Counterbalance

Ignoring 1Q84

I guess it was inevitable. All that hype. All the lead-up. All the excitement around the release of Murakami's 1Q84 and reading it right away, even though we all know I never read big, important, much ballyhooed books right away. What was I thinking?

At least I re-read all his stuff. (Oh no, I used that DFW word to make you all think I'm not as smart as I really am and to seem all casual-like. Watch out.) And I'm finally reading other things. Which is an odd sort of relief mixed with guilt. Murakami guilt: it's all the rage, haven't you heard?

At the lovely #midnightmurakami event at Skylight Books (truly sweet to meet other Murakami fans who would otherwise never venture out of their homes to speak to people in a group publicly, over cookies & tea), I picked up a few distractions:

• Ether by Ben Ehrenreich (so used to his brilliant non-fiction, thought this would be a nice change)
• Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet (she is a genius. period.)

Don't get me wrong, I've been petting my gorgeous 1Q84. I've skimmed. I'm just not ready to commit with so many other novels to devour first.

At the start of this month, I spent time in the Bay Area for a host of events and meetings and family gatherings and managed to sneak in a few days in Napa. No Napa trip would be complete without a trip to Copperfield's Books in Calistoga, where I picked up a few more distractions:

• Naked Wine by Alice Feiring (oh the irony of reading this surrounded by big Napa cabs)
• Blue Nights by Joan Didion (she will be in LA next week!)
• Half Empty by David Rakoff (to counter the intensity of Didion!)
• The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh (hello, #49erfaithful !?!)

And so, you can see this fancy web of distractions I've carefully crafted. Support my indie bookstores, buy books that are not 1Q84, read those books and somehow subvert the blame all the while still suffering from acute Murakami guilt. Perhaps you are actually reading 1Q84 and have thoughts to share? Would love to hear them.

Alas, I've got another distraction to cultivate: 49ers/Giants in an hour.

#midnightmurakami

A social media story in five parts:

• I'm obsessed with Murakami and tweeted my notice that WORD Brooklyn was doing a midnight event for his new 1Q84 book that becomes available for purchase in the U.S. on Tuesday, October 25th.
• Carolyn Kellogg retweeted with a question and included @skylightbooks as a possible place for me to check about a midnight event. Alas, I had already checked and there was no event planned.
• Hours later, tweets from Skylight indicated they were trying to make it happen.
• The next day, it was confirmed.
• Tonight, they are hosting a #midnightmurakami event from 10pm - 12:01am in celebration of Murakami's new book.

Here's the thing:

THIS is what I wish everyone of my clients would do. THIS is what all the social media folk tell their clients to do. THIS is what every Mashable article is ostensibly about - connecting with your customers, finding a way to bring the online world into the offline world. You talk about social reading (yes, my much longer piece on this and its many definitions is forthcoming)? THIS. IS. IT. Facebook it if you will but I can think of no better way to show your customers how much you care about them than to pull together this kind of event, impromptu-style, from an online request to an in-person experience.

Crazier still:

On this very day, with the event only hours away, there's a piece in Publisher's Weekly about the trouble Skylight Books is having in these oh so scary for indie bookstores times. This bookstore, struggling to stay open, is doing it right. They care so much about their customers that they are staying open tonight for us. You can talk all you want about tech and how it is changing the digital reading landscape (it is) and how you lament your favorite bookstore closing - but it means nothing if you don't put your money where your mouth is. Have you visited your local "favorite" bookstore lately? Have you purchased anything? If you live in LA, please join me and many others tonight at Skylight Books at 10pm to do your part. Buy the Murakami book, buy several others. I'll see you there. Let's do this.

Out of the Silence: Murakami Linkage

I've gone quiet in my post-Murakami reading madness and I'm not entirely sure why. I'm certain it is related to Murakami. I've read no fiction in the interim but have managed to plow through nine different yoga texts for a work-related project. I'm treading lightly on my Murakami brain, tentatively flexing my Murakami muscle, or some such other horrible analogy that does not do his work justice or clarify my silence.

I will say this: I miss it.

Which is why: I've only read a few pages of After Dark so I can somehow hold onto this thing that I miss before the big wave of 1Q84 hits. I will savor it this weekend in prep for the release of 1Q84 next week.

Also: I have a feeling I should re-read Orwell's 1984. Overkill?

Until then, the Murakami marketing engine has produced some excellent linkage that I'd be remiss not to share:

• Knopf's Spotify list for 1Q84
• An interview with Jay Rubin, Murakami's longtime translator, in which he says: "I think it’s a pretty feeble pun, this whole thing, this Q." 
• The design for 1Q84 is more beautiful than I had imagined.
• The Harvill Seker UK version is also very lovely.
• Knopf Tumbled an intriguing "quotagraphic" from 1Q84
• Sonny Mehta says that "At its core, 1Q84 is a spectacular love story..." Hmmm.

Reading About Dreams Within Dreams Engenders Dreams Within Dreams

Did I mention that this crazy re-read all Murakami novels project has resulted in the most bizarre dreams within dreams within dreams? My sleeping life has come to resemble my reading life. Which, strangely, now seems to pervade my waking life.

I see every suggestion as a tunnel to bore through. I see every PowerPoint in meetings as a labyrinthine underworld that could reveal itself in a thousand and one dangerous or beautiful (or both) ways.

It's official: I've got Murakami on the brain and in the brain and on my skin and under my skin. Makes for an odd stew to move within each day.

Sussing Out Murakami's Style

I'm still working my way through the deliciousness and madness that a back to back re-read of Murakami's novels will induce. I just finished Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and will begin Dance Dance Dance this week. I've been through the proverbial ringer. This is a fascinating challenge I've set for myself that requires much stamina and I'd be remiss if I didn't take at least a day to pause and assess what I'm understanding and not. What I'm seeing and not. And how I might go about documenting, even in a rudimentary way, the interconnectedness between the novels.

Part of that taking pause involved a little coming up for air. A re-entry back into this world. A little Googling. As I try to make sense of what I just read, I stumbled upon this excellent Paris Review interview from 2004.

A few of Murakami's responses that I've particularly enjoyed reading today:

"I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world."

"Even now, my ideal for writing fiction is to put Dostoevsky and Chandler together in one book. That’s my goal."

 

"...writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity."

 

"In War and Peace Tolstoy describes the battleground so closely that the readers believe it’s the real thing. But I don’t. I’m not pretending it’s the real thing. We are living in a fake world; we are watching fake evening news. We are fighting a fake war. Our government is fake. But we find reality in this fake world. So our stories are the same; we are walking through fake scenes, but ourselves, as we walk through these scenes, are real. The situation is real, in the sense that it’s a commitment, it’s a true relationship. That’s what I want to write about."

Re-Reading Every Murakami Novel Back to Back to Back...

 
 
...feels something like this. Every novel is a bit of a goose chase (or Wild Sheep Chase, if you will), a story within a story, a maze to conquer, a knotted ball of yarn to unravel neatly or not. Each Murakami story requires a certain amount of burrowing deeper and deeper in, unsure of what lies at the center. Will it be full of nougaty goodness or hot lava or will the trail go cold halfway there in some middle earth madness? Murakami readers must be game to go along for an often circuitous ride. This effect is compounded when re-reading these novels back to back. There is a distinct dialogue between the novels (and, I believe, the characters from one novel to another) that I find fascinating.

The references between the works shine forth in a way they never did when I read the novels separately, with years and many other novels in between. While I planned to re-read all of Murakami's novels (and of course 1984) before reading 1Q84 this fall, I did not initially intend to re-read them in a row. Yet once I'd read two back to back, I saw things I knew I'd never see if I had not done so.

I'm only just finishing novel number three in a long line, so bear with me while I give chase to this unexpected (and frankly, exhausting and often bewildering) adventure.

*Image via Ceramics at the Barn