Murakami Magic

I’ve always been a big Murakami fan.  I’ve read most of his novels.  My daughter introduced me to his work with ‘The Windup Bird Chronicles’, which until now I’ve considered his best work.  But 1Q84 is more ambitious yet.  It pulls together many strands that have been prominent in his works over the years.  It is quite simply the best book I’ve read in quite a while.

Yes, it’s long.  Over 900 pages.  In the original Japanese edition it was published as three separate books.  And the first two were published before the last was completed.  Echoes of Dickens serialization here. 

1Q84 is part straightforward modern novel, part love story, part science fiction, part thriller, and part modern myth.  The nearest equivalent I can think of is Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’.  The writing is very straightforward.  Typical for Murakami, an easy read.  Simple yet very engaging.  The structure is reassuringly formal and strict.  That helps in a book that is intentionally ambiguous in several ways.  The typography is innovative without feeling gimmicky.

All the usual Murakami elements are present:  lots and lots of Western cultural references, main characters that live outside of societal norms, supernatural aspects, a tight plot structure that has ambiguity built in, plain unadorned language that is at the same time aptly expressive.  Readers of Murakami will notice one thing is missing:  wells.  The well is an image that Murakami uses in a number of his books, but it makes no appearance here.  No need.

There are stories within stories, commentary on the role of literature in society, a surprising amount of sex (unusual for Murakami), violence, and suspense.  But there’s a central theme that Murakami has hinted at in earlier works but never focused on as he does here:  the redemptive power of love.  He shows us that we are all intended to love, to love wastefully, and to love fully.  In order to do this, we have to go through a process in which we shed limits and fears from our past, and in which we are transformed into our true selves through a kind of alchemy that produces pure human gold, a genuinely loving individual that fulfills his individual destiny.

Perhaps my own peculiar circumstances make me especially ‘vulnerable’ to his message.  Divorced, I find myself rediscovering my own capacity for love, finding again the person that I am meant to be.  Yes, I cried during the last hour of reading the book.  I’ve read many reviews and I won't quibble with much of the carping and criticism.  Nonetheless, 1Q84 struck a chord in me that I would wish for everyone to experience.  We are all meant to love.  There are many obstacles in our way, but we can find our way around them.  I’m not a strictly religious person (nor is Murakami), but I have attended services at Unity Church in Palo Alto for the last year, and I find Murakami’s message to be oddly compatible with Unity’s central theme.  We are all meant to love and be loved.  The path to that place is a difficult one, but it is the path that we are destined to follow.  Look for the signals in your everyday life.  You only have to notice them.  They are there.  Be open.  Love generously and unconditionally. Be who you are meant to be.

I’m not certain how open modern readers will be to Murakami’s message about the redemptive power of love.  It is certainly at odds with much that our cynical snarky culture puts out in huge quantities every day.  Perhaps underneath that cynicism is the hope that someday we will fulfill our emotional destiny.  Strangely Dickensian.  Call me a sucker.  I love it.  Sign me up.

Language Addiction

‘River of Smoke’ is the second in a series of historical novels by Amitav Ghosh.  The book deals with the period leading up to the Opium Wars in China in the early nineteenth century.  That period of history is fascinating for today’s readers.  Drugs were hopelessly entwined in the fabric of life then, just as they are now.  The personal, political, and economic consequences of addiction were serious.  The complexities of addiction are fascinating, and the connections between the personal and political realms are manifold.  Our ‘War on Drugs’ has its antecedents in this earlier time, but at that time Westerners were playing the roles of merchants and drug lords.  Profits were huge and the moral justifications elaborate and stretched thin.  For these connections alone the book is a fascinating read.

But the real strength of the book is its obsession with language.  Ghosh manages to capture something of the spirit of the time by using bits and pieces of many dialects and languages.  Many cultures mix and clash, and the resulting linguistic hodge-podge is wonderful to behold.  Ghosh seems to be addicted to the pleasures of language just as some of his characters are addicted to opium.  His playful use of language is fascinating, fun, ribald, and ultimately revealing of the time he describes.  I know of no other author who manages to pull this off.  Go too far in this direction and the language becomes incomprehensible.  Not far enough and much of the richness of the reading experience would be lost.  More often than not Ghosh strikes the right balance.

Approach the book with an open mind.  Don’t be put off by the dialects.  Stick with it even if you’re a little confused.  Read it aloud.  Rejoice in the complexity.  Enjoy.

Amazon (not dot com)

After reading a bunch of ‘experimental’ fiction lately,  Ann Patchett’s latest novel ‘State of Wonder’ came as a welcome relief.  It’s old-fashioned storytelling at a very high level.  She keeps us interested and entertained, and in the long run she also offers some valuable wisdom.  More about that later.

Much of the book takes place in the Amazon jungle, and Patchett’s descriptions are so vivid as to be both horrifying and fascinating.  As travel writing alone, the book is memorable and worthy read.  The story is well crafted without being particularly inventive or non-traditional.  Chapters are well formed and flow convincingly from one to the next.  The writing is lively but did not strike me as mannered or exaggerated in any way.

Patchett touches on many themes here, including ‘going native’, overcoming our past failures and traumas, the complications of cross-cultural similarities and differences, and the inevitability of choice in our lives.  No matter how many alternatives we have, we can only choose one at a time.  We may never know the ultimate endpoints of the other paths, but we can make the most of the one we choose.  And we can keep ourselves well informed from our experience and our intelligence so that the next choice will take us closer to where we want to go.  There is a sadness in considering the paths not taken, but to try to combine all of them in a single life will probably not do justice to any of them.

‘State of Wonder’ (not a great title for this book, I fear) is a fast and rewarding read.  Pick a shady spot on a sunny warm fall day and enjoy.

Thinking in the Kitchen

Michael Ruhlman’s books have long occupied a special place in my collection of cookbooks and books about food.   Ever since ‘The Making of a Chef’, Ruhlman has opened my eyes to the value of concentration and discipline in working in the kitchen.  ‘Twenty’ is his latest contribution.  It’s not a book for everyone, but it is a distillation of Ruhlman’s approach to the kitchen:  “Think before all else.” 

Ruhlman attempts to condense basic cooking principles into twenty basic concepts.  Some are ingredients, some are approaches, some are techniques.  I don’t think you could get a single authority to agree that these are the twenty that really matter, but Ruhlman’s choices are fascinating.  Number One is “Thinking”.  He insists that having a well considered concept of what you’re trying to accomplish in the kitchen is THE most important tool of all in the kitchen.  It’s better than following a recipe, better than spontaneous improvisation.  For me thinking is one of the joys of cooking.  As I’ve said elsewhere here, figuring out what to make is almost more enjoyable for me than actually preparing it.  What do I want to create?  How can I accomplish it?  If things aren’t working out correctly, how can I make corrections?  Or maybe I just have to adjust my thinking to what’s really happening.

Admittedly we’re in very personal territory here.  Like how we dress, how we write, how we travel, how we go about any activity in life, how we cook is a direct reflection of who we are.  It just so happens that for me Ruhlman is a kindred spirit.  I find it fascinating to think about water as an ingredient.  In what ways do we use it?  What are the properties of water that allow us to use it in those ways?  Why is it better than other substances in many cases?  Why doesn’t it work well in others?

Salt.  It’s crucial to all Western cooking.  Why?  How does it work?  What do we use it for?  Why?

Ruhlman’s collaborations with Thomas Keller are also interesting, but Keller takes basic principles far beyond where we mortals can venture.  I have managed to incorporate a few simple Keller techniques into my special-occasion cooking, but most of it is beyond me.  It sounds good on paper, but I just don’t have the time, energy, and devotion to find out if it would really work for me.  ‘Twenty’, on the other hand, is approachable.  Take it or leave it.  There are plenty of recipes that illustrate the basic concepts.  I’ve tried a couple so far.  One was a total failure, but the shortcomings were mine.  The other was simple and a big success.

But what I most appreciate is the encouragement to be who I am:  a guy who likes to think about food, about cooking, and about eating.

Just My Type

A book for the general reader about fonts.  Who’da thunk it?

‘Just My Type’ by Simon Garfield opened my eyes and mind to font design and use.  Yes, it’s more than I ever wanted to know about typeface.  You might find yourself skimming through some of the more detailed history, but for the most part the writing is hip and the subject matter interesting.  Here are some of my own conclusions.  Anyone who’s worked even casually in the world of graphic design will probably react with a resounding ‘Duhhhhhh!’.  Nonetheless:

-          Font choice is yet another resource available to us for expression.  Fonts do influence the way we read and the way we interpret what we read.

-          It’s fascinating to look at our modern world through the prism of fonts.  Look around you and notice the fonts that are used in print material, online, on public signage.  Some choices are perfect; others downright offensive.  It’s fun to notice.

-          To some extent fonts reflect historical and artistic trends.

-          Readability is partly objective, but not entirely.  We learn to read what’s put in front of us.  We grow accustomed to the fonts we see most often, and they can become optimally readable, no matter what the objective criteria might indicate.

-          Font choice changes over time, and not just because the times change.  Also because we just plain get bored.  Even if a font is perfect for its time, sooner or later it will fall out of favor simply because we’re bored with it and we fail to notice it.

Maybe the book could have been a third shorter, but I don’t regret the time spent reading it.  As you would expect, the fonts being discussed are actually used in the book, so as a reader you get to experience the font in context.  Not sure how the E-book version works.  E-readers generally present text in a uniform font chosen by the device.  Some offer a limited choice of fonts.  But in this book the variation of fonts is crucial.  Maybe the E-book is presented as a series of images?  If not, this is one case where hard-copy is essential.

What’s next?  A book about the history of book binding?  It probably already exists.  For now, I’ll happily return to reading fiction, but maybe I’ll bring to it a new awareness of the influence that the shape of the letters on the page is having on my reading experience.

Something New

She won the Pulitzer.  Enough said.  Jennifer Egan’s ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ has been hailed as ‘wildly ambitious’, ‘audacious’, ‘dazzling’.  Far be it from me to disagree.  Sure enough, Egan seems intent on breaking new ground in this book. 

There’s nothing new about a novel which consists of a serious of interlocking stories.  Think of Colum McCann’s ‘Let the World Spin’.  By comparison with Egan, McCann’s book is strikingly traditional.  Even though the stories (chapters) are somewhat independent, the common threads are in plain sight, the plot clear, and the emotional tone is generous and full of deep feeling.

How different is Egan’s approach.  The writing is downright virtuosic.  Many distinct voices and tones.  Very snappy writing that pleased me over and over again.  But here the discontinuities rule, and the emotional tone is detached.  She seems so intent on perfect execution of the difficult technical tasks she set out for herself that there is little energy left for emotion.  Chronology is intentionally and cleverly jumbled.  Voices change with time and character.  The conscious effort required to bring that off seems evident to the reader, and it gets in the way of a more straightforward emotional experience.

I love the opening chapter and the chapter about an African safari.  Also, the chapter culminating with an attempted rape was funny, brilliant, and disturbing.  Wonderful writing here.

But for me it was a book that spoke more to my head than to my heart, and in that sense I was disappointed.  Perhaps in order to find a truly new way of writing a novel it’s necessary to destroy much of the old ways first.  Do we really have to explode the old ways in order to forge something new?  Maybe, but I do hope that the emotional detachment is not something that endures.  Call me old-fashioned (many have).  I’m willing to do some conscious intellectual work in reading fiction, but I prefer to do it in the service of a rich and rewarding emotional experience. 

Kitchen Thoughts

I’ve been doing some serious cooking for at least ten years.  I don’t bake very much, but I do cook quite a bit.  While my interests in the kitchen have taken several different turns over the years, I tend to steer towards the classics (often French), or at least dishes that grow out of traditional recipes.

Obviously I’m not alone in discovering cooking as a hobby in recent years.  Interest in food (especially high-end food) has ‘mushroomed’ in this country.  Some of it probably grew out of the affluence of the tech boom.  Some was just a reaction to the all-too-common boring home-cooked meals that we grew up with in the 50’s and 60’s.  And now we have the local/organic food movement that provides us with high-quality ingredients.  How great is that?

While I’ve had almost no formal training in the kitchen, I have experienced cooking with lots of friends and family, and I’m fascinated by the different approaches that people bring to it.  Some treat cooking like a chemistry experiment: every ingredient is carefully measured and the recipe is honored as if it were holy scripture.  I started out that way, but that all changed for me when I discovered the simple sauté.  No measuring, just choose your protein, think a little about the flavor profile you’re looking for, and start cooking.  I was quickly amazed by what can happen without much of a plan.

I’ve worked with some cooks who really don’t know what they’re going to end up when all is said and done.  They have a very vague idea of what they want when they start.  They’ve done some shopping.  In executing the dish, the dish changes significantly a few times along the way.   For those who like to work this way and are good at it, the results are both unpredictable and surprisingly good.

After all, those enshrined published recipes were developed by somebody.  And usually the recipe is just a snapshot in time of an ever-evolving dish.  If it were published a few years earlier or later it would be quite different.

For me the process of developing the menu is just as enjoyable (maybe more so) than the actual cooking.  Usually it starts with an idea for one dish, that one dish that I’ve made before but want to alter somehow, or a dish or ingredient that’s new to me that I want to try.  Then it’s a long fun process of figuring out what goes with what.  What sides, appetizers, dessert, drinks, etc.  Flavors, colors, textures all have to work together.  I often map it out on paper over and over.  Some of those dishes are specific recipes, some just general concepts.  Things change many times before I even do the shopping.  If I’m lucky, the menu I settle on is balanced, has some kind of unifying theme, and includes enough variety to keep the diner interested, pleased, and maybe even surprised here and there.  Virtual cooking, I guess.  I could almost stop there and be satisfied.

Then there’s the execution.  That’s lots of work, which can be a problem by itself.  Sometimes the concepts I’ve settled on are perfect but require more work than I can comfortably get done by myself in the allotted time.  Sometimes the opposite will happen, and I’ll be inspired to add a course at the last minute.

I wonder what these different approaches say about the cook?  What am I trying to accomplish when I cook?  Sometimes it’s just plain sustenance, sometimes fun, sometimes an experiment, sometimes a performance, sometimes I’m just keeping myself occupied during a crisis.  I love that it can be whatever I need it to be at the time.

How lucky are we that we live in a time and place in which procuring something we need to stay alive can be fulfilling in so many other ways?  The trick is in knowing what approach is appropriate for a particular occasion given my state of mind at the time.  Have I ever screwed that up any number of times!  But when I get it right, I have a good time in the kitchen and my guests enjoy themselves in the dining room.