For the next two weeks, our Reading Group will be discussing Murakami’s ‘Kafka on the Shore’. We completed discussions up to Chapter 16.

We had already decided earlier on that we had to have Murakami on the reading list… Why we decided on Kafka, I have no clue. I actually suggested that we do Kafka since I hadn’t read the book and the reviews from people were, so far, interesting. 

There was a sense of… you could call it optimism, among the group members. The point at which we stalled was quite uncomfortable. We didn’t have much resource to discuss about (or maybe we did and overlooked a lot of interesting tidbits), and we were as I still am quite eager to know what happens next! Also, the center table was a bit distracting.

After two hours of conscious blabbering, here’s what I summed up from the discussions:

- I loved Kawamura 

- Johnny Walker is a drink my dad likes

- Oshima’s probably totally insane. He’s got issues and a lot of well sharpened pencils.

- The library mentioned is AWEsome! 

- I should’ve read at least one book of Ayn Rand’s

- You’re underestimating our group if you imagine a bunch of nerdy guys droning on and on about something insignificant. Oooo… you’re wrong trust me.

- Kafka and Nakata will never/will surely meet. This is under debate. 

- Kafka’s schizophrenic or he might just be an over intelligent kid/guy who is so smart that his brain’s got a name of its own. 

- Sakura is a pretty name, also smells good! (I’m talking about my body-wash)

- What’s up with the teacher, the professor, gah… we need to read on!!!

Anyway I look forward to next week’s meeting! 

I wanted to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Benediction

Completed Harold Brodkey’s First Love and Other Sorrows. Enjoyed the State of Grace which is the first story in the book:

“There is a certain shade of red brick - a dark, almost melodious red, sombre and riddled with blue - that is my childhood in St. Louis.”

There is a dreamlike flow in the narration and the characters can be people you’ve met or known. A great spring read!

Today I realized how disturbing my silence among others is to me.

I’m still reading the same books!

Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing has left me quite enchanted. I’ve been enjoying her short stories and non-fiction pieces on THE NEWYORKER. 

Here is an excerpt from one that I’m reading right now…

In life, especially as a young girl, I was afraid to participate in social activities. I worried about what others might make of me, how they might judge. But when I read I was free of this worry. I learned what my fictional companions ate and wore, learned how they spoke, learned about the toys scattered in their rooms, how they sat by the fire on a cold day drinking hot chocolate. I learned about the vacations they took, the blueberries they picked, the jams their mothers stirred on the stove. For me, the act of reading was one of discovery in the most basic sense—the discovery of a culture that was foreign to my parents. I began to defy them in this way, and to understand, from books, certain things that they didn’t know. Whatever books came into the house on my account were part of my private domain. And so I felt not only that I was trespassing but also that I was, in some sense, betraying the people who were raising me.

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