Forrest > Recent Status Updates

Wait, so I might have been right about Tengo writing the novel in which Aomame lives. Maybe.

AHA! There's the connection!

And I've found that, while reading this book, the best music to listen to is something like this.

I love Murakami's writerly sense of humor. For instance, this quote by Aomame, one of the main characters, after having procured a handgun for reasons:

Not all guns have to be fired, she told herself in the shower. A pistol is just a tool, and where I'm living is not a storybook world. It's the real world, full of gaps and inconsistencies and anticlimaxes.

Now we switch into Hitchcock mode . . . intriguing.

Motifs can come from weird places like trolley cars and soccer fields. I won't even pretend to understand.

Alright, I think this Ushikawa guy might be associated with Sakigake. Somehow . . .

Wait, so now Goodreads puts recommendations that have nothing to do with anything I've ever read right into my feed? Ugh. Capitalism.

"So you're thinking you'd rather not hand me a pistol?"
"They're dangerous. And illegal. And Chekhov is a writer you can trust."

Some novels read really well in small "bites". This is definitely one of those!

PS: I wonder if Fuka Eri is Leader's first daughter. The age is right . . . Is Murakami telegraphing too much, or is there a twist coming? Curious to see. Very curious.

"Sea Citadels" is a song to the British isles, a sort of keening for the ancient days that taps into a certain resonance between the sea and human longing. It is the tonal inverse of Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". And where HP's loquacious purple-prose falters on the shoals of the ears, Valentine's simple eloquence is like a gentle wave-born lullaby, like a Dunsany for the sea. Four stars.

This notion of the Quay's early posters being "film without film" has really taken hold on my brain. I suppose some of my own more esoteric fiction could be termed "story without story". I quite like writing this sort of thing. I must do more.

Now we're getting meta. Is Aomame inside Tengo's novel? How did she get there? I love the weird factor here.

Fascinating. This is the sort of "deep history" of the Quays' career that I've been seeking for a long time. This is also going to add a bevy of books to my TBR list, I'm afraid.

Hardly got any reading done last night or today and, man, am I grumpy about it. Maybe tonight . . , For now, I need to put on a smiling face for dinner guests (who I really like, but, like I said - I'm grumpy).

"The Nephoseum" is as fragile and ethereal as its subject-matter and its protagonist. Unfortunately, despite its utter stunning beauty of form, the story's frailty is one touch too ephemeral. Four stars.

Exploding dogs. Okay, that's interesting. Hmm. Little people?

"The Lighting of the Vial" may be a perfect story, without blemish or fault. It is the most beautiful thing I have read in many years. I don't have room in this update to quote the paragraph I want to, but in my review I will be quoting almost an entire paragraph from page 115 that touched me deeply. Something I believe. Something that rings a familiar, melancholy chord since the death of my parents. 5 stars.

"The Lighting of the Vial" may be a perfect story, without blemish or fault. It is the most beautiful thing I have read in many years. I don't have room in this update to quote the paragraph I want to, but in my review I will be quoting almost an entire paragraph from page 115 that touched me deeply. Something I believe. Something that rings a familiar, melancholy chord since the death of my parents. 5 stars.

Poor Tengo. Guy is about to get buried alive in this mess.

Why can I not do an update from the Currently Reading pane on my home page any more? Who thought this was a good idea, because BAD IDEA!!! Is there a way to file a formal complaint on this. Seriously, in.con.ven.ient.!!! Goodreads: are you trying to make it difficult to like you? Is this another 2016 in the making? Not a good look. Not at all.

"The Hesperian Dragon" should be turned into a BBC one-shot staring, of course, Benedict Cumberbatch as The Connoisseur. This is the longest and most "film ready" of the stories in this collection so far. Unfortunately, it is way too "smart" and steeped in aesthetic theory for it ever to be translated to the screen. A shame. Brush up on your Milton/Confucius, cretins! Five multicolored stars. You'll know why . . .

19 in '19. That's my reading challenge for this year. I've got a few long ones on my TBR list (including 1Q84, which I've already started). We'll see how it goes.

"The Secret Stars" feels, at first, like Valentine and Howard are veering far away from The Connoisseur's oeuvre, like the narrative is spinning in a different direction than the authors intended. But, at the end, the narrative clearly "belongs" to The Connoisseur. Four secret stars.

Oh, I would spend a healthy sum of money on the creations of "The Craft of Arioch". Or an unhealthy sum of money. A wonderfully whimsical tale of rocking horses . . . and others. The phrase "flights of the imagination" perfectly encapsulates this magical story, but doesn't do it enough justice. It is an exquisite piece of fancy with a central conceit that is simple, yet enervating. Five stars.

From darkness to light . . . "Cafe Lucifer" is not merely a switch in emphasis from "The Lost Moon", it is a deeply poignant story. Any who have loved and lost quickly (I recall a "tryst" I had in the Netherlands with a girl who I met there, spent two weeks with, and never saw again, though we were deeply "in love") will feel a pang of deep emotion resounding in the heart. Five stars.

How apropos that, so close to the end of the year, I read what may be the best story I've read all year. "The Lost Moon" is a hypnotizing piece of esoterica. Truly an "occult detective" story so deeply immersive and compelling that it will not leave me for a long, long time. An enigmatic orrery, a secret society, and Saturn. What more do you need? Five stars circling the wrong direction, summoning chaos itself!

I'm hoping to travel to the UK next Summer, the Cotswolds, in particular. If I was hoping to find an old book by, say, Aickman or Machen, which bookstores should I check first? And which stores carry books by publishers like Tartarus, Egaeus, Snuggly, Sidereal, Ex Occidente, etc? Any help is appreciated!

I'm very curious how Fuka-Eri and Tsubasa are connected, if at all, directly. Are they sisters? Alternate-reality versions of each other? Just two girls with shared experiences? Or not?

"In Violet Veils" is an exquisite piece that owes its existence to both the decadents and the symbolizes, but that takes it's own place in the hierarchy of each. Five stars.