Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin

After immensely enjoying The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, I picked up a copy of another book by Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

Two nerds, Sam and Sadie, meet each other during their free childhood when Sam is in the hospital for a long time with a broken foot. Sadie visits him regularly. After he is discharged, they lose sight of each other again.

When they study again, they meet again. Both are creative and fond of games. They decide to build a game. Marx, a friend, joins them as a producer.

The game becomes a huge success. They only needed the engine of an obscure friend of Sadie’s, Dov. He turns out to be an oppressive character, leading Sam into a deep depression, which strains their relationship. The game’s sequel also becomes a success. They have since set up a company dedicated to building games and moved from Boston to LA. The relationship between Sam and Sadie remains platonic, going up and down in waves.

The company builds a game with a virtual world in which Sam and Sadie can express their free morals. For example, they create a world where same-sex marriage is not only accepted but celebrated. Sam plays the Mayor of this world. This controversial world leads to furious reactions in the real world from conservative groups who see it as an attack on traditional values. This gets out of hand, and one day, the company is raided, and Marx is shot.

The story devolves into a surreal, dreamlike narrative of Marx lying in his hospital bed, trying to survive. Beautiful style reminiscent of Johnny Got His Gun, the intensely disturbing story about a soldier who wakes up in the hospital and finds that he has lost his sight and his arms and legs. The story about Marx is less disconcerting but beautifully written. The whole experience brings Sam and Sadie back together.

Not as weird as Fikry, yet equally enjoyable.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry – Gabrielle Zevin

I stumbled upon it at Broese in Utrecht (a very nice bookshop that has a small section of Dutch authors in translation; it is a nice gift for friends from abroad).

A.J. Fikry is a lonely 40-year-old bookseller. He runs a bookstore on Alice Island. His wife has recently passed away, and he is struggling to find direction in his life. When an expensive first edition of an early Tamerlane is stolen from his home/shop, and shortly thereafter, a child is found abandoned in his store, his life changes. He adopts the baby, Maya. He befriends Amelie, the representative of a publishing house. They hesitate to live together, afraid of adjusting to another person. Acquaintances and family urge both to start a normal family, something neither of them feels like doing.

(In that sense, a funny similarity to Earthlings, in which an aversion to conventions is also a theme. It is probably not a coincidence since it is yours truly who ultimately selected these books).

A.J. marries Amelia. Maya becomes a writer.

He is delighted to have produced such a fantastic nerd.

Deliciously wacky book.

PS. I just found out that the book has a movie adaptation. We set through it. Not a good movie.

Raymond Carver’s wrinkle

I am rereading Raymond Carver’s short stories. Nothing happens in these stories, nothing in terms of real-life events—suggestions of events only. A man and a woman are lying in bed. Nothing happens. Only the woman can not sleep. We follow her restlessness. A postman welcomes a new family in town. He observes them while they settle and leave town again.

There is no twist at the end of the stories—just a little wrinkle, at best.

Convenience Store Woman in a normalized world – Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman (Buurtsupermens) is about an Asperger-like girl in her thirties who works as a substitute worker in a typical small Japanese neighborhood supermarket from the age of 18.

She has excellent powers of observation.

The neighborhood supermarket is a place that is completely normalized, and recovery will soon come for you, too.

Life at the neighborhood supermarket is entirely predictable for Keiko, and she loves it. However, she meets deadbeat Shiraha, and he changes her life. Shiraha’s arrival throws her structured life into disarray and turns it into chaos.

Just in time, she realizes that she was born a Convenience Store Woman, and that is where she finds happiness.

It is a strange story about fitting into society by not fitting in, which seems to be a theme in Sayuku Murata’s work, as Earthlings (Aardbewoners) has a similar theme. However, that book is way more grim than the light-hearted style of Convenience Store Woman.

De sleutel – Junichiro Tanizaki

De sleutel – Junichiro Tanizaki

In Tanizaki’s De sleutel leeft een ouder echtpaar enigszins gescheiden van elkaar. Beiden houden een geheim dagboek bij. Ze schrijven over hun leven vanuit hun eigen perspectief en speculeren over de motieven van de ander. Beiden weten dat de ander een dagboek bijhoudt. Ze vermoeden dat de ander hun dagboek leest en laten berichten achter in hun dagboeken die bedoeld zijn voor de ander. Maar beiden schrijven dat ze elkaars dagboek niet lezen. Alleen de lezer weet dat.

Ze leiden een bizar seksleven met elkaar, waarbij de man de vrouw min of meer vrijwillig drogeert, en alleen in die situatie kunnen ze oprecht hartstochtelijk de liefde bedrijven. Nadat de man sterft (tijdens de daad), begint de vrouw zijn dagboek te lezen (ze schrijft in haar dagboek). Ze gaat door met haar dagboek en er volgt een bizarre wending, waarbij de waarheid heel anders blijkt te zijn.

Het dagboek van de vrouw doet denken aan Sei Shonagons Hoofdkussenboek.

I am a Cat – Soseki Natsume

In I am a Cat (Ik ben een kat in Dutch), a rather headstrong and intelligent observant cat moves into a teacher’s home. The book follows the cat’s observations and interactions with the teacher and his circle of friends, providing an interesting perspective on human behavior.

Ik ben een kat - Soseki Natsume

The cat, with a critical eye, narrates his master’s inflated behavior, revealing the human tendency to feign superiority and the struggle between habits and customs. In a humorous twist, he exposes the triviality that surrounds his master.

Seth Godin – The Practice, Do the Work

Encouragement for the creative mind.

Reassurance is futile. Attitude is a skill. Produce with intent. The work is too important to be left to how we feel. Instead, trust the process and do the work.

Change your actions first. We become what we do.

Peculiar means specific. The standard narrative pushes us to fit in, but through specificity and peculiarity, we stand out. Change comes from idiosyncratic voices. Be more specific and less generic.

Attachment to status, outcome, and opinions brings nothing. There is no such thing as a foundation. The process of engaging with the genre, the audience, and the change ís the foundation. Become unattached.

The practice is about doing it more than once, regularly, until it becomes… practice.
Ship on a schedule.

Credentials are just a piece of paper. Instead, create a body of work that shows you have insight, experience, and concern.

The work is an infinite game. No winners, no losers. (The reward for work is more work, said Tom Sachs.)

Determination counts (versus inspiration).

Chop wood, carry water.

Mise en place is preparation. The muse shows up when we do the work.

Seek desirable difficulty to seek improvement. Be uncomfortable.

Genre states your idiosyncratic work. Generic is a trap. Learning a skill is attitude and cohort.

Constraints feed creativity.

Be paranoid about mediocrity.

Many, many quotable sentences. A companion to The War of Art and Do The Work.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop: A Love Letter to Books, Tokyo, and Second Chances

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa is a quiet, tender novel about finding your way when life has left you adrift. Takako, a young woman from Tokyo, quits her office job and comes to live and work in the small second-hand bookstore of her uncle, Satoru, in a small provincial town.

In her life in Tokyo, she was indecisive, reserved, and treated like dirt by her boyfriend. After summoning the courage to confront her boyfriend and tell him the truth, Takako takes a decisive step forward, leaving behind the negativity and moving on with her life.

Her uncle’s wife suddenly reappears with her husband after years of absence. As if nothing had happened. With her aunt Momoko, she heads into the mountains for a weekend. Momoko turns out to have had an abortion years ago and then struggled with life. After the mountain outing, Momolo disappears again as shyly as she has returned. Takako breaks her vow of secrecy and informs her uncle Satoru of the secret his wife is carrying. He searches and finds his wife again, and they become closer than ever.

Secretive as a Murakami. With a fine list of quoted Japanese writers at the back of the book.

If you’ve ever lost yourself in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin—a novel about a grumpy bookshop owner who rediscovers joy through books—then Days at the Morisaki Bookshop will feel like a kindred spirit. Both books describe bookshops not as places to buy books; they’re places where lives are rebuilt.

Werner Herzog – Every Man For Himself And God Against All

The memoirs of Werner Herzog.

Herzog tells us about his tough youth in Bavaria, factually, as if it were normal. His family is so poor that they can not afford to wear shoes and underwear in summer. He grows up in deep poverty in the almost fairy tale world of the Bavarian mountains—a hard life, his parents somewhat loveless. Herzog brings us from these archaic times into the internet age.

He jumps back to the chaotic times around the Second World War and the weird family situation. His parents are members of the Nazi party. His father is a wild man who married three times—a good-for-nothing, selfish klaploper. Herzog moves around and does not belong anywhere. He lives in the German post-war rubble.

The story jumps back and forth in time and tells about crazy accidents, catastrophes, wounds, illnesses, and crashes. Throughout the book, Herzog speaks about the challenges he takes on without explicitly mentioning them. He seems to have a preference for the risky and weird, which is reflected in the extraordinary topics of his films.

His diary notes under the title Ballad of the Little Soldier are terrible stories about child soldiers. He films people on death row.

Herzog and Kinsky

He has worked on several films with the crazy and genius actor Klaus Kinsky. From the stories, Kinsky emerges even more disturbed than what we already knew about him.

Herzog’s writing style is entertaining. He starts a story, jumps back in time, returns to the story, jumps forward, and so on. Which feels very natural.

Can’t summarize. A relentless man is probably the best summary.

Norwegian Wood the movie and re-reading books

Twin Peaks

Yesterday, I re-watched an episode of Twin Peaks, which remains a fantastic David Lynch classic. Being somewhat low-energy, I scrolled through my Justwatch list to see if any other exciting films were available. There, I found Norwegian Wood.

Recently, I reread Haruki Murakami’s book. I still liked it very much. (I rarely reread a single book, with exceptions being Haruki Murakami, Gerrit Krol, Douglas Coupland, Derek Sivers and Seth Godin)
The movie Norwegian Wood has a very similar atmosphere to the book. The film has the typical Murakami-like alienation from the world.

“Of course.”

“Is that a catchphrase of yours?”

I found this again in “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” (in Dutch – De stad en zijn onvaste muren).

→ The City and Its Uncertain Walls