10 April 2005 Sunday, Lake of the Ozarks

I’ve been reading this weird novel called ‘Dance Dance Dance’ by Haruki Murakami. Post modernist, I guess. Strangely imagined. He’s in such a hurry to spill it out that there are lapses. One of the reviews said that he takes risks. I think so. I also think his translator doesn’t quite do him justice but, then, what do I know? I can’t read the original. For me, I can only imagine what that’s about; maybe the original and the book I’m reading have no connection whatsoever? I once heard ‘translation’ described as ‘transcreation’ -- apt.

The book is about a lost character, a hack writer who shovels ‘cultural snow’, writes restaurant reviews; anything, really, that he can get. Wanders around, searching for a lost lover, meets a grade school buddy who has become a movie star and may, or may not, have murdered his lost lover. Falls in love with a hotel receptionist who has stumbled into his parallel world where a being dressed in a sheepskin head costume lives in a tawdry room at the end of a pitch black corridor and waits for our hero to drop in and have strange, Delphic conversations. Meantime, the hack writer meets a 13 year old girl, just moving onto the edges of womanhood, who has a sort of second sight, a huge amount of resentment towards the world and a fragile ego. They become friends, sharing a love of music and a need for companionship. It goes on. Like selecting the ‘visualizer’ for your computer’s music player, you get a set of images you can’t understand, that aren’t of anything but that draw you into them. I’m truly enjoying the contrast between the lapping waters of the morning lake, the rising sun, the heron that I startled when I first stepped onto the balcony, the squirrels bobbing up and down the oaks and this urban novel about a world where it is now evening. Did I mention that there’s also a minor character, a one-armed Vietnam veteran, fluent Japanese, writes poetry and is killed by a bus when he steps onto a road after going grocery shopping and looks the wrong way? Right book for this place, don’t know why.

And, now, I’ve finished it. Time to go for a walk – the morning sun is bright and the air is clear, later they say there is a chance of thunderstorms.