A lot of it is in my lack of imagination. Some, if not most books have a almost masturbatorialness when it comes to describing its world. They like to tell you how big a house is, what kind of patterns are on a person's shoe and just how blue some guys eyes are amidst the smoke of a cigarette. I cannot stand it. I cannot properly imagine what a author is trying to describe and it gives me a headache when I try to think of what this shower looks like.
I'm a dialog kind of guy. I like conversations, not narrations. Which has lead me to love other forms of story telling such as TV Shows, Movies, Comic Books, Anime, Manga and of course, Video Games. Oh boy do I love Video Games. I love Video Games so much, I'll play a Visual Novel which is what it sounds like; a novel that has visuals.
Dialog cuts to the chase. You got a problem? Solve it with words. That's my motto. In fact, most of the time when I do read a book, I tend skip all the text and wait for the famous " to show up and read what's in it. That's just how it is for me. Hell even when it comes to writing I know I get stuck on the narration portion and mostly just skip to writing the dialog. So they tend to turn out like scripts... kinda sorta like.
Long story short I find reading a book kinda boring. Which is what makes me love Norwegian Wood so much. It was an amazing read and I was hooked pretty much from the third or fourth page on.
I started reading it one day at work on a whim and could not put it down. Every subway ride, every free moment at work, every time I woke up and every time I went to sleep I read this book.
The writing style was something that I can get into fairly easily. Haruki Murakami kinda didn't bullshit with set up and I liked it. I mean yeah sure he talked about tree's and the set up of Watanabe's room, but he never went so deep as to describe what kind of cake he got for Naoko's birthday. It's a cake... who cares?
What probably worked best for me was the first person perspective. So let's talk about Anime for a little bit. The more I think about it, the more I think Makoto Shinkai is my favourite Director. I loved Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised In Our Early Days was OK from what I remember, 5 Centimeters Per Second was amazing, I didn't care much for The Children Who Lost Their Voices, Someone's Gaze was real sweet and The Gardens Words was another great movie, if not short. Reading Norwegian Wood all I kept thinking was "Dude Shinkai must really love Murakami's stuff" and it shows.
It's the style of narration and the soliloquy's that really make it work for me. I don't care about what a place looks like, I care about how a character feels. It makes me, as the audience understand a characters motive. I was grasped by the soliloquy's and that one part where Watanabe talks to Kizuki about finding his motivation.... man... MAN. So good. What was I talking about?
The big thing about finishing Norwegian Wood wasn't so much that I finished a book. But more so that I finished it in three days. THREE DAYS. I only do that with Video Games. Those classic moments of beating a boss and then looking at the clock and going "Oh shit, it's 7am.... oh well let's keep playing" happened with this book. I swear to you. I was reading at like 11pm, decided to make dinner and oh shit it's morning now so let's make bacon and eggs. I was captivated and by chapter 6, I didn't want to stop.
It got me thinking about the other books I read (voluntarily) and made me wonder how quickly I read through them. The results weren't so great but yo, check this list out:
The Da Vinci Code: Both my sisters recommended this book so I gave it a go and yeah, good book. More so for the twists and turns with the puzzles and stuff but I dunno. It was alright. Also I still struggled through this book and gave up and fell asleep multiple times. Let's say like eight months to complete?
Memoirs of a Geisha: So upfront, I found out that Zhang Ziyi was playing lead for the movie version of this book, so I decided to read it before it came out. I had a real hard time finishing this book. I mean, I know it's an American author writing in a Japanese setting but man, every time a kimono showed up he just had to get real descriptive out it. PARAGRAPHS and paragraphs and paragraphs about how a red Kimono had a fish or something on it. I just didn't care. Also I didn't really like it so I avoided the movie for like eight years until I finally saw it (it wasn't good). Trying to remember how long it took me to finish it feels like six months off and on.
The Summoner: I had a lot of time on my hands one summer so I visited a library fairly often and that's where I picked up this book. It's a good story if you like fantasy stuff I guess... I don't know. I think this was the only fantasy book I've read so there goes my opinion. Aside from Norwegian Wood I would say this was the fastest book I've read so let's go ahead and say it took me three months to complete
Undisputed: How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps: So this is an autobiography of who is my favourite wrestler (if he keeps showing up maybe not anymore) Chris Jericho. Which chronicled his first run in the WWE and his tales as the lead singer for Fozzy. I didn't care much for the Fozzy stuff but man did I love his WWE stuff. That one part where he wrote a whole story about a baloon that he lost when going into the ring was amazing. He's an amazing story teller that's for sure. Sure his idea of success is different from what the audience saw, but that's the kind of guy he is. He's a company guy through and through. Just because he didn't win the Main Event match doesn't keep away from that fact that he was in the Main Event match. I cannot wait for his next book. As good as it was, I still very much had a hard time getting through it. But when I did read parts of it, I read a good chunk. So let's say around nine.
Norwegian Wood: So I know I talked a lot of good about this book but let's talk about the bad. Primarily the ending. It wasn't so much so how it ended. Just more so that it ended in two or three paragraphs. The paragraphs before that Watanabe was doing some real soul searching or other and then boom he does something else completely unrelated and it ends. Roll credits. I mean, I know it's a known thing for Japanese stuff to end without full closure but man, that was out of nowhere. Which left a real sour taste in my mouth. Anyways I finished this book in three days.
So as you can see, it takes a while for me to read a book. Now if you want to talk about how I marathoned through the first hundred chapters of Bleach and Naruto in one day for both. Or how I completed reading through Dead Man Wonderland, A Town where you live, Blame!, Genshiken and Holyland? Well, those are different stories altogether.
What might of help was the length of Norwegian Wood. I read it on my iPhone so it seemed like a lot of pages but I could be wrong and the book could be a fairly short one I don't know.
With the Video Game season about to begin, I know its kinda hopeless but I'm wondering what direction I should move in next. I also did buy all of the A Song of Ice and Fire books, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the follow up to The Summoner (Which has like seven more books apparently). So if I wanted, I could read those. But I kinda wanna read more Murakami books. I just wonder if it will have the same impact on me as Norwegian Wood did. Also Anime... yay?
Yeah fuck it books are dumb. Let's go play Earth Defense Force.
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