BW2: Dipping my toes in to multiple books


I'm letting my mood dictate what I read this year and have been dipping my toes into multiple books, this week working through Mount TBR.   Yesterday I had an epiphany while making breakfast.   I'd just finished Ivan Turgenov's The Singers in A Swim in the Pond in the Rain: in which four Russians give a Master Class in Reading, Writing and life by George Saunders.  In The Singers, the author goes into long digressions about the town, the people, etc.  right in the middle of the story.  Saunders points out that if you try to cut out any of the story, it fails as a whole. The digressions, the descriptions are important in bringing the characters to life. In making the reader care about the character and the events.  


So... I'm in the midst of reading 1Q84 (my Eastern book) by Haruki Murakami and he too goes into long digressions, flashbacks in which he goes into detail about the characters past, before coming back to the present.  Marakami's writing is so very similar to Turgenov which made me appreciate Saunders take on The Singers and found it valuable.  Synchronicity. Which I had been complaining the other day was distinctly lacking in my life.  Ha!


Since it's been 10 years since I last read 1Q84, I hardly remembered any of the story, except for the climb off the expressway.  And I'd forgotten the story took place in 1984 which is why Aomame decided to call her new world 1Q84.


"Q is for 'question mark." A world that bears a question... The 1984 that I knew no longer exists. It's 1Q84 now.  The air has changed, the scene has changed...."


I'm currently on page 220 out of  925 pages and at the moment I don't care for the decisions either Tengo or Aomame have made. And their mannerisms are such that I can't decide whether it is cultural differences or shades of autism I am seeing, which may explain some things.  

 
Books finished this week were: 


Three A books:   After Dark (physical) by Haruki Murakami, Kevin Anderson and Neil Peart's Clockwork Angels (dusty/ebook), and Akwaeke Emezi's (ebook) You made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. 


Sipping from multiple non fiction books including One Year Chronological Bible, Thomas Merton's Run to the Mountain besides dipping back into A Swim in the Pond in the Rain.  

On the nightstand are my B books for this week to read in between 1Q84:  Dusty ebook  - Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun as well as a extremely dusty physical book - Black Orchid Blues by Persia Walker which I think I'm finally in the mood to read. We'll see. 

Plus James and I are listening to Ready Player One by Ernest Cline during our car trips. He's another author who over describes things. 

How do I manage to read so much?  I decided to cut back on aimless scrolling through the interweb which has made a huge difference. Nor do we watch much television except for on the weekends so have always read in the evenings.

We've been culling through all our books as we clean out the garage and in anticipation of getting more bookshelves and I finding so many books I want to reread.  It's been an interesting diversion. 


5 comments:

  1. I want to get to the point where I read what my mood dictates. For years I've been on review deadlines and it can be difficult. I hope you have a great week!

    ReplyDelete
  2. In 2003 (just realized this was twenty years ago!) I decided to quit tv as a default evening activity. Did that ever free up my time! Next to go: computer as a default evening activity.

    A Swim in the Pond in the Rain and 1Q84 are both books I've read and loved. I hope to reread the first Murakami I read, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, this year. It is one of a group of books I read but did not review, and I want to go back now and read and review it.

    I'm happy you joined in for the Sunday Salon. It's the first group I joined when I began blogging fifteen years ago. I always come away from it with new ideas of books I want to read and thoughts I want to think.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am hoping to read Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun this year. I have a copy of Trail of Lightning, which I need to read too. I hadn't connected the author to both books until recently. It'd been a while since I added Trail of Lightning to my TBR. I do not listen to audio books often, but I did really enjoy Ready Player One. I am not sure I would have enjoyed the print version as much. I don't know whether that's to Wil Wheaton's credit or because of the book itself.

    I can definitely see what Saunders is saying about the digressions or what I sometimes refer to as fluff. It really can play an important role in making the story come to life. I haven't read Haruki Murakami. I have a couple of his books on my TBR shelves, but he intimidates me for some reason. Maybe I will get over that this year.

    As a family, we sometimes watch an hour of television a night on weekdays, sometimes an hour and a half depending on the time. I do most of my watching on the weekend while I'm blogging. Or on family movie nights/afternoons. I've thought about giving up TV all together (we don't have live TV, we just stream what channels we can afford), but I like zoning out now and then on it or re-watching a favorite movie. I'm not always in the mental space where I can or want to concentrate on a book. What I am trying to do though is cut back on mindless internet scrolling. My husband recently got me hooked on Duolingo. I may not be able to master a language on it, but I figure it's better than playing a mind-numbing repetitive phone game. But it does keep me away from my books and blogging.

    I hope you have a great week, Robin!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I nice to read what you want to then having to read to meet a deadline.
    Have a great week.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Murakami is one of my top authors, and I usually read his books when they come out: can’t wait! I reread one or two recently when I read his non-fiction book about literature.

    best…mae at maefood.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

Unfortunately due to being spammed, all comments will be moderated and will appear after approval. At least I'm not using the dreaded captcha. Thank you for dropping by!