Killing Commendatore

by Haruki Murakami

Ogai Mori’s

gaudy

garish

conspicuous,

congeal

taciturn,

enigmatic

flits

beckoning

minced

scathing,

washi

traipse

lanky

Maurizio Pollini

Menshiki talked about opera. About how, on a trip to Sicily, he saw a spectacular performance of Verdi’s Ernani at the Catania opera house. The person seated next to him sang along with the performers,

It would be very long if you listed its merits. But I don’t particularly like to do that with wines. I’m not good at enumerating the merits of things, no matter what they are. It’s just a delicious wine—that’s enough, right?”

“When you’re locked up alone in a cramped, dark place, the most frightening thing isn’t death. The most terrifying thought is that I might have to live here forever.

In order to survive, a person has to overcome that fear. Which means conquering yourself. And in order to do that, you need to get as close to death as you possibly can.”

if you avoid approaching it, you can’t overcome fear and conquer yourself.”

encroach

sidled

assuage

The truth will actually confuse things. And it’s not going to make anyone happy.

How much loneliness the truth can cause sometimes.”

Instead of a stable truth, I choose unstable possibilities. I choose to surrender myself to that instability.

embellished,

And strangely enough (at least to me it felt strange), I’d begun to feel a closeness to Menshiki, a closeness I’d never felt to anyone before. An affinity—no, a sense of solidarity, really. In a sense, we were very similar—that’s what I thought. The two of us were motivated not by what we had got hold of, or were trying to get, but by what we’d lost, what we did not now have.

nook

cranny.”

croquis—rough

dessan.

“There are plenty of things in history that are best left in the shadows. Accurate knowledge does not improve people’s lives. The objective does not necessarily surpass the subjective, you know. Reality does not necessarily extinguish fantasy.”

sieve

“The truth is a symbol, and symbols are the truth. It is best to grasp symbols the way they are. There’s no logic or facts, no pig’s belly button or ant’s balls. When people try to use a method other than the truth to follow along the path of understanding, it is like trying to use a sieve to hold water.

“There is very little I can explain to my friends about Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore. That is because it is, in essence, allegory and metaphor. Allegories and metaphors are not something you should explain in words. You just grasp them and accept them.”

Anschluss,

“On March 12, 1938, the Wehrmacht smashed across the border with Austria,

incorrigible

tinged

over time, and as circumstances changed, a couple could grow closer, or move apart. Changes in a person’s feelings aren’t regulated by custom, logic, or the law. They’re fluid, unstable, free to spread their wings and fly away. Like migratory birds have no concept of borders between countries.

she was probably the type of person who’d had it drummed into her since she was little that when you visit someone’s house you always should bring along a present.

oeuvre.

bated

Lazarett

Lazarett was another name for the execution facility in the Treblinka concentration camp.

“How can somebody learn to draw this well?”

“It’s all practice. The more you practice the better you get.” “I think there are a lot of people,” she said, “who don’t improve, no matter how much they practice.”

“Fair enough, but you still have to practice. If you don’t, any gifts or talents you do have won’t emerge where people can see them.”

“Time steals some things, but it gives us back others. Making time our ally is an important part of our work.”