Spent all day shopping for a music player for the kitchen. I really did get fed up with cooking in silence.
Except I didn’t, I got to Birmingham hungry after a train ride talking to an ex-pupil ( which was a real pleasure). Borders bookshop have the sort of Cafe with comfy chairs & sofas so I sat myself there with food & a coffee. It’s rather comfortable, so I stayed a while and read the book.
It would appear that you can alter the sensation of reading a book by changing your place. A book seems quite different if you read in a public space or at home in the quiet.
This book is deceptive, it seems easy to read, the language and voice are simple and conversational but the thoughts are much more. The author plays with seemingly incidental events and conversations amongst characters and serves them up in a way that gives them gravitas. You as reader can get drawn into this; if you do, you start to notice incidentals in your surroundings. So there am I, reading this book and absorbing the idea that things we do and see that are trivial are actually important and significant. We often don’t get to find out what the significance is, but gradually they reveal. And just like in “life”, some threads in Murakami’s books don’t ever resolve into anything. Life, as we know- is without plot: such a narrative is all imagined. Don’t we do this all the time- seek order out of the haphazard mess we are surrounded by? For now, most of the book remains unread, but there are some tantalising chapter titles to get to.
Spirit of Turpentine 