.

I share his passionate annoyance with the mixing of the pronoun their together with the indefinite pronoun everybody. I once saw a TV ad that used the tag line “Everyone has their own story.” And I wanted to write a vehement letter to the company. That is wrong because everyone, even though in its sense is plural (similar to all), grammatically it is singular. Everyone is welcome. Everyone has been informed of the latest rules. Everyone who attends the workshop must bring her own tools.

There are a couple of points that don’t sit well with me, the use of semi-colons for instance . Which is not to question the author’s stand. It’s just proof that grammar is not necessarily an exact science. There is a great degree of subjectivity where the ear of the listener serves as a biased judge as to what sounds right.

Because this book is very focused, very concise, it is not for everybody. It’s very instructive, yes. But it is also very pedantic. This is not for the grammatically clueless. It seems to address highly educated readers who are already well versed in English but just need reminders or guidance in clarifying a few minor points of confusion. My observation can be substantiated by some of the reader responses. Those who read Carillo’s language guidelines are people who actually enjoy using and learning more about the language. People who consider it pleasantly challenging to debate Carillo’s language usage.

It is not for everybody. It is not for the truly annoying grammar criminals who have no idea that there is a difference between it’s and its. Not for those who fog up at hearing the phrase subject-verb agreement. Not for people who will be scared by the book’s impassioned debate about transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. Nor readers who might get turned off or intimidated by some of the complex grammar rules explained in the book. People who just want to be able to speak English with minimum embarrassment and would live and die without having to be illuminated on the thin-line difference between the verbs take and bring. Those who really annoy you with their unique and “creative” interpretation of the English language. The ones who truly need a grammar book.

What I’m trying to say is that the book’s size, price, and coarse newsprint pages may have made the book accessible, but the language still does not.

I’m also bewildered by the Endnotes chapter. A last minute addition to a book that was already done, blueprints and all? I think it would have been better to insert them into the appropriate chapters, instead of having that postscript chapter. Seemed anti-climactic to me after its previous chapter, Summing it Up, well, summed it up.

Another thing I didn’t like about this book is that it is almost purely instructional. Maybe it’s just me, but I think entertainment value matters as well if one really wants to reach out to an audience of disinterested readers who might benefit from this book. Dr. Dups Reyes is one who attempts to do this and succeeds to a certain degree. Many other American books inject wit into their grammar lessons. June Casagrande’s Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies, Laurie Rozaki’s Comma Sutra, Steven Frank’s The Pen Commandments, and Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots, Leaves educate as well as entertain. It’s a good thing the book was short. Or else The 10 Most Annoying English Grammar Errors would be one of the most annoyingly boring books I’ve read.

Available at National Book Store.