The shelf: June 2013

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

No wonder it is highly-criticized. I just finished reading this book and I spent good five minutes channeling out the stress and my adrenaline the final pages of this book has produced in me.

Now that the five minutes is long over, I have chosen to write the review now, because this book has created overwhelming emotions in me and putting the emotions aside, to blog it later, does not do the book justice.

I am having a mixture of emotions now. But a major part of me is angry. Very angry. I am angry with myself, for having had the patience to go through this book for almost three weeks now. I devoted painstaking moments with this book, with this very long story, just to realize that, this is a love story. A weird love story, after all.

Aomame is destined for Tengo. They both undergo surreal experiences to finally meet each other after 20 years. Those surreal experiences are prosed into a long, long narration. (You might want to reread this in a sarcastic tone)

To finally arrive on the blessed day where they could hold hands again like when they were ten years old, this story encounters a fantastical detour during when they both get plunged into 1Q84 world. 1Q84 is a world with two moons. 1Q84 is a world where there is a cult called Sakigake. Sakigake's leader have sex with pre-pubertal girls not due to pedophilic desires, but absurdly, to pass his progenies. The Leader hears voices, most probably belonging to characters called Little People. The significance of the Little People or the cult was not explained till the end of the volumes.

Aomame and Tengo are drawn to each other by a force. Tengo and Aomame have been separated since they weer ten years old. However, this unexplained force makes Tengo writes the story of Sakigake cult via Leader's ever boobylicious teenage daughter, Eriko Fukada. This force makes Aomame assassinate the Leader for his pedophilic activities. In the end, Sakigake followers trail Tengo to ask him to stop writing about them, and they trail Aomame to find out the reason for the murder. Tengo's and Aomame's paths cross and after another surreal experience, they get out of the world with two moons, to live together. Complicated, really. It took me three weeks to realize all Murakami was trying to tell me is, the force is called love. I don't want to write more about the plot, since it is so confusing, with unnecessary details. Or probably because, I am just not good at telling stories.

Anyway, this is something I must write about since I feel very disheartened whenever this part arises in the book. Probably I am just biased about Japanese, but while I was reading this book, I got the feeling that this book was mainly about sex. Or better put, this novel is a product of a man's sexual fantasy. I could say that this author like two types of girls. One, voluptuous girls with bouncy breasts. Second, athletic girls, regardless of the size of the breasts. I got to say this, it irritated me to the core with all these detailed unnecessary boob-talks. Eriko Fukada, a-17-year-old-girl, thin and slender seemed to have lost total emotions and the most interesting part of her were the perfect, large hemispheres that sit on her chest.

This is probably how he imagined Eriko Fukado. A real Japanese, I would say. Same goes to other female characters in this story namely, Tamaki, Ayumi, and a nurse I could not remember the name of now. Aomame is probably the only character in this book with small stuffs and even she was portrayed as being insecure about the size of her stuffs. Don't believe me? Nah, here's one of the 77 excerpts about breast. "And she mourned their lovely breasts-breasts that had vanished without a trace."

What does that supposed to mean? Why do you need to mourn for breasts? Wtf.

I just don't get it. Why all these fascinations with the sizes of mammary gland,Murakami?

More to prove that this story was nothing other than pornography,a straight man's pornographic ideas, were the sexual scenes that did not serve any purpose in the development of the plot. This is really evident in the first few chapters when Aomame recalled her teenage lesbian experience, which I assume is very fascinating from a man's point of view. Other than that, the fact that Aomame opt for middle-aged, balding man and is very demanding on bed made me wonder, did Murakami actually write his actual sexual fantasy? Like how he wants to be controlled on bed by a person like Aomame? Again, Eriko Fukada, a teenager appears, whose only description would be her perfect ample breasts. Then, it's Ayumi, a wild policewoman, a straight woman who is in control, who also wants to have lesbian experiences with straight Aomame, with handcuffs? I am not trying to be feminist here, but seriously, those ample, beautiful breasts and all your sexual role-plays made me sick. They were not even sensual, just plain boring. After sex, Tengo's married-older-girlfriend touched his flaccid penis while listening to jazz. So?

I don't want to write more about this. Seems really stupid to me. Orang tua gatal betul.

Now, let's talk about the good things in this book.

This book is mysterious. It offers narration from two separate characters at first, Aomame and Tengo respectively. I was wondering how these two people are connected and how they are going to meet each other again. I also wondered many times, the significance of their childhood. Aomame was born to believers of the Society of Witnesses and she wasforced to follow her parents around for preaching. Tengo is the son of door-to-door fees collector, and thus, he was forced to follow his father around to collect fees. These two separate events must have left deep scars in the hearts of ten year old Tengo and Aomame that must be the precursor of their personalities. However, the role of those choildhood experiences was elaborated in this book but was left to be pondered by readers.

Other than that, Murakami tried to tell the world about religion in this story. Sakigake is a cult religious organization. Society of Witnesses preached everyone about the arrival of the end. The beliefs are different. Yet, what is important is, the belief that there is God. Nor Sakigake neither Witnesses was put in a superior state, but Murakami let the readers know the main point. Probably, the point that Murakami himself is founded upon. That the is God. Probably. However, he leaked some of his thoughts,I believe. For example, "Any religion that takes the end of the world as one of its central tenets is more or less bogus." "Cold or Not, God is present." One thing I really agree with him is, "the gods give, the gods take away."

Murakami reminds me of Paulo Coelho. Coelho's books are filled with beautiful, wise food for thoughts and I have to admit that Murakami was not far from that too. Gladly, I read this book in eBook form and I had the time of my life highlighting phrases that made me twitch. I probably have to create a new post just to list down the quotes, they are that many. One that I am very fond of is, "there is no one in this world who can't be replaced." That one gave me shivers, taught me to lay low and be humble, because the moment I leave this world, someone's going to take my place.

This book taught me a lot about Asian religions. I have been struggling to understand the concept of utopia and communism for quite sometime, and this book helped to levitate most of my confusions. This book also helped me to think about the purpose of living. "Why God created us?" "If God didn't exist, how much brighter my life would be?" This book also helped me to appreciate my family. I am grateful that my Sundays were filled with watching tv and playing, not with preaching or collecting fees.

Overall, the absolutely unnecessary sex scenes and the meticulously-written-tiny-miny details disappointed me. The plot in a way was not satisfying for me, this is because, there were many repetitions. For example, I think, Tengo's and Aomame's background was repeated at least four times. I find that absolutely redundant. However, some parts were cleverly planned. This is true, in the last volume, when, Ushikawa came into the picture and he was trailing both Aomame and Tengo. The quotes and the language used was thoughtful. Credits to the translator.

I have to admit though, till the end, I did not really get what the main idea of this book.

I guess, I will remember this book as a long story(1000+ pages), a love story and a complicated story.

Anyway, all the while, this is how I Imagined Tengo looks like.

Fate, Flutter, Wisdom by Amanda Hocking: A summary

The reason why I am compiling all three books in one post is because, I read them back-to-back continuously in a week and honestly, I lost track of the defining border between the books.

So, again, this series is about Alice Bonham, who attracts vampires to her, because of her deliciously-scented blood. In the end of My Blood Approves,(something about My Blood Approves here) Peter bites Alice almost to death, thank God, Ezra managed to do a blood transfusion on Alice that made her alive again. Fate tells us, how Milo, the younger brother of Alice is turned to a vampire after he had a fatal vampire. Fate is all about Milo learning to be a vampire and Alice being left out, since she is the only human among her social circle. At the end of Fate, Jack forces Alice to turn into a vampire, since Jack loves Alice so much and that's the only way to break the physical bond between Alice and Peter. Unable to contain the misery and the pain of suddenly being 'de-bonded' from Alice, in book 3, Flutter, Peter escapes to Finland,to surrender himself to Lycans, a group of barbaric vampires. Yet, Alice feels responsible for his suicidal-escape, so Alice teamed up with Ezra went all the way to Finland to bring Peter back. Despite being a new vampire, they, of course, aced the dangerous mission. In Flutter, Jane, Alice's childhood friend ends up being a bloodwhore and brings more problems to her. Flutter ends with Mae, turning her great-granddaughter to a vampire, a 5-year-old child vampire. Peter, Mae and Daisy, the child vampire migrate to Australia and that is the end of Flutter.

Wisdom, the fourth book in My Blood Approves series, was the better one compared to all the 3 books in the series. I believed Amanda Hocking showed significant improvement in the choice of words and in the development of the plot. Jane gets herself killed while Alice was in Australia and Alice determines to look for the perpetrator. In the process, Alice gets physical training from vampire hunter, Olivia and 14-year-old street vampire, Violet. Alice becomes extremely powerful and skillful ( as she annoyingly, did backflips in all the fights she got onto). She finds Jane's murderer and kills him. Mae wrung Daisy's neck because Mae could not bear to see Daisy in pain in turning to be a vampire.In the midst of these conflicts, Milo and Alice found out who their father is. A vampire who had sex with their mother, which explains why Milo and Alice are special vampires. In the end, Peter, Jack and Alice are confronted by vampire hunters. That is the climax. Jack's hanging onto a chain that's leading into a bottomless pit, while Alice is holding the chain and tries to pull the chain up. She fails and Jack falls into the pit. But, Peter saves the day by taking over the chain and he manages to pull Jack up. So, in the end, everybody but Jane lives. Forever, since they are vampires.

Overall, this series was engaging. It made me fall in love with vampires. I still think that most of the plot is superficial and quick, like the author was rushing to end it. Yet, as I mentioned before, as the series progresses, the writing style improved and she finally got rid of the word 'foxy'. Thank God.

Things I like about this series, is her creativity in creating things like vampire clubs; where vampire hang out to bite willing-human-prey, blood bank where human sell blood, tinking its for medical uses but in actuality, the blood is actually for vampires to drink. I was also enthralled with the idea of a child vampire, something I would never have thought about. A child who grows up into an adult inside, but externally, she is just a child.

Despite the things I said in my initial review about My Blood Approves, I think this series isn't that bad, after all.

The shelf

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Fate, Flutter, Wisdom by Amanda Hocking: A summary

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