Hi! Writing after a long gap. Writing about what little I know, what has largely figured in my life so far-books. So far I've been reading quite a few different authors and when I mean different I mean hugely different. I've breezed through Steig Larsson ( all three books) read almost all the novels of Nicholas Sparks (barring a few) and just finished reading Murakami a few hours ago. So you have a fair idea when I say different. Romance, thriller and what? I find Murakami defies classification. His work is not quite allegory, not quite symbolic, has a mystery at the heart of it, a plethora of strange characters peopling its world of alternate reality. Out of these three, two are translations.
Steig Larsson (or Reg Keeland) gives us three nail biting, edge of the seat novels which hold the reader enthralled. A heroine who is radical, unconventional, a rebel defying all norms. Lisbeth Salander inhabits a murky world of deceit, violence and abuse; wrongly condemned to an asylum, she is subjected to the worst kind of mental torture which later takes on a physical form in her loathsome guardian who rapes her. I cannot deny that I was completely and utterly revolted by the world she moves in, yet utterly gripped by the racy plot in the first novel as it hurtles towards its surprising climax. ( If you haven't read it I won't spoil your suspense). The plot is not the first of its kind; Larsson's heroine is. He seems to want to give her a freedom normally enjoyed by men- namely sleeping around with impunity, being possessed of a photographic memory(Eidetic is the word I think), existing between ambiguous sexual territories ( bisexual). In other words, it is probably his way of liberating women.(?) But while reading the text I found myself wondering how authentic a translation can really be. Had the translator achieved exactly what the author had intended or is a translation a mere approximation of the author's works? If Larsson had written in English would he have chosen those very words, that terminology to express himself or would it have been different? The characters and plot remain his without doubt but the words? I wondered if I wasn't enjoying Reg Keeland more than Larsson. The same thought kept running through my mind while reading Murakami. Of the three Murakami took me the longest time to get through. It was difficult to orient myself to his writing, not his style mind you, which is pretty lucid and modern ( again might be due to the translator Jay Rubin). But the novel itself is very strange; its message not clear( if there is one at all), and to my understanding slightly obscure. Evil, as Murakami, defines it, is not a quality, an abstract; neither is the self. Both possess bodies, are physical manifestations. The dream world/ alternate reality collides and merges with this world. The rapidity with which Okada the protagonist shuttles between these two worlds is bewildering at first, then dizzying as he descends into the bottom of a well to think and connect with his alternate self. He gives us a procession of women characters- Malta Kano, Creta Kano, Kumiko, May Kasahara, Nutmeg,the woman with the sexy telephone voice and each character is decidedly peculiar. Each woman aids Okada in solving the mystery of his wife Kumiko who supposedly leaves him for another man. Even Kumiko herself. Evil is manifested in the person of Noboru Wataya, Kumiko's brother, and his much hated brother-in-law. To be absolutely honest it was much too vague and convoluted for me. It lacked what I always call a center. The novel has a rather episodic quality where there are stories within stories( Honda, Lieutenant Mamiya, Cinnamon, Nutmeg. Malta Kano, Creta Kano, Kumiko, Okada, May Kasahara) and the effort to maintain such a vast canvas shows. The connections between these stories are lost though the author takes great pains to tell us and show us those connections. Murakami's characters are incredibly detailed, lively and well etched but he fails to integrate them skillfully into the central theme- which is the windup bird singing its song and winding the spring of the world- a song which leads anyone who hears it to ruin. And significantly it is the name Okada chooses to introduce himself to May Kasahara. Somewhere I feel Murakami stops short of clarity. His portrayal of the other reality, the shadow world, the demon self if you like, lacks potency precisely because he clothes it in flesh by actually giving it a slippery slimy form. Evil tangible scores less than evil intangible. Evil which cannot be seen but felt is more frightening than what you can witness and feel and touch. But that is just my opinion. Murakami disagrees with me. He makes it physical. That is why I cannot read his novel as allegory only.
Having said this much I can laud both Murakami and Sparks for portrayals of men who are comfortable doing feminine tasks and do not feel emasculated by them. Okada looks after the house, cooks, does laundry after chucking up his job; Sparks' men are old fashionably honorable, strong and comfortable in the female domain- the kitchen. Kudos to both for that! If you do decide to read any of these writers you have to take different attitudes towards each. What that is, you decide. Just as you decide how much a translation can achieve in terms of authenticity. Or will it be an approximation only?
