Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Setting aside the musical wonders (which I didn't really track down the first time I read it), there are two interesting things going on for me in this first section of the story (from the opening ..."

Well, here's my first impression take: There are obviously several layers of "reality" and "truth" in the story. The narrator (I assumed), is loosely based on Murakami himself, who would have gone to college, and might or might not have contributed to literary magazines, but I doubted from the start that he actually contributed a story such as the narrator says that he did.

(view spoiler)[To me, the appearance of the record with the white label seems to be an obvious fiction, but who knows? 😉 (hide spoiler)]

Since the dream was a dream, I supposed he lied about that too, because, who cares about the reality of a dream? On second thought, perhaps we should!

Before I checked out your "music" post, Amy, my allover take at the end of the story was that this was a wonderful tribute to a talent that disappeared long before it should have, and a mourning of a life that was cut short far too early.

One of the parts that deeply touched me, were these passages, especially the bit that I bolded:
(view spoiler)[I’d like you to start by listening to the first track on the A side, “Corcovado.” Bird doesn’t play the opening theme. In fact, he doesn’t take up the theme until one phrase at the end. The piece starts with Carlos Jobim quietly playing that familiar theme alone on the piano. The rhythm section is simply mute.

The melody calls to mind a young girl seated at a window, gazing out at the beautiful night sky. Most of it is done with single notes, with the occasional no-frills chords added. As if gently tucking a soft cushion under the girl’s shoulders.

And once that performance of the piano theme is over, Bird’s alto sax quietly enters, a faint twilight shadow slipping through a gap in the curtain. He’s there, before you even realize it. These graceful, seamless phrases are like lovely memories, their names hidden, slipping into your dreams. Like fine wind patterns you never want to disappear, leaving gentle traces on the sand dunes of your heart… (hide spoiler)]

...but after reading your "music" post, I'm thinking it's actually a tribute to all of the musicians he mentions in the story, but I'm still scratching my head as to why that particular piece from Beethoven - Beethoven has so many more lyrical and passionate pieces of music than that particular piece which is so stilted that it almost sounds like Mozart to me. Oh well, different strokes for different folks, of course.

Ah, thanks for doing all that footwork with finding that music, Amy!
...while I was desperately searching for more Artur Schnabel recordings... :P

Phew, you did a lot of work!

Ok, so (this has a slightly better sound, anyway) does this one work for you? Here is the start of the Allegro bit that Murakami refers to:
https://youtu.be/P_dbfygG9Ys?t=1767
and here it starts getting slightly "jazzy" (if you use your imagination a lot)
https://youtu.be/P_dbfygG9Ys?t=1929

EDIT oops, sorry, second link was wrong, now corrected.

..and if that doesn't work either, here is another start for the Rondo (Allegro) https://youtu.be/XkgNwgTYccg?t=1744 . and the jazzy bit here: https://youtu.be/XkgNwgTYccg?t=1960

I have one last trick up my sleeve if none of those work.

Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Huh. I, for some reason, thought we were just reading the titular story... but since I got the book from the library, am finishing it, anyway.
The beginning of "Cream" reminded me of a novel that I..."

We're definitely doing the titular story, let me link to a thread for it now. Here it is: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hi everyone, thread for discussion of Haruki Murakami's "On A Stone Pillow", "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" and "First Person Singular".

Let's start with comments on "On a Stone Pillow".
Apologies for holding back a bit, but I think it was Broken Tune who mentioned that her library is only releasing the book to her tomorrow, so I don't want to rush on too fast without her.
So let's comment on a story per thread now, just to give her a chance to catch up - sorry about that.

EDIT: Brokentune got a message through to me to say not to wait for her, that she's moving house and will be without internet this weekend. But as usual, our threads remain open to comment, so feel free to post still, whoever comes late.

Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "But I get a message saying that video is not available"

I posted links to quite a few, so which one is that, Linda? The Beethoven?

Hi everyone, this thread is for comments on the following stories from First Person Singular: Stories :
"Cream", "With the Beatles" and " The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection " .

As soon as you are ready, we can start with comments about the story "Cream".

It is indeed a charming story, and what a powerful tribute to Charlie Parker! Thanks for recommending the story, Amy!

Well now, since Amy has read the entire collection, and it looks like Cordelia is up for listening to the entire collection, we might as well comment on the entire collection, and I've thought of a plan on how to do it.

So, how about we discuss the rest of the collection of 8 with 3 threads, another story in this thread, and 3 stories each in the other threads. We can interweave the stories in the threads so as to not give spoilers to people who are a bit behind with the schedule.

So how about we discuss "Cream", "With the Beatles" and " The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection " in one thread, to be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , and then "Carnival" later on in this thread, and the rest of the stories in another thread which I shall point to soon.

For now, please continue commenting on Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova in this current thread.

Sorry, but while I'm commenting on the story regarding the music mentioned in it, I might as well go all the way. Somewhere in the story, a piece of music by Beethoven is mentioned. This recording has a very dated sound, because it's obviously very old, but I wanted to point to Artur Schnabel (mentioned in the story) playing it (the third movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 1.), because he has a rather distinct phrasing in his interpretation of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtwp...

Probably one of the farthest things from Jazz that I can think of, but I suppose I can see it coming in, in the development, here: https://youtu.be/gEtwpOTSFtU?t=183 If you listen on a bit, the "jazzy" bit repeats again, even slightly more jazzy.

As a bit of background to the story, I'd like to make a confession. I had not known that there existed a person named Charlie Parker AKA Bird, so I looked him up.



Per Wikipedia: "Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" and "Yardbird," was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso and introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Parker's tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber.

Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career on the road with Jay McShann. This, and the shortened form "Bird," continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite," "Ornithology," "Bird Gets the Worm," and "Bird of Paradise." Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.

Apparently Parker had been addicted to opioids since age 16, when he had been prescribed morphine for pain due to a car crash he'd been involved in, and this addiction kinda ruined his life, and give him a reputation for being unreliable. When, after years of alcohol and opioid abuse he died on March 12, 1955, in the suite of his friend and patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City, while watching The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show on television. The official causes of death were lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, but Parker also had an advanced case of cirrhosis and had suffered a heart attack. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.
Crikey, poor dude!

As for his music, here is Charlie Parker playing a Bebop Jazz piece called "Blue Bird". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEBk...

Something else I didn't know, was what "Bossa Nova" was.
Again, Wikipedia to the rescue!
Bossa nova is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovative syncopation of traditional samba from a single rhythmic division. The "bossa nova beat" is characteristic of a samba style and not of an autonomous genre.

According to the Brazilian journalist Ruy Castro, the bossa beat – which was created by the drummer Milton Banana – was "an extreme simplification of the beat of the samba school", as if all instruments had been removed and only the tamborin had been preserved.

This is what Bossa Nova sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlL6a...

...and this video has a bit of background on it. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816EZ...

SO..... Murakami has Parker playing a style of music rather different, but not completely alien to what his signature genre was. What an imagination that man has, he's got me wondering what CP playing BN would sound like! :D

Nilanjana wrote: "Hi Amy I began reading “First Person Singular” like you suggested.
REALLY loving it. Thank you HONESTLY!

The language is so lucid and beautiful. This is my first of Haruki’s books by the way.

..."
Hi Nilanjana, the thread for the discussion is here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Oh, btw, did you guys manage to get hold of Shirley Jackson's Dark Tales ? If too many of you can't get it, I'm up for discussing both it and stories out of the Lottery collection in separate threads.

Yes, and I now regret not having set the time for the 22nd. But I wanted to give us enough time to get to the Shirley Jackson stories as well, and of course, the Poe.

Someone did say she could only get it for the 22nd, so I suppose it would be a fair compromise if we start commenting tomorrow afternoon/evening-ish for Friday?

Hi Cordelia, apologies, I'm a bit behind. Plus one of us is only getting their copy from the library on the 22nd, so I'll wait for her to catch up before I comment myself.

...but glad to see you liked it, and let's chat more about it on the weekend!

Bonni wrote: "message 188: by Bonni6 hours, 16 min ago
Bonni JOHNSONHi Traveller - came back to this plaform after years away - just to stumble on your discussion around Post modernism and DON DILLILO"S White No..."

Ah, ok, so it is here. Welcome to the group, Bonni! I'm not even sure we entirely completed this discussion, so it would be nice to continue with it and add to it! :)

Aloha wrote: "Hey ya! I’ve been more off GR than on than saw an email from Traveller. Hope everyone is doing well."

Aloha! Hey great to see you pop up again! Yes, I've been missing the GR crowd for years, just pity it requires so much time. I decided to -make- time for it, even if it's not as much as I'd like to. It also helps to force one to be more disciplined in your reading. Still trying to decide if the latter is a good or a bad thing :P
Hope you're doing as gr8 as you're looking these days!

Hi everyone, welcome to our Halloween special, The Tell-Tale Heart, a creepy thriller from a master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, with a story that chills the heart.

Hello members, welcome to the opening thread for Shirley Jackson's Dark Tales. We can start with this discussion on November 3.

We can also discuss selected stories from her collection The Lottery and Other Stories

Hi gang! I thought that in order to keep things organized while we discuss all of these short stories, we can have a central thread which I’ll point to in my message to all members introducing our short story project. On this thread, we can then decide who and what we want to read next, and I’ll then point you to the various threads from this central thread.

I had to post a book in the thread's "about" section, so I simply grabbed a book with an appropriate title. If anybody wants to read out of that actual book, please make your case and we can perhaps see how easily available it is.

Right, so our current discussion re Gabo's (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) The Autumn of the Patriarch can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Next, the thread for Haruki Murakami's First Person Singular: Stories, which we’re starting on October 21, to be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

After starting with, and concomitant to reading the Murakami, our Halloween special will be Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart to be found here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..., which will be for Oct. 29 to Nov 2.

Re Shirley Jackson:
I have read the entire short story collection that accompanies Shirely Jackson's The Lottery and Other Stories in search of creepy stories for Halloween, and although here and there subtly creepy, they're perhaps not her best. I think many of them were written before she found her "dark" voice, and many of the protagonists were like this :
Just not as cheerful. They were mostly extremely housewifey (even the male protagonist was decidedly domestic), but either powerless and subservient, or mean and manipulative. However, even though some of them were creepy or disturbing, the menace-meter wasn't really high enough for Halloween, I felt.

(Keep in mind that S.J. was born in the early 20th century, and most of these stories seem to hearken from the 30's 40's and 50's, and were very... restrained? )

(Other) Amy came to the rescue with a suggestion of this collection: Dark Tales, from which I've now read a few stories, and they seem far better. There are definitely a few from the Lottery collection that I would love to discuss, but for "Dark" stories in honor of Halloween, I definitely think we should go with the Dark collection.

So: Shirley Jackson thread, to be started on November 15, to be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hello members! We haven't quite figured out the format for the short stories yet. So far, I'm keeping them all in one folder, but no worries, if we want to expand, threads can always be moved and edited.

This thread for Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova from First Person Singular: Stories
We can start commenting on that story on October 20.