This is my fourth Murakami book in the past couple of months and his latest work. In the Afterword he notes that the core of this long novel is a novella published in 1980 in a literary magazine. He was never satisfied with it and never allowed it to be republished in book form. Yet he knew “this contained something vital for me.” Like his other works I have read, the settings include young people, libraries, and strange events many of which are akin to what is called magical realism. The boundaries between reality and the imagination are blurred and questions who we are and what is real.
It begins with a young couple, 17 and 16, in love. The girl tells the boy about this strange walled town and tells him her real self resides there. She describes it in detail and tells him he could go there and become the Dream Reader in the library in this town which has no books, just old dreams that need to be read and where the main animal form is unicorns who often die in mass during the harsh winters there. One day with no warning, she disappears. In one form or another he spends the rest of his life searching for her. Somehow he ends up in this bizarre town where he has to give up his shadow to remain. He has substantial issues with this as he watches his shadow become ill and nearly die.
Later, after a successful career as a book dealer for a large corporation, he suddenly retires and decides to apply for a head library position in a small town in the remote mountains. He meets the previous head librarian whose life is full of mystery and where the reality of this real place and the bizarre town seem blurred. He meets a strange teenager who practically lives in the library reading books with great rapidity day after day. His relationship with the boy develops and he sees what he has been seeking his entire life.
This book takes a look at what is reality, the subconscious, and life’s meaning. It is also an ode to libraries and books and love.
A young woman, Alexandra, travels to Sofia, Bulgaria, for a job as an English teacher in part to help her recover from the strange disappearance (and probably death) of her brother. She has barely arrived when she helps an elderly couple and the man with them. By accident she ends up with an urn of ashes in a bag when her luggage and theirs gets a bit mixed up. The ashes are inside an ornately and unusually carved box with the name Stoyan Lazarov engraved on it. She sets out to find them with the help of a young cab driver.
As they set out on this journey, they discover they are being followed but have no idea why. The cab driver whom she calls Bobby has keen observation skills which mystify her at first. They find part of the family and then unfortunate things occur to many they meet who are relatives or are connected to the man whose name is on the box. Without initially realizing it, they become involved in Bulgarian politics and political corruption as they try to unravel the story of the box and the man whose ashes it contains.
As I read this novel, which is both a lesson on the horrible Soviet occupation of Bulgaria and human determination and resilience, I became entranced with the history and culture of Bulgaria. If you want a glimpse into another culture and its history and the beauty of the Bulgarian landscape, I highly recommend this book. It is also a mystery story that keeps the reader going.
The author also wrote an earlier book called “The Historian” which is a novel about the history of Vlad the Impaler who is the real person behind the Dracula stories. I plan to read that novel as well.
This is my first Murakami novel; it will not be my last. It’s fascinating and profound. A 15 year old boy, Kafka, runs away from home. His mother and older sister disappeared when he was four. He does not remember them. His father, a famous sculptor, ignores him. Although they live in the same house, they rarely see each other. After running away, he finds a private (but open to the public) library in another city and is taken in by the two people in charge of the library.
Nakata, another main character who is an elderly man, is not very bright due to a bizarre event that sent him to the hospital in a coma when he was a child. He talks to cats and makes fish and eel fall from the sky like rain. He becomes friends with another principal character, a young truck driver, who helps him out because Nakata reminds him of his grandfather.
The novel portrays the lives of these characters through their actions, dreams, and fantastical events. The unreal becomes real and people learn about their true selves through these events.
This is a sort of travelogue, memoir, and recipe book. The author begins in Odessa and travels south from there to the port of Constanza in Romania as well as various other seaside towns in Bulgaria, then to Istanbul. After spending more time there she heads east to all the ports and some inland cities near Turkey’s Black Sea coast.
I hope to learn new information and become a little more enlightened when I read–especially when reading non-fiction. This book did not disappoint. Here are a few of the things I learned:
-Odessa is a very old and once a very international city. At one point it had the second largest Jewish population in Europe. Now only about 1/3 of the residents are Jewish. Many of the restaurants serve traditional Jewish food even if not Jewish. Once in the past, Mark Twain visited there and made it famous for its ice cream.
-In Constanza, Romania, she witnessed a huge Navy Day celebration with booming gun salutes. Once upon a time, this city was famous for its Casino which now is just a glorious ruin. Here a breakfast mainstay is polenta with a mushroom topping. The author apparently liked the food because this section contains more recipes.
-Varna is the main seaport city in Bulgaria. The author’s main quest here was to see the gold, yes, gold. Once upon a time, this city was a major Roman port. Now the Museum of Archeology houses a spectacular collection of ancient gold. “Breastplates, bracelets, burial gifts, regal-looking head pieces, figurines, and pendants–all gold–shone for attention. The silent Midas room was deafening, ringing out with finery, treasure and opulence. And the loudest, biggest treasure of all, was the smallest. Tiny pendant earrings, almost inconceivably old, dating back 6000 years….these earring are the oldest ‘worked gold’ in the world. They belonged to the first known culture to craft golden artifacts, and they lived here, on Bulgaria’s section of the Black Sea in what some archeologists consider the oldest prehistoric town. But it was not gold that made this area wealthy; it was salt which was mined nearby. The world salary comes from the Latin word ‘salarium’–a Roman soldier’s stipend to buy salt.
-She goes to Istanbul and then on to Turkey’s Black Sea towns, Amasra, several a bit inland, Sinop, Trabzon, and Rize. Sinop has a particularly good harbor. There is a saying that the Black Sea has three safe harbors, July, August, and Sinop. This is in an area often targeted by Cossacks who crossed the Black Sea to raid these more prosperous areas. The town also houses an infamous prison where Russian convicts taught Turkish cellmates how to make model ships for which the town is now famous.-More than 3/4 of the world’s hazelnuts are grown in this area of Turkey. However, that did surprise me as much as the tea, yes, tea. When I think of Turkey, I think of that thick, strong Turkish coffee. However, Turkey is the fifth largest grower and exporter of tea in the world. The tea grows in the fog and mist on steep slopes that end at the sea. Several photos in the book illustrate the lush green mountains covered in tea bushes.
-When I think of Hagia Sophia, I think of the spectacular building in Istanbul, the one that has withstood invasions and earthquakes. But there is another one. On the western edges of the city of Trabzon, there is a smaller, more tranquil Hagia Sophia, one of the Black Sea area’s most spectacular monuments. It was built as a church in the 13th century, converted to a mosque, then to a cholera hospital, then a museum and finally back to a mosque in 2013. The ceiling and walls are covered with frescoes that for a long time no one knew existed until they were restored.
In addition to all the tales of her adventures and the ordinary people she meets, the book is filled with recipes that are specialties of the areas she visited. I’ve taken some ideas from several to experiment with new dishes like combining Swiss chard and sultanas (golden raisins) with chopped onions and garlic sautéed in olive oil and served over Basmati rice.
I enjoyed the previous book by Caroline Eden so much I searched for this one. I doubt I will ever make it to Samarkand or Tashkent, places sort of on my bucket list, so what I do is read everything I find about these fabled cities on the Silk Road. The sub-title of this one is “Recipes and Stories From Central Asia and The Caucasus”. It starts with Samarkand and the story of Tamerlane, the legendary hero who conquered a lot of this area and a large portion of surrounding areas in 1370. He was a military genius who loved chess and made up his own chess game with twice the number of pieces.
What foods show up in both the stories and recipes? Beets, fruit–dried and fresh for which the area is famous, tomatoes, cucumber, pomegranates, cabbage, lentils, rice, lamb and mutton, and all sorts of kebabs and flatbreads. I learned there is a huge beach on Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. It is one of the world’s largest alpine lakes and in summer people from Russia and all over Central Asia flock to its shores. People who own guest houses there make all their money for the entire year in the brief summer between mid-July and mid-August.
In the remote mountains of Azerbaijan lies the small town of Gyrmyzy Gasaba above the Qudiyaleay River, a town where all the people are Jewish. Even though Azerbaijan is a predominantly Shia Muslim country, the people in this town have peacefully lived here for hundreds of years. This town is considered the last surviving pre-Holocaust Jewish town untouched by WWII.
If you are a lover of apples, then consider this country, Kazakhstan, the place where apples originated. All apples in the world today come from the original apples here. The name of the largest city, Almaty, whose older name was Alma-Ata means fatherland of apples. In Ile-Altalan National Park on the northern slopes of the Tien Shan mountain chain thousands of acres of wild apples flourish.
Even though this book was published less than ten years ago in 2016, a lot of people must have been interested in reading the stories and recipes because the copy the library found for me is not in the best condition. Before I return it, I will copy some of the recipes to try.
The novel fascinated me in so many ways, the style of writing, the subject matter, what I learned about some famous paintings and especially Turner. I will never see works by Turner in the same way as I previously did. Before mostly I noticed the colors, the translucence. I totally missed the details and the violence nearly hidden.
The novel takes place after an ecological collapse in England where first violent floods occurred followed by a devastating drought. Now it has not rained in three years and Penelope, the main character, spends most of her time working as an archivist for the notable collection at a soon to be demolished estate in the English countryside. She has lived here for two decades with her current partner, Aidan, who owns the estate. The disasters have nearly destroyed the once magnificent mansion. Now Penelope and Aidan allow refugees from the disasters to live there with them as they transition to new places and housing until the new buyers demolish the place.
Most of the novel is Penelope’s diary, what she writes about her life present and past. In the midst of this her archivist notes appear as well as descriptions of famous paintings, most of which show women being brutalized in one way or another, e.g. The Abduction of the Sabine Women, 1633-34, Nicholas Poussin. Later in the novel there are segments from the viewpoint of Aidan’s brother, Julian, who previously owned the estate and with whom Penelope experienced a violent and disastrous relationship.
This is a tale of survival, redemption, memory, and art as a means of renewal. I liked this novel so much that I spent time looking up the art the protagonist describes, researching Turner, writing down passages, etc.
What a delightful, entertaining book! The title refers to her basement kitchen in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she lives when she is not wandering the globe. Each chapter highlights a certain place in her travels, in this case Ukraine, various countries in Central Asia, e.g. Uzbekistan, Russia, and the city of Istanbul, which she says is one of her favorite cities to visit especially in winter when tourists are gone. In one chapter, “Russian Railway Pies”, she and her husband ride the train from Moscow to the eastern shore of Russia–the Trans Siberian Railway journey. They did this in winter when the temperature in some places they stopped were as low as 50 below zero.
Each chapter contains her experiences in an individual country or city. She describes the places in detail, the people she meets, the food she eats. She also relates her feelings regarding these places, many of which she had previously visited, how they have changed over the years for better or worse–worse in the case of Russia, what they mean to her. In each chapter she always goes back to her kitchen, her dog, hiking the Scottish highlands, and her cooking, usually a recipe where she is trying to re-create a food she ate in one of these places she loves.
This is her most recent book, published in 2024. She also has a series of books about particular places where the entire book is dedicated to that particular place. Mostly, she has travelled in Central Asia, Russian, the Balkans, Turkey. I enjoyed this book so much, I plan to read another one about her other adventures. She is not just on these adventures for fun but also as a career so she knows many journalists, diplomats, officials in these places.
“Song Yet Sung” is the final book for me for McBride. I have now read all his books. Like most of his novels, this one is historical, taking place when slavery still existed. Here the setting is the coastal/tidal areas of Maryland and Virginia where many of the men make a living on the water harvesting seafood. This includes both whites and blacks, slaves and free. At least one escaped slave lives in the swamps where no one has been able to find him. One of the characters is an attractive, tough, ruthless woman who makes her living hunting down escaped slaves and sometimes even capturing freemen and selling them South as slaves. Another is a retired slave hunter who cannot get over the death of his son. Finally there is a widow who owns several slaves but totally depends on them for her living, one of whom is a major character in the novel. I had no idea how people lived in this area of the country, the codes, both slaves and free persons, used to survive and sometimes escape. There is a lot of violence in this novel but also plenty of hope and redemption.
“The River Is Waiting” has made it to the top ten fiction list for the last couple of weeks. Without doubt it has to be one of the most depressing novels I have ever read. A young man who hides his addictions causes a horrible, tragic accident. Sent to prison where he really does not fit in at all, he experiences many horrific events but also has a cell mate who is a kind and caring person. Add to this the two hideous, sadistic prison guards and their actions and you have a tale of woe relieved occasionally by acts of honor, beauty and kindness.
Note: Decades ago when I worked at a DOE facility where everyone had to take a psychological test to get a clearance to work there, a specialist came to give us a presentation on the test and how the results were used. As I read “The River Is Waiting”, I kept remembering something the presenter told us: when a test was given at a maximum security prison, the guards scored higher on hostility and anger than the inmates.
If you do not want to read history books but want to know some history, many of Isabel Allende’s novels will be perfect for you. The title of this one comes from Pablo Neruda; it is what he called his native land, Chile. Each chapter begins with a quote from several of his poems. The novel begins during the Spanish Civil War; one of the main characters, Victor Dalmau, is a medic for the Republican side. He and Roser, a pregnant young widow who was married to Victor’s brother who is killed, have to escape Spain to save themselves. The novel details their struggles crossing into France, how they are forced to marry in order to board the SSWinnipeg, a ship commissioned by Pablo Neruda to help Spanish refugees emigrate to Chile. With 2000 other passengers they arrive in Chile and make the best of their new life. World War II breaks out and their hope of returning to Spain diminishes.
Victor becomes a successful doctor, their lives become intertwined with that of a prominent Chilean family, Roser becomes a famous musician, traveling back and forth to Venezuela, and the socialist government of Salvador Allende is overthrown in a military coup with the aide of the US. Then Pinochet’s reign of terror comes, once again civil unrest affecting their lives.
The novel demonstrates how little control people sometimes have over what happens to them, how some are better at dealing with adversity than others, and how lies are eventually discovered. It is also a testament to personal character and strength.
Note: Isabel Allende’s father was a distant cousin to Salvatore Allende.
This latest Strout novel takes the reader back to Crosby, Maine, the site of most of her other novels. The same cast of characters appear, Olive, the Burgess boys, Lucy, William, Margaret, and all the others. This one, however, has a new twist, a heinous murder occurs. The most obvious suspect is the victim’s reclusive son who lived with her. Bob Burgess is hired as his lawyer. Lucy starts visiting Olive and they tell each other stories about people they have known , what Lucy calls “unrecorded lives”. Meanwhile, Lucy keeps asking, “What does anyone’s life mean?” Lucy and Bob take walks every week, spending the time talking about all the things they feel they cannot talk about with anyone else. William becomes more obsessed with the parasites he is studying and never quits talking about them.
This, like all of Strout’s novels, focuses on relationships, the good and the bad, and how they sustain us, sometimes transform our lives, sometimes nearly ruin us. Although, readers do not have to read her novels in sequence and this one could be read alone, I think it would make more sense to the reader to at least read three others first: “Olive Kitteridge”, “The Burgess Boys”, and “Oh, William”.
Strout has a unique, easy to read style, that is both simple and profound. She talks about people as they are with empathy and concern. She talks about the many forms of love–“…it is always love. If it is love, then it is love.”
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