The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I have fond nostalgia for the early 90s-- my generation saw the end of the Cold War and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. My mom learned that JFK was shot while she was in typing class, but when I was in typing class, I pondered "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" Indeed, the 90's were a Lynchian wonderland. I watched and analyzed each episode of Twin Peaks the way people today watch and analyze Lost. So reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami triggered the part of my brain that lusts after crazy David Lynch.
Murakami creates a "real" world in parallel with a credible dreamlike "alternate" world. As in Kafka On The Shore, the protagonist is semi-alone, and searching for the meaning of his life. A cat is once again the catalyst for the search. Lynch created bizarre characters who were just accepted (the Log Lady) and Murakami does the same. The Kano sisters appear out of nowhere and dress as if from a different decade. They have psychic powers that are only slightly questioned. More new characters are introduced to the protagonist Mr. Okada than I might meet in an entire year; and Mr. Okada doesn't work and rarely leaves the house! A woman Nutmeg and her son Cinnamon become benefactors for Mr. Okada, and a Lieutenant Mamiya relates a distant past that turns out to be quite relevant to Mr. Okada's present, and likely his future.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was long. It's no secret I love a short and well edited book, but somehow this book kept me engaged, because I knew in the end all the storylines would somehow come together. And they did. Sort of.
I give this book 4/5 netflix stars.
Wine pairing: Casillero del Diablo Sauvignon Blanc. Translates as "Cellar of the Devil", not unlike the ominous wells which feature in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Also, at $7.99, a nice price for unemployed folks who have time to sit in wells, like Mr. Okada. And also for people who have time to take notes on every episode of Twin Peaks.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Everyone knows at least one cool kid. The girl who can introduce trends without ridicule, the guy who knows the next hot band, the girl who has friends across all groups, and is so smart, and the guy who can effortlessly go out with any girl.

Oscar Wao is not any of those cool kids. But Junot Diaz is.

Diaz wrote The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao with the kind of effortless prose and dialogue that any would-be writer could only hope to emulate. In this book you get the comi-tragic story of one cursed family, told in reverse. But hidden in that story is the less comic and more tragic story of the Trujillo rule in the Dominican Republic.
Any fan of Marquez or Allende would appreciate this book-- it's got a tinge of Latin magical realism, but with bite. If I could only recommend one book to read this year, this would be it! It's taken me more than a week to write these few sentences...I just can't compete with Diaz at all. He's way out of my league. 5/5 stars easily.

The Girl on the Fridge

In a perfect world the 29 or so books that I've read over the past year for this project would all have come directly from my bookshelf. I would not have bought books for a "nice price", nor would I have taken recommendations from friends and acquaintances. I certainly would not have checked out books from the library! But it's not a perfect world and I did all these things.

No one can write about the imperfect world more concisely, and with such dark humor as Etgar Keret, whose book of short shorts, The Girl on the Fridge, I just finished.

Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer and I read his book The Nimrod Flipout a few years back and surprisingly loved it. Soon thereafter I saw a movie based on his writing, Wristcutters: A Love Story, and despite its unfortunate name, it was a wonderful movie which perfectly captured the essence of his style. He writes with a baudy humor-- frequent subjects are suicide and break ups and terrorism. The situations in which his characters interact swing back and forth between reality and the fantastic or dreamlike. Most of his protaganists act on impulses that most of us would check. The orderly who glibly can't recall the name of a recently deceased patient is attacked and strangled by the patient's roommate. A young man realizes he has the power to yell "freeze!" and then direct people to do whatever he desires. A magician's power to pull rabbits out of his hat is suddenly disrupted and the rabbits he pulls out are sometimes headless or bodiless, dripping with blood. Underneath all the id directed actions, however, are underlying fears and insecurities, making the stories honest and wistful.

I think the short story is the hardest thing to write-- to contain a scene or characterization in just 1000 words or so takes immense talent. Plus, Etgar Keret writes from a uniquely Israeli experience-- guns and violence are a major way of life there, and he doesn't gloss over that. I give this book 5/5 netflix stars.