(no subject)

[aslant]

last night i finished haruki murakami's the wind-up bird chronicle. it is utterly weird. most of it i read while on the road trip last month, and perhaps that contributed to my general feeling that it went on and on, in such a surreal fashion, and never arrived anywhere in particular at the end. it made it easier to keep in mind that it is translated from the japanese; somehow this explained a lot of the structural & grammatical peculiarities. has anyone else read it? were you as confused as i was? am i being too linear and dense?

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i am starting margaret atwood's oryx and crake, partly because i couldn't get the title out of my head after reading a review. i'm reading it also to get away from ian mcewan's atonement, which is breaking my heart into tiny pieces and scattering it all over world war two.

a lecturer at the virginia woolf symposium last saturday referred to mcewan's style in 'atonement' as similar to the inner-thought procession of woolf's characters. 'atonement' is my escape from 'mrs dalloway', which i started in turn to escape from hermione lee's virginia woolf biography.

ok, but at least i am reading! even if in a roundabout, jacob's ladder kind of a way.