Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

                Konichiwaaaaaaaaatthehell? Haruki Murakami is a renowned Japanese author, who has written 13 novels, several essays and short stories, and a memoir. I reviewed his memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, quite favorably, so I was disappointed to discover that his latest novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage* is as dull as the title implies. Murakami has a massive fan base and readers trust that he’s consistent. Grant Snider from the New York Times even created a Murakami-Bingo that acknowledges his thematic tendencies:

But just because I liked one book doesn’t mean I’m going to drink the Murakami Kool-Aid indiscriminately. He might have previously produced stellar, prize-winning works, but that doesn’t guarantee 5-hump ratings from thereon, especially not on a hard-hitting site like this!

                CTTAHYOP follows Tsukuru, a 36-year-old engineer in Tokyo. It’s a story about identity; he must come to terms with abandonment that he experienced in the past in order to appreciate his current value. He must bravely confront the answers to age-old questions in order to mature, move on, and open up to the possibility of a relationship built on intimacy. Initially, I had no qualms with this plot. I looked forward to exposing the mystery that shrouded the death of his former friendships. But once Murakami gave that to me, he didn’t really give me anything more. Picture this: it’s my birthday. There’s an expectation associated with that day—an anticipation of excitement. I arrive home after work to find hundreds of friends (all those hundreds of friends I have) in my apartment, yelling SURPRISE! Then everyone vanishes. Party over. Why even come over in the first place? That’s what this novel was for me: I wondered what the secret was….I found out the secret…and then nothing substantial occurred. Sure, Tsukuru was able to be a normal dude once he put the past to bed, but that’s not exactly riveting literature. At least at the end of my failed surprise party, there’d be a leftover cake.

                Unfortunately, the content-letdown is one of many disappointments. You’d think that after decades of experience, Murakami would have mastered the art of analogy. CTTAHYOP employs similes that actually obscure the comparison more often than not. For instance, when Tsukuru interacts with an inconsequential receptionist, Murakami over-saturates the scene in needless detail. He writes, “She took Tsukuru’s business card, her whole face lighting up in a smile, then pushed an extension number on her phone as if pressing the soft nose of an oversized dog” (Murakami, 153). How is this remotely helpful? It’s not painting a picture; it’s dragging down the pace. I don’t need to know how this rando character we’ll never see nor hear from again is pressing a goddamn button. Also, what is pressing the soft nose of an oversized dog like? Is it different than an undersized dog? Don’t press dogs’ noses because that’s weird and you don’t know where they’ve been. Unless it’s a dachshund, in which case, definitely press its nose because it will probably respond adorably. Obviously, this is one nitpicky example, but seriously—the novel is overrun with unnecessary shit like this.

                Even when the descriptions are logical and informative, they bore me. Check out this example, where Tsukuru imagines his love interest with another man: “He lay down on the sofa, images buzzing through his head, when suddenly it felt as if a sharp needle had stabbed him in the back. A thin, invisible needle. The pain was minimal, and there was no blood. Probably. Still, it hurt” (Murakami, 282). Those last two sentences… I die. Describing emotional pain in this jerky, calculated way does not resonate with me. Is there blood or is there not blood? You shouldn’t leave needles lying on your couch because then when you’re hurting internally you won’t know if it’s just that or if you’ve literally been stabbed while lying in anguish. There are more effective ways to communicate affective states.

                I know I’m being kind of an asshole, but this is frustrating! How is an author that’s supposed to be so good giving me this crap? I recognize that this is Eastern writing and maybe something was lost in translation. But I have always enjoyed works from that hemisphere so I don’t accept that a cultural clash is the root problem. This is not the worst book I’ve ever read (ahem, looking at you Naked Lunch and As I Lay Dying). I am dissatisfied with the story and particularly confused that he spent several chapters on one character, Haida, and then never brought him up again (Parallel universe? Maybe? Confused.). Still, I never had the urge to shred the book; so, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage* earns 2 out of 5 camel humps. This won’t be my last Murakami book, but I’m definitely more reluctant going forward.

*Murakami, Haruki. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Trans. Philip Gabriel. New York: Vintage Books, 2014. Print.

Between the World and Me

        Honestly, I’ve been reluctant to write about this book up until now. I finished Between the World and Me* six months ago and then triumphantly set it in a “to review” pile on my bookshelf, admitting that I needed time to digest. As the weeks passed and I picked up other books instead, I realized that my hesitancy stemmed from a twofold fear: that I would say the wrong thing and/or that I wouldn’t contribute anything new and valuable to the subject. If you can’t tell from the picture on my blog, I’m not black. I’m actually very white and pale, despite my attempts to obscure my skin color with frequent trips to the tanning bed. I thought, How can a white girl in good conscience review a book in which the male author writes a letter to his son about the consequences of being a black American?

Nevertheless, I’ve decided to put on a brave white face and write my review. In my opinion, convictions are what differentiate us as human beings. When we feel passionately about something, it defines us and makes us unique (cue cheesy quote like *If you don’t stand for something, then you’ll fall for anything*). Of course, empathy plays a factor in my convictions, but I do believe that passion more naturally flows when I am directly affected by something. For instance, it’s easier for me to hold a firm stance on abortion than, say, the death penalty, because I am a young woman who wants to be intentional about my pregnancy or lack thereof.  I have opinions about the death penalty, but it’s a more remote issue because I won’t ever suffer at its hands (…knock on wood). Conversely, I’ve refined my position on a woman’s right to choose because I can palpably understand what it would be like to lose control of my own body.

By clearly emphasizing the effects of racism on his physical body, Ta-Nehisi Coates brings readers one step closer to more fully acknowledging his people’s pain. At the very least, he helps us envision the hardships that he has faced and continues to face because of the color of his skin. Throughout the book, Coates repeatedly refers to the American Dream. Rather than reflecting on the *Dream* in a purely abstract way, he explains that the “whites’” ability to maintain things like a strong block association and throw elaborate cookouts for our friends on Memorial Day is a tangible manifestation of slave labor. Americans think that we are the greatest nation—that we’re “above” the uncivilized countries and incapable of banality. Our racist past is just a whoopsies. Well, Coates notes that that’s a pretty big whoops. Nowadays, people point to policies like Affirmative Action and then highlight the progress we’ve made over the past century. But Coates rejects the notion that America has atoned for its brutality towards blacks and asserts that we can never fully atone. He reminds us of the bodies, saying “Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the post humorous, untouchable glory of dying for their children” (Coates, 70).

Not to mention, his people are set up to fail. We impose carefully crafted zoning laws that carve out ghettos, deprive students of meaningful education, police black youth with a hardened eye and a baton, etc.…and then frown upon disgraceful “black-on-black crime”. But, “to yell, ‘black-on-black crime’ is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding” (Coates, 111). Thus, we are a profoundly hypocritical nation without even realizing it. We are frustrated when blacks use violence in protestation, yet we are a country “which acquired the land through murder and tamed it under slavery” (Coates, 32). How can we so confidently affirm the judicial system as is, smugly spot diversity in the workforce, and proclaim that we provide equal opportunity schooling when we are actually this oblivious?

As a career writer-journalist, Ta-Nehisi Coates is a deep thinker. When he miraculously emerged from his crime-ridden Baltimore neighborhood (Ravens rule) to attend Howard University, he thought that he should seek what “whites” seek—that he should follow the path to success traversed by so many Americans before him.  Instead, as he studied powerful intellectuals like Malcolm X, he realized that his duty was to be skeptical of any and every kind of Dream –the myth should be dispelled, not blindly embraced. The inescapable facts of America’s past and present were unsettling to him and he refused to be placated. We see such intensity in Between the World and Me not only because Coates feels strongly about the need for this kind of reminder, but because the stakes are higher now that he’s a father.

In the letter, Coates warns his son that there will be an inevitable breakdown of his black body. He speaks of the need to “contort”, transforming his body in very drastic ways in order to fit the circumstance. Talking to a police officer? Be on guard, concentrate on not being misconstrued. Talking to a friend? Be wary of how others will perceive you and pass judgment on your people. He shares, “this need to be always on guard [is] an unmeasured expenditure of energy, the slow siphoning of the essence” (Coates, 90). It’s a robbery of time—you might feel like you have only 23 hours in your day because of the exhaustion involved with persistent guardedness. I wonder if Jack Bauer could accomplish as much as he did with one less hour.

Overall, Coates’ description of his physical handicaps as a black man in America is well articulated. He clearly denounces overly-optimistic thinking; this is a problem that endures because we deny its existence and its not going to go away if we just grit our teeth, close our eyes, and look to a brighter future. As an atheist, he stresses to his son that this black body is all that he has and thus this problem should be of the utmost concern. He wants his son to inherit more than just his heredity traits, so he imparts this wisdom to “awaken the Dreamers” (Coates, 146). Our conception of whiteness and the lumping of our vast, intricate genealogies into “white” is not factual; it is a barrier that we erect to uphold the illusion that we deserve our privileges in comparison to blacks.

This shit is no joke and Coates conveys that very effectively, earning his book 5 out of 5 camel humps. However, it's important to note that his book is educational in a sweeping, generalizing way rather than a concrete, history-lesson way. He's not giving us a slew of historical facts about institutional racism to put in our back pockets and bring out the next time we get in a heated debate. Instead, he's reminding us of an overarching troubling past and where that leaves him as a human being.

While this medium might not be what you're looking for (i.e. you want that back-pocket jaunt), his message is certainly something that I needed to hear. Additionally, I couldn’t help but feel enamored by his passionate language and toned writing skills. It’s an important book that I think everyone should read—and it’s also short (~150 pages), so there’s no excuse. Coates’ voice has been ringing in my ears ever since I put it down and I hope that I see the world differently now, with his words in my head. Coates feels like there is a divide between the world as “whites” know it and the world as he knows it. I might not have any scholarly additions to offer to the subject of race, but I can play my part in softening the divide.

*Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015. Print.

Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison

            When Orange is the New Black made its Netflix debut in 2013, audiences came out in droves. The show has alluring dramatic features like lesbianism, violence, infidelity, and drugs, all with a comedic twist. In fact, the program is Netflix’s most watched homegrown show to date. Of course, behind every great film/television show, there’s usually a great book—and this one is no exception. It helps that my favorite character from the show happens to enjoy literature as much as I do: 

            In 2010, Piper Kerman published her memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Woman’s Prison*, which details her imprisonment in 2005. Like most of my peers, I have a problem with the criminal justice system…but I do virtually nothing to help change its trajectory because I’m not personally affected by it. It disgusts me that the U.S. comprises only 5% of the world’s population, yet we house 25% of the world’s prisoners. It disgusts me that the so-called “War on Drugs” has quadrupled the number of incarcerations since 1980 without effectively addressing the root problem. It disgusts me that the current system disproportionally affects African Americans and unabashedly screws over people in poverty. Get over yourself, government. Here’s a colorful info-graphic to check out if you don’t already share my disgust: Colorful Info-Graphic

            I appreciate that Piper recognized these appalling trends and used her circumstances to speak out against them. Unlike her fellow prisoners, Piper was extraordinarily lucky to have a heavily involved support system with financial means and upstanding legal counsel. During her incarceration, a friend started the website www.thepipebomb.com to help coordinate visits, encourage letters/packages, and express dissatisfaction and solidarity against the system. Additionally, her friend who owned a start-up company created a marketing position specifically for her upon her release. In the camp, Piper saw that most prisoners experienced the exact opposite. She accurately notes that prison is a place where, “The US government now puts not only the dangerous but also the inconvenient—people who are mentally ill, people who are addicts, people who are poor and uneducated and unskilled” (Kerman, 200). She had resources to keep her afloat during her stint and to help her when she got out, while many of her fellow inmates went straight to homeless shelters.

One particularly distributing story encapsulates how little the government gives a shit. Before release, prisoners attend a “training day” intended to assist in the transition from jail to freedom. At the “Housing” seminar, a correction officer babbled on about the necessity of good insulation in a home. One prisoner expressed that her primary concern wasn’t roof paneling but finding affordable housing that would accept ex-cons. The officer’s response? “‘The best way to find an apartment is in the paper, or there are websites now that you can search’” (Kerman, 251). Ooooh *websites*. Insightful. Keep in mind that this occurred in 2005--some of the prisoners had been inside for so long that they’d never seen a computer.

            Although prison is undoubtedly a horrific experience, Piper seemed to make the most of it and flourish within the walls. For instance, she ended up getting a bangin bod by running 30 miles a week at roughly a 7 minute pace. On the weekend of the New York City marathon, she casually ran her own half marathon on the prison tracks. Clearly, the only thing stopping me from performing like an Olympic athlete is my own freedom.

           

            Not only was her physique transformed, but her psyche was as well. She discovered her own kind of restorative justice, “in which an offender confronts the damage they have done and tries to make it right to the people they have harmed” (Kerman, 180). Piper was indicted for a bullshit ten-year-old drug charge, and in prison she confronted the kinds of people affected by her participation in heroin dealing. Post-college, she lived a brief life of experimentation with her exotic, drug-peddling girlfriend, Nora. Although she was aware of Nora’s antics, she was largely uninvolved. When Nora’s dealing became a huge stress on their relationship, Piper bailed, shed herself of her past, and embarked on a new, law-abiding life. When Nora’s enterprise fell apart years later, Piper’s past caught up with her. It would have been easy for her to deny her wrongdoings and emphasize how little she resembled the previous Piper; instead, she fully admitted her mistakes and lamented that she had played a part (however small) in providing a devastating drug to the community. Prison sucked, but it made her a better person by forcing her to confront her missteps.

And now… what we’re all waiting for…how is the show different from the book? Piper Kerman was a beloved inmate who learned from prison but was not hardened or crushed by it. Piper Chapman—the show’s version of Pipes—is a narcissistic bitch. The memoir provides the bare-minimum backbone for the story: an unsuspecting middle-class white woman gets thrown into jail and interacts with people of different backgrounds from her. The show heavily extrapolates on that framework, focusing on the eccentricities of each character and (in later seasons) minimizing Piper’s involvement in favor of focusing on, frankly, more interesting people.

           

Additionally, Piper Chapman—unlike Piper Kerman-- toes the line between being “gay for the stay” and fully embracing her lesbian side. She is engaged to her fiancé, Larry, but the relationship is turbulent due to her wandering eye for women. I’ve been on the straight and narrow sexual path my whole life, but I do know a mediocre Sapphic joke: *Why was the lesbian sick? Because she wasn’t getting enough vitamin D*.

The biggest discrepancy is her ex-girlfriend’s involvement. The show’s juiciest drama revolves around the dual presence of Piper and “Alex” (Netflix’s version of Nora) within the prison. Naturally, being around her long-gone ex who got her into this whole mess in the first place is problematic for Piper. But, this addition is not factual; in her memoir, Piper Kerman explains that she spent only a short time in the same transition-camp as her ex because they were co-defenders traveling to a trial for one of the drug kingpins they had both worked under. This interaction was unpleasant, but it was not the crux of Piper’s experience in jail.

Personally, I’ve been a fan of the show since the start. I binge-watched the entire first season while sick in bed the summer after I graduated from college-- I have fond memories of downing liquid Dayquil (I can’t swallow pills very well, lawlz) while Piper Chapman wept onscreen. I give the first season 3 out of 5 camel humps (I was tired of hearing about Piper’s overwrought trials) and the following two seasons 5 out of 5 camel humps (entertaining and enlightening about what it was like on the inside). The book falls in a cozy place in between, at 4 out of 5 camel humps. I love how Piper weaved cogent explanations of how the system had failed her friends AND presented an entertaining story about something most of us will (thankfully) never undergo. At the same time, it wasn’t the most impressive writing I’ve ever read, and I was often confused by her vague transitions—it seemed that her stories weren’t as fluid as she had expected and she’d jump from one topic to another too abruptly. Thus, I recommend for readers who want perspective on a pressing domestic issue through the lens of comedy and relative lightheartedness.

* Kerman, Piper. Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. New York: Random House, Inc., 2010. Print.

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

    Tom Robbins always has the dopest titles. Every good title needs a good bookmark to complement it, so I paired Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas with this little number:

A staple of every young woman’s repertoire: a penis that holds your place in a book. Shout out to Ashley McHugh for the stellar gift.

     Speaking of penises…Tom Robbins loves to talk about them. This 1994 novel was reminiscent of the other two I’ve read (and reviewed: here and here), particularly in his inclusion of lurid sex scenes, which have me rocking the rosacea look on the subway. Other distinctive Robbins signs:

•       Use of women as powerful protagonists. The main character here is Gwendolyn Mati. It seems that she is intended to be unlikeable and, sure enough, she is. She’s an uptight, judgmental stockbroker who is unwittingly swept into a swarm of scandals. In his other works, the fabulous female characters have driven the plot; I’m always curious as to what they’ll do next because I find them inherently interesting. In this case, since Gwendolyn fell flat, I was more prone to boredom.
• Not-so-subtle social commentary. Robbins has fully embraced a hippie persona in real life…and it shows. I eat it up. He emphasizes how important it is to protect our environment and not treat the world in such an entitled way. He makes clever digs at the church as an institution and encourages us to think for ourselves rather than blindly embrace religious dogma.  He basically kills it on this front.
• Exploration of the supernatural through symbolism. Still Life of Woodpecker centered on a pack of Camel cigarettes and the pyramids on the package. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas has less to do with pajamas and more to do with frogs. Robbins toys with the idea that our ancient ancestors are actually an extraterrestrial race of amphibians, insinuating that we’ll return to that state of being in a future evolutionary step. I don’t think that Robbins actually believes this; the point is that he wants to gracefully efface our belief systems and question our conception of reality. Currently, we’re in our pajamas on the brink of snoozing through life, not fully attune to its intricacies. Or perhaps my impression is wrong, and Robbins actually means that we literally look like this creepy man: 

Unfortunately, the symbols in this book are excessively complicated and frankly unexciting. Gwendolyn is on a judicious path, but she’s concerned with the accumulation of wealth at the expense of actually living an abundant life. Robbins sticks an eccentric, sensual man named Larry Diamond in the middle of her path to help her realize her wrongs. Diamond attempts to demystify humanity’s amphibious roots but he does so unsuccessfully. The intricate connections Robbins tries to make remain muddied through the end of the book. Perhaps he stuck too many things in Gwendolyn’s path to help veer her towards a different course? The story involves more than just Larry Diamond; it includes a thieving monkey who escapes captivity (would have preferred a thieving puppy monkey baby), a 300-pound psychic who disappears (she should have read her tarot cards better), and mysterious crime on the streets. Robbins has never adhered to the axiom “less is more”; it’s worked for him in the past, but it fails him here. I didn’t find the action very suspenseful because there was simply too much going on. It was like a Law & Order episode with ten poorly related crimes.

Still, Robbins challenges me as a reader. Always—even when I’m not feeling the plot. He drops rando facts that are so obscure, you’re forced to look them up because you’re not sure and you’re curious. He applies multi-layered analogies that make me do a double take. He uses quirky language to convey ideas that we can all get behind, like when he says, “Satisfaction is nothing but a temporary anesthetizing of the numinous noogie of existence” (Robbins, 348). I will continue to respect Robbins as one of the greats, but I will not recommend this book, as I don’t think it’s representative of what he’s truly capable of. Compared to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, this novel pales in comparison. Consequently, I give it 2 out of 5 camel humps.

*Robbins, Tim. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. New York: Bantam Dell, 1994. Print.

Franny and Zooey

            Franny and Zooey* sounds like it’d be a Netflix show about female best friends going through a mid-life crisis. Fran gets pissy that Bart wants to grow out his sideburns and Zooey whines that Dennis won’t stop feeding pigeons on their walks. In actuality, it’s a combination of two short stories by J.D. Salinger, originally published separately in The New Yorker as Franny (1955) and Zooey (1957). I’ve been a subscriber to the renowned Condé Naste magazine for all of thirty days now, but I can already vouch for its good taste in fiction. The three issues that I’ve owned thus far feature short stories that have struck me as both introspectively sentimental and intellectually engaging. Franny and Zooey is no exception.

            For as short as Franny is, it packs quite a punch. Salinger trickily starts out the story by focusing on her lame ass boyfriend, Lane. We think that it’ll be all about him and we inwardly puke at his concern for appearances and postured sophistication. At his arm, Franny comes off as vapid and mindless until BAM…she’s throwing not-so-casual questions about the meaning of life at her boyfriend over dinner. He tries to evade her existential lobs but to no avail. She’s insistent upon figuring out the best way to make a lasting impression in this life without becoming a self-interested douchebag. Her attack on Lane’s college professors hints that she wants to make a difference in society; she hopes to leave a beautiful legacy but that’s becoming less and less possible because she thinks that everything is steeped in arrogance. Here, we have Salinger’s distinctive complaints: everyone is a conformist and that makes them phony. And if you deliberately rebel against the textbook trend of humanity, you’re just a different type of conformist-phony! You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Franny is the female version of Holden Caulfield, except she’s slightly less naïve (and admittedly, less off-putting). Both Franny and Holden recognize the superficiality of the world—specifically the adult world—and they don’t want any part of it. But if they don’t have any place within the world, where does that leave them? How can they find the sweet spot where they leave their own unique and beautiful watermark without just stinking up the place with more egotism? It seems that Salinger poses these questions and then lets readers answer them on their own.

            In Zooey, we learn a little more about Franny and her lineage. Franny and Zooey are siblings who grew up in a freakishly savant family. Salinger uses very specific language to convey his ideas and the dialogue in Zooey is characteristic of his tendency to express frustration through explicit speech. Perhaps this is Salinger’s own beautiful watermark on the literary community.  Zooey shows us a talented youth burdened by intellect. He struggles between bitterness towards the wisdom that accompanies his smarts and gratefulness that he’s not just another egghead drinking the Kool-Aid. He also happens to be smugly hilarious, as when he quips, “‘It probably wasn’t anything you couldn’t watch while you were cutting your toenails’” (Salinger, 143). The climax of the novella is when Zooey confronts Franny about her melancholic behavior. He throws some perspective on her dissatisfaction with humanity as it is, noting that it’ll just drive her crazy if she overanalyzes the current state of affairs. Yet, it seems that he doesn’t take his own advice…

            Taken individually, Franny and Zooey are heavy pieces; together, they’re bound to make you feel like you just swallowed a tub of ice cream. Franny and Zooey as characters are both so wrapped up in the negatives of life that they can’t actually notice anything nice in the world. At the same time, the book is indispensible. I’m a Salinger apologist. He forces us to confront what we’re all thinking: how do I create something in life that is lasting and meaningful? How do I avoid growing up and becoming a sucky adult? As a result, I give Franny and Zooey 5 out of 5 camel humps.

*Salinger, J.D. Franny and Zooey. New York: Bantam Books, Inc. 1961. Print.