Hello and Good morning. It's a sunny day and the weather has been beautiful. Definitely the mornings and evenings are much colder now, but the afternoons can still be warm. It's hard to adjust, and sometimes I complain about it when I should be enjoying it.
Since last month, I've seen and done lots of little things of note, except that I haven't constructed any posts to talk about them. Yes, I'm still having trouble with that one. I like to think of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, I just want find myself guided to make posts, I don't want to artificially force myself to post, as though it were a job. I already have a job, and it is long and boring.
I haven't been writing lately, even in my journal, which is my main writing practice. While in real life, I am a financial assistant, I think I still have the fantasy that I'm actually a novelist. A novelist without a book . Something like that.
Speaking of novels, I read Haruki Murakami's massive tome: 1Q84. It took a long time, but I pressed forward, steadily. I got the book from the library, but it was so huge, that I hated holding it and lugging it around, so I downloaded a copy and put it on my phone. I use the UB reader app to read on my phone. My phone is big enough and the app is clear enough, that I find it not a bad way to read. It definitely is not the same thing, and I generally prefer paper books, but it sure is convenient, especially for reading on my lunch break, which is my current pasttime.
1Q84 was an odd, slow-moving book. I cant recommend it to everyone, and certainly not as a first Murakami read. I believe it's the fifth book of Murakami that I've read, and it seems like about the right timing. As with all the other Murakami books I"ve read, 1Q84 employs dream logic liberally, which creates a sense of strangeness and mystery. The plot rises in falls in ways far different from the usual sort of tension building, climax, finale sort of adventure books I often read. When I finished I had to ask myself if I actually enjoyed it.
I decided that I did. The slowness and the length allowed me to really sit with the characters for a good long time, and become invested in them. And while there were answers for very few of the many questions raised in the book, I was okay with the resolution. This is a big part of why I can't recommend the book to others, because there are many who will not be happy with having mysteries that are simply never adequately explained. I find with Murakami it is best to interface with the ideas on a primal level, decide how they make you feel, and accept that their purpose is to make you feel that way, while serving a plot function as well. It's hard to explain.
Since finishing my book, I've moved on to 'A Storm of Swords' by George R. R. Martin. I have a copy of this series on my phone, so I usually just turn to it when I'm between books. These books are a really easy read, and I never have trouble getting into them. This is either the second or third time I've read through them, but this time I'm going through in reverse order. It started over a year ago when I wanted a refresher on books 4 and 5. I can't say I recommend it, as this time through, I'm taking note of many of the various names and places, and I can't recall if they go on to do anything in the later books.
I will say that Martin's world-building continues to impress me. While the books may seem somewhat rambling and expansive as they move along, I find that the history of Westeros seems pretty tightly bound and well-managed. There are many reminders that the place and time of this story is just one in a long, long history. I get a sense of the laws and rules of the world and how much the characters are caught up within them, sometimes without realizing it. There's no justice in this world, but there are also no winners. Everyone loses, it's just a matter of when. Grim, but gripping.
Further media notes include: Saw the first two episodes of Luke Cage on Netflix last night. So far, it is very good. The characters are interesting, and motivated, there are some who are set up to be bad guys, but at the same time are victims of circumstance. Similar to Game of Thrones, there are just some things that are out of their control. I am very interested to see how this plays out.
Finally, Jane and I watch Steven Universe almost every night. It's... really great. I kinda want to ramble endlessly about it, but I'm just going to keep watching and see what happens next. Peridot is my fav, for the record.
-D
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