August 7th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Haruki Murakami
“What do you like about his book?” A friend asked when we were at MPH scouting for a good bargain.
“It is really good lah!” I replied.
“What about it that you think it’s good?” he questioned with curiosity of a cat.
“It’s damn perverted ok!” I said.
“How perverted?” He refused to give up.
“Uhm… about how people having sex even in dreams.” I replied weakly.
“That’s not perverted!” he laughed.
“Yeah! Just like wet dreams!” I thought to myself. It felt like I just slapped myself hard across the face.
Perverted is definitely not a word to describe Mr Haruki Murakami’s work. In fact, I find there isn’t any precise word to describe Mr Murakami. “Brilliant! Work of a Genius! Virtuous! Sublime!” are some cliché accolades printed from cover to cover carrying no meaning, unless you get yourself immersed by the lyrical prose and the jazzy charm of his words.
A new addition to his short stories collection, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” carries a caution note on the cover – “A warning to new readers of Haruki Murakami: You will become addicted…”. Warning came too late. I was as addicted as a junkie to heroin the moment I opened the Pandora Box in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.
To sum my awe and admiration for this Japanese writer, I couldn’t simply put the addiction into words. Perhaps, I will try to illustrate it.
My beautician complained of the dark rings and eye bags under my eyes getting worse; proof of staying up awake most nights just to read another page yet another yet another of Norwegian Wood till way past my bed time.
Evidence of vivid dreams arising from reading the Elephant Vanishes – weird creatures of jelly fishes with man’s face, dead babies, kidnap rush, elephants falling from the sky, landslide, teddy bears and Greek God – need I say more?
Appearing in trance-like state when I was on the way to work after I found out the true identity of Oshima in Kafka on the Shore.
When I had reached the final few chapters of every book, I tried to slow down my reading pace before I hit the book stores again to get another. Like a chain smoker, lighting up a cigarette one after another and quitting cold turkey might just kill you.
I could go on and on and yet, I couldn’t find suitable words to describe his work. He exudes this enigmatic aura in his stories. It draws you deeper as you plunge into the darkness of his spell binding stories… and made you crave for more.
To keep things simple, I would say, it’s “Ferociously addictive and readers are advised to proceed with caution”. It’s a waste that I don’t see his books hitting the best selling list in our local book stores. If you miss Haruki Murakami’s work, you might not have read fiction at all.