Gorm

Gave it 5 stars because reading this was really enjoyable. The directness and decadence of both the alternate reality Europe and the narrator himself come off as funny, but also poignant and refreshing. At its core, I do really believe that the book is about how the individual is lost without a firm force guiding the individual's life, like a religion, traditional values, strong families etc. “Submission” under something can, of course, be oppressive when taken too far, but total freedom might also be dangerous, something many realist and modernist authors already have expressed their anxiety about through tons of books from over hundred years prior to this one. Huysman is a great device to illustrate this, and also works as a mirror to the book's narrator.

Of course, the book is very satirical, so it shouldn't be read as a doomsday manuscript of our near future (or should it?). The narrator is clearly a hypocrite and in general not reliable nor a bastion of morality. The political situation portrayed in the book is super farfetched. Personally, I'm quite left-leaning politics-wise, and the book isn't really about that anyway. It's simply a funny and no-holds-barred critique that creates debate, and I appreciate that.

As a big Murakami fan, I can safely say that this (alongside Sputnik Sweetheart) is among my least favorite ones. This novel is considered by fans and critics alike to be one of his best ones, so it obviously has something to it, and I do see the appeal, but I'm guessing that it's just not for me. I was kind disappointed honestly. I found the Sci-fi/Fantasy concepts in the book uninteresting, and I think too much dry exposition (almost three whole chapters in the middle of the book) was used to convey something that really wasn't that complicated. I also think it's one of his novels where the negative Murakami cliches felt the most grating. Sleazy objectification of women, which I wouldn't usually mind if it helps build a certain character or theme or to convey a certain message, but knowing Murakami, it's simple self-insertion without much literary function. This is usual Murakami, but I thought it was notably strong in this particular novel and just enhanced the rest of what I found to be negative.

However, I'm giving the novel a bit of a pass by rating it a 3-star. The Norwegian translation was absolutely horrible, and I wish I had read the English or Japanese one instead. As someone who's worked in translation a bit, it is actually laughably bad at some points. There are numerous grammatical mistakes, weird/outdated choices of translations for lexical words, and unnatural syntax all over the place. I'm sure that the Japanese or even the translated English versions prose is much more natural than in mine.

It wasn't necessarily a bad reading experience. I am a big Murakami fan for a reason, and I did enjoy parts of the novel here and there. I thought it picked up especially towards the end, after the ascent from the “underworld”, in what I'd describe as the novels Act 3. I'm also one of those people who love descriptive passages of cooking and coffee-drinking, and I thought the literary references in this novel was unusually apt (if somewhat quickfire) to be Murakami. Once again he is successful in creating what I call a “cozy atmosphere”. Some of the key themes in the novel are also wonderfully worked into the plot and concepts of the book, so in that sense, it's all well put-together. This guy definitely knows how to write.

It all did simply not appeal to me that much this time around. There was no spark. It's probably me more than you, Murakami, and I still like you, but this date went a bit meh. I'm looking forward to our next meeting!

Asks interesting and hard-hitting moral and ethical questions, particularily of the values of friendship and privacy, but I didn't exactly fall in love with the narrative built around these questions. The main characters themselves were interesting with flaws that expressed well the overarching themes of the novel, but a lot of the peripheral events and characters seemed a bit superfluous to me. I also found it to be a bit overbearing in its attempt to evoke sad or sympathetic feelings, and if it had been made into a Hollywood movie, it would definitly be labeled as a “Oscar-bait” tearjerker.

Nontheless, it was a quick and accessible read, and it is definitly worth your time even if it wasn't my particular cup of tea.

This was my first adventure with Somerset Maugham, and I must say that I'm quite impressed by what I read. If I were to get someone into reading classic literature, I would tell them to start with this short story collection for numerous reasons.

Maugham does a lot of things that modern writers of literary fiction are discouraged from doing nowadays: For the most part he is telling us a story rather than showing it, and he sometimes spends numerous pages, more than most authors would do in even a long novel, describing a characters appearance, mannerisms and past. Many less gifted authors would make a hack out of their writing if they were to use the same techniques, but I imagine Maugham as a very shrewd and perceptive observer as he, for the most part, knows what is interesting and what is not. His style makes for incredibly vivid characters and settings.
The prose is also perfect for people who are usually dscouraged from reading classics because of the language. If I were to describe Maughams prose with one word I would say that it is balanced. His sentences are of medium or short length, and although he expresses things clearly and matter of factly, he doesn't shy away from using more poetic and obscure language as well. It's like a perfect hybrid, or link, between the style of prose used in a victorian novel and the economical prose we are used to today.
Another reason to read this is that the short stories utilize an amazingly clear and classical style of plot structure, as if he used Aristoteles “Poetics” like a recipe book and Sophocles tragic plays as examples. His characters of focus usually end up having some sort of fatal epiphany by the end of the short story that brings about their downfall. At the same time, the psychology of his characters rivals that of someone like Henry James or Flannery O'Connor so that their ruin gives actual food for thought for modern readers. Summing it up, he builds his stories on a classical foundation, but fills them with modern psychological and moral depth.

Rain and Macintosh are among the very best short stories I've ever read, and the rest of the stories are of a consistent high quality, which is an achievement itself when it comes to short story collections. I can't give it a full 5 stars as I found that his inabiliy to write female characters were particularily jarring when compared to how well he wrote male characters, and I found that the stories sometimes lack a bit of playfulness or ingenuity that for me would elevate them to a bit of a higher level. As someone who is not a particularily big fan of short stories however I must say that this collection is up there for me as one of the most enjoyable and consistent ones, alongside Flannery O'Connors “Everything That Rises Must Converge”. Recommended!

Taksim isn't a novel, it is life. It's not only an amazing meditative experience, an exercise in mindfulness perhaps, but it's also a visceral travel journal of a region I've been absolutely fascinated by ever since I traveled through parts of it, such as Hungary and northern Romania, and read up on the history of these places. If you share my interests, then this book is also a gold mine on that front. It's also a portrait of a Europe in decay, of changing times and of those left behind.

However, most of all what I want to focus on, is that there is so much texture and atmosphere between the pages, something I'm beginning to appreciate more and more in literature. You can smell the thrash and tobacco, feel the texture of mud and leather, see the lights shining from the gas station, taste the cheap alcohol and potatoes, and you can really hear the voice of Wladek through your right ear. I think Stasiuk succeeds at what Woolf was trying to do with Mrs. Dalloway, but through poetic minimalist prose and dark gritty realism similar to that of Cormac McCarthy; to channel life through literature as it really is. There are also some great overall themes on the impact of stories and narratives on individual lives, how they are sometimes more real than what we experience in the present, and sometimes the only thing we have to hold on to.

Stasiuks subjects are a pair of Poles traveling in and around the Carpathians, to backwater towns and gypsie outposts, selling used clothes from the back of an old Ducato van that barely runs. There's an almost post-apocalyptic feel to it all. Our protagonist is a stoic and broken-down man in his late forties who does all the driving and listening, while Wladek is a man whose mouth runs constantly and whose eyes seems to be focused on everything but the present. There are no chapters, no real beginnings and ends, just a stream of different memories, experiences and stories. Some are exciting, some are just plain boring, and others are full of melancholy. Isn't that what life is? The ride continues.