Dusk at Ubud, Bali

Look at that. Aren't they gorgeous?? The dusk, the sky, the clouds...

These pictures were taken a while back when I was on a trip to Ubud, Bali. I just want to post them here - I really really like the colors and the moon, you see. These photos were taken by my android phone, so not the best quality, I know. Still, they are original - and beautiful!

It's K.

I have another confession to make.

Have you ever read The Sputnik Sweetheart, by Haruki Murakami?

There is a chapter in which the narrator, identified as K, only K, tells about himself. K is not the main character of the story; the spotlight is for Sumire, a friend of K, and K narrates Sumire's story from his point of view.

The thing is, the way K describes himself, I feel that K introduces my own self to me.

(Note: This can be -pretty much- a major spoiler. If you haven't read the book but plan to, and you happen to come across this blog post, I suggest you to read only until this part and not continue. Nonetheless, if you don't plan to read Sputnik Sweetheart and, let's say, will never do, then you're good to go.) 

Starting from this:

"I find it hard to talk about myself. I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors - values, standards, my own limitations as an observer - make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I've always been disturbed by the thought that I'm not painting a very objective picture of myself."

(p. 54)

That paragraph - it literally defines me. It is me. Enough said, it's self-explanatory. And this:

"Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. 'I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree,' they'll say, or 'I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world.' Or 'I'm very good at sensing others' true feelings.'"

Yes, I notice a lot of people in my surrounding do that easily.

"But any number of times I've seen people who say they're easily hurt, hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those 'good at sensing others' true feelings' are duped by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: How well do we really know ourselves?"

(p. 54)

That's exactly what bothers me. Our opinions of things, including the topic of ourselves, are inevitably subjective, yes?

And so, K uses this method instead, to get to know himself better - I should say I'm pleasantly surprised, because that's exactly what I do!!

"What I'd like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That's how I'd grasp a clearer sense of who I am. 

(p. 55)

"Like a master builder stretches taut his string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this viewpoint - or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it. Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across to other people wasn't the easiest thing in the world."

(p.55)

And other bits of things:

"I didn't swallow what other people told me." (p. 55)

"Not that I knew what I was seeking in life - I didn't. I loved reading novels to distraction but didn't write well enough to be a novelist."(p. 57)

"Novels should be for pure personal enjoyment, I figured, not part of your work or study.... I enjoyed reading and thinking, but I was hardly the academic type." (p. 57)

And then K talks about Sumire, a friend, who also happens to be a person he loves so much but it is easily an unrequited love. 

"Unlike other people she honestly, sincerely, wanted to hear what I had to say. I did my best to answer her, and our conversations helped me open up more about myself to her - and, at the same time, to myself." (p. 58)

I have 2-3 close friends who I can easily talk to, about almost everything from trivial talks or recent happenings to a series of heavy discussions about one's principles in life. These friends, they talk about themselves, how they consider everything, in a certain manner, how a problem is best solved, and their opinions of things... of course they know how subjective this talk can be, and so they really want to hear what I'm going to say about it. They ask me many things, the way I also ask them many things. 

And this is also, I think, one of the best ways to help you find out more about yourself. But this is also to say:

"I spend more time being confused than not." (p.50)

But no matter what, I can be judging and egoistic. 

"Judging the mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do - and it feels pretty good." (p. 76)

"Did I do what was right? I didn't think so, I'd only done what was necessary for me." (p.201)

I've never met a character from a book that is (almost) so similar to me, so reading Sputnik Sweetheart gives quite a memorable reading experience. K feels lonely, I do feel lonely sometimes. But that's understandable; a lot of people are unsurprisingly lonely. We are all lonely, at a certain point in life or moments. K loves books and music, and I do (heck who doesn't????) (But I think so far Murakami's characters share this very particular passion in them: they all love books and music).  

But anyway, this is not a book review. But I rate this book with 5 stars anyway. 

Just need you to know ;)

I Still Love Haruki Murakami

I always enjoy reading Haruki Murakami's books. Well, I may still have several books to go before I completely finish reading all his works. But so far, no matter how weird they are, no matter how inconclusive their endings turn out to be, and although I understand the points argued by so many people who dislike, even hate, Murakami's books, I still love Haruki Murakami and consider him one of my favorite authors.

Unlike the majority, I didn't start with Norwegian Wood, and up to now I still haven't read Norwegian Wood (another confession) (yet I have read quite a number of his books anyway). Instead, I started by reading the most gigantic and ambitious book of his, 1Q84. Strangely, I got along just fine with this book and its lonely protagonists as well as their respective past and longing and problems, weird sex scenes, massive descriptions of almost everything, occasional (frequent?) drops of (most of them Western) music or literature references, and not to mention the whole strangeness and quirkiness of it. Mostly the otherworldly experiences. They are there, and they just happen - but not accompanied by a generous amount of explanation. Some are left hanging, and like I said before, often inconclusive.

Well, this kind of thing also happens to his other books, such as Sputnik Sweetheart or Kafka on the Shore. It's like a trademark. There's this character who goes over to another world, and he/she might/might not make it back to the real world. More cat town experiences (this cat town story is mentioned in 1Q84, telling a tale of a man who drops off at a station, and he lands in a town of cat and spends some time there, frightened yet curious of its inhabitants, and he misses the train back home. No train comes to that station afterwards, and he's trapped forever in the cat town). In other word, trapped in another world entirely different than the one we reside.

Besides the existence of and journey to another world, Murakami's books are famous probably of its in-depth exploration on human longing, their incapability and limitations, troubled relationships, finding and searching for lost thing and identity... well in a way you could say that it's kinda depressing.

But I don't know. I do find that journey, although not all aspects are thoroughly understood, fascinating.

I enjoy the weirdness of the story, and I don't quite understand why. It's strange, because I understand, more easily, why Murakami's books annoy some people, how they say it makes them feel depressed because of those lonely protagonists, or that it is simply boring and the surrealistic of it is plainly frustrating. Or the way the unsolved riddles are just... unsolved. Or that because his one novel resembles his previous novel a lot, and the raw plot is just overused (1Q84, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Kafka on the Shore, Sputnik Sweetheart)...

Well, Murakami plays a lot with symbolism and analogy. Foretelling, and sometimes a view or philosophy of life is infused into his characters' dialogues - and this, I could say with confidence, is one of the best qualities in his novel. It is just interesting to read them, in a prose so easily understandable yet heavy in weights, in relation to the context of the story itself. Honestly, they can be thought-provoking - and although people may find it tiresome to go through that kind of book, especially when the book is also incorporated with too-detailed yet unnecessary description of honestly unnecessary, non-essential things - I still love every bit of it.

Yet, I don't swallow everything. I may agree or blatantly disagree with his characters and their views, their arguments and reasoning, and the roots of senses their decisions are derived from. But then again, it is always in my nature to be interested in what people have to say about life - their philosophy of life, their opinions, their experiences and how those experiences shape them in person and quality. 

Which is why I always take my time when I read Murakami's books. I don't read his books consecutively - one's finished, then I'd pick another one. No. I read other books: fantasy, adventure, sci-fi, etc. - and it would be months before I decide to buy and read another book of his. Another strange thing is, in between, I would simply miss it. I would simply miss reading Murakami's prose (that doesn't happen with other authors, I wonder why) and when I don't have a new Murakami book, I'd pick his short stories or reread his quotes instead.

This being said, I don't know if later I would end up detesting Murakami (let's say, after I read all his works including other nonfiction books he writes), but let's just see.

Presently, I love his works so far.