QUICK AND TAMAD SUMMARY:
Ang book na ‘to ay tungkol sa isang lalake (si Toru Okada) na in the beginning, hinahanap nya lang yung nawawalang pusa ng asawa nya (Kumiko), hanggang sa yung asawa na nya yung nawawala. First book ko ‘to from this author.
Nung una, sumasakay pa ko eh. Ang tolerable pa. Pero habang tumatagal, lalong lumalala. Lumalala yung pagka-boring and pagka-nonsense. Siguro nga hindi para sakin ‘tong libro na ‘to. Pero nalalamangan ng pagka-curious ko yung pagka-ayaw ko sa book. Kaya feeling ko naman matatapos ko ‘to kahit pilit na pilit.
START OF SPOILERS
Ang daming weird characters. May weird prostitute, may weird manghuhula, may weird na teenager. Pero lahat naman sila weird.
I’m currently at 41% and UGHHH. Hirap na hirap talaga kong ituloy-tuloy. Okay ako sa weird pero bakit kasi ang boringgg. Sobrang hindi pa likeable yung main protagonist and hindi ako maka-relate sa kanya. Sobrang apathetic nya. Kaya din siguro ang hirap. Wala akong makuhang connection sa kanya. And yung mga nangyayari sa book, sobrang labo. Hindi lang siguro abot ng intellect ko yung gusto nyang iparating. Pero kahit feeling ko nagsasayang lang ako ng oras, tatapusin ko ‘to. Nanghinayang na ko sa na-invest kong oras.
Siguro si May Kasahara na lang yung saving grace for me. Kung wala yung character nya, hindi ko na talaga alam. Sya lang yung character na interested ako. The rest parang mga bato. Siguro pag nagbasa ako ulit ng isa pang book ng author na ‘to, alam ko na kung anong i-eexpect.
Isingit ko na rin yung na-sad ako dun sa story ni Lt. Mamiya. Yung kahit buhay pa sya after surviving everything and getting through all those traumatic experiences, feeling nya walang meaning yung buhay nya because he already died on that well. Huhu. Eto yung mga rare moments na may na-feel ako while reading this book.
So tapos ko na.
Clearly, this book is too deep for me to fully absorb and comprehend. Parang yung buong book is isang mahaba at weird na panaginip (or bangungot). Most of the time walang sense pero yung nasagap ng brain ko is yung themes of introspection. Hanggang dun lang. Hindi ko na sya kayang i-expound.
Atat na atat na kong matapos ‘to kasi ang haba. 600 pages. Siguro 75% of the time hindi ko alam kung anong nangyayari pero weirdly, nung 95-98% na ko dun sa book, parang ayoko pa sya matapos. Parang nasa momentum pa kong magbasa ng kawirdohan.
Baka yung next ko basahin na book from this author is yung Norwegian Wood, as recommended by one of the book club members, Danielle.
RATING [2.25 🌟]
Alam kong generally mataas yung review nung book na ‘to pero ayokong mag-pretend na naintindihan ko. Hindi pa abot ng brain cells ko yung ganitong klaseng books. Nagpapadala naman ako dun sa book. Wala akong expectations. May mga parts na gusto ko yung pagka-weird nya and may mga parts na nalulusaw na yung utak ko para pilitin na mag-make sense yung binabasa ko.
QUOTES
Curiosity can bring guts out of hiding at times, maybe even get them going. But curiosity usually evaporates. Guts have to go for the long haul. Curiosity’s like a fun friend you can’t really trust. It turns you on and then it leaves you to make it on your own—with whatever guts you can muster.
Toru Okada
When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unpleasant feelings to another domain, one having no connection with me. Then I tell myself, Fine, I’m feeling bad, but I’ve put the source of these feelings into another zone, away from here, where I can examine it and deal with it later in my own good time. In other words, I put a freeze on my emotions. Later, when I thaw them out to perform the examination, I do occasionally find my emotions still in a distressed state, but that is rare. The passage of time will usually extract the venom from most things and render them harmless. Then, sooner or later, I forget about them.
Toru Okada
I’m not one hundred percent sure about any of this, and I don’t have any amazing solutions. All I’ve got is this feeling.
Toru Okada
If people want to lose all sense of direction, the best thing that you and I can do is let them. We have more important things to do.
Noboru Wataya
If people lived forever—if they never got any older—if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy—do you think they’d bother to think hard about things, the way we’re doing now? I mean, we think about just about everything, more or less—philosophy, psychology, logic. Religion. Literature. I kinda think, if there were no such thing as death, that complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world.
May Kasahara
I remembered laughing out loud when I read this:
May Kasahara: The women sell their hair to the wig companies. That’s how they earn their dowries in some places. The whole world’s so weird! The guy sitting next to you might actually be wearing the hair of some woman in Indonesia.
By reflex, I and the B-man looked around at the others in the car.
Click to view my digital book shelf.
Gleniz da Menace 