I seriously need to grab a drink (or several) with Haruki Murakami. It really amazes me how much his imagination runs wild. Yes, it can run across the same theme throughout his books, but that’s similar to many artists and authors. Some of his writing is a little too much for me, but some just blows me away. Like the metaphor riddles and watching out for double metaphors, and having to kill a two foot apparition from a hidden painting? It’s like speaking a code language with the people who appreciate this guy’s prose alongside me.
Anyways-notable quotes:
“ . . . ‘there’s a point in everybody’s life where they need a major transformation. And when that time comes you have to grab it by the tail. Grab it hard, and never let go. There are some people who are able to, and others who can’t. . .”
“’We all have ordeals we must face . . . it’s through them that we find a new direction in our lives. The more grueling the ordeal, the more it can help us down the road.’”
“Not a whole lot. He doesn’t recognize me. He’s lost the concept of family, of father and son. Even the distinction between himself and other people may have blurred. Still, maybe it’s easier when those things are swept away, and you don’t have to think about them anymore.”
“’Menshiki himself is not an evil man. He is a decent sort, one could say, with abilities that exceed those of most people. There is even a hint of nobility in him, if one looks hard enough. Yet there is a gap in his heart, an empty space that attracts the abnormal and the dangerous. It is there that the problem lies.’”
“We all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose.”
“In this real world of ours, after all, nothing remains the same forever.”
“I have no need, though, to challenge my life in such a troublesome (or, at the least, unnatural) way. That is because I am endowed with the capacity to believe. I believe in all honesty that something will appear to guide me through the darkest and narrowest tunnel, or across the most desolate path. That’s what I learned from the strange events I experienced while living in the mountaintop house on the outskirts of Odawara.”