The Elephant Vanishes (1980-1991) by Haruki Murakami (In-Progress)

The Elephant Vanishes is Murakami's introductory volume to his short fiction. As with other authors of short fiction, this first volume is somewhat rougher than some of his later stuff.

Reading Murakami is akin to comfort food to me—not because of his weirdness or magical realism, but because I find his prose atypically easy for me to consume. It's not beautiful, nor is it workmanlike. It fits somewhere between the two, almost inconsequential. But, puzzlingly, the way the it seems to flow just 'works' for me. I lack the ability to describe it in much better terms. I suspect it's just a 'me-thing'.

That said, I do have a recurring complaint regarding Murakami. I find that he sometimes seems to struggle with populating his work with enough substance to make his more stylistic, imaginative departures worthwhile. There's the formulaic nature of his novels that rears its ugly head once you've read a couple of his books already and know what's about to be coming: the ear fetish, the lost cats, the psychic teenage girls—everyone knows his tropes and has discussed them ad nauseam. But there's also a distinct lack of substance in so much of his work that I find is rarely mentioned. Murakami badly wants to be this abstract, postmodern writer, and I can't help but feeling that so much of his "magical realism" is frequently just complete and utter bullshit. I suspect that he doesn't actually have much to say in many cases, so he's ambiguous by default to try and cover up his lack of substance and affect a more surreal narrative than is actually warranted.

This is not always the case, of course—but even some of his best work is rendered uneven by seemingly arbitrary turns of weirdness that have no justification and add no value to the narrative or the ideas Murakami is trying to explore. An early story in this collection titled The Kangaroo Communique is a good example of this. The perspective, the narrator's voice, and the premise work together to create an intriguing narrative, but it doesn't really seem to have much to say, so it ends up going nowhere and feels more like space wasted in a style-over-substance exercise. 

The best writers of short fiction—the Raymond Carvers and the Shirley Jacksons—say a whole lot with relatively few words. In stories such as The Kangaroo Communique, however, Murakami seems frequently to say relatively little, and the unique voice with which he relays the story to us does not do enough to carry it.

The Second Bakery Attack by Haruki Murakami

My experience with Murakami is akin to a couple entering their third decade in marriage. I've already read quite a bit of Murakami's work, so I'm intensely familiar with both his strengths and weaknesses. And I don't believe this collection is entirely weak. On the contrary, there are quite a few stories present here which I find quite worthwhile. 

Barn Burning is an incredible piece of short fiction. It's one of my very favorite short stories I've ever read. It's so strong that I'd consider this entire collection worth a purchase just for this one. The popularity of Barn Burning subsequent to the Korean film adaptation in 2018 led me to review it separately—see the full review here. Short summary: It's an excellent, ambiguous piece of fiction that accomplishes everything it sets out to do. It's choice Murakami.

Another solid story was On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning, in which Murakami takes the notion of I-should-have-said and uses the framework to construct an affecting short story focused on hindsight and missed opportunities. There's a nice parable here on losing the ability to communicate that continues to ring true among the less socially apt of us—of which I include myself. So I found it to be entertaining and meaningful, and Murakami has returned to this particular motif in future work as well.

Note: This is an in-process review. I'll continue to update it as I read more of this collection.

Meditations (167) by Marcus Aurelius

Perhaps the stoic philosophy Marcus Aurelius' ruminates upon within this diary can most adequately be summarized as "going with the flow", and thinking a lot about said 'flow' while you're at it.

It's always been amusing to me just how comparable our American society is within that of ancient Rome, despite being separated by the Atlantic ocean, language, religion, and two millennia. Meditations would suggest that the upper crust of Rome during the Pax Romana shared a similar malaise and an ennui to that depicted in an American film penned by a Sofia Coppola, or a Japanese novel by Haruki Murakami, for example. A good part of Meditations is focused on the same questions developed countries have been asking themselves for literal ages: "How do you live a fulfilling life when you are no longer struggling to survive each day?" In this, Meditations is still highly applicable to daily life in developed countries.

Much of Marcus Aurelius' philosophy is anchored in reason and discipline, something I find personally appealing. When tasked with a great question about the human condition (eg. "where does the soul go when we die?") he's often given to tracing a thread back down from the abstract, monumental cloud that is the question back to the earth of reason and attempting to answer it as simple and straightforward manner as possible. I find this appeal to cold logic and tranquility quite comforting; it tends to take the teeth out of the questions that worry us so—it's like being terrified of the monster in the dark, only to switch on the light and realize it was just your hat and jacket on the coat rack. Through this stoic calm he seems to realize the core idea of this entire book: Any worries we have exist only in our mind, thus mastery over our own mind leads to the mastery of any worries we might have. It's a simple way of facing down adversity and making it seem less daunting, and it's probably what has made this book so timeless.

This is one of those books that changes when you read it at different times of your life. Its density allows for this. When I read it in University, most of its appeal was the novelty of reading an Emperor's inner thoughts. Now that I'm midway through my third decade, however, I find its call to self-discipline most appealing.

I'm sure I'll read it again, and I'll probably pick up something new to be enthralled about when I do.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Mystery Knight (2010) (The Tales of Dunk and Egg, #3) by George R.R. Martin

The Mystery Knight is pretty important to Martin's worldbuilding, but it feels a bit scattered compared the other novellas. We're introduced to a number of hedge knights, proper knights, and lords right away and it becomes difficult to keep the lot of them straight. There are a few with differentiating characteristics—Ser Glendon Ball sticks out right away—but in general, I found myself struggling to recall who was who.

Dunk's experience in the lists is as riveting as ever, though. These novellas include some of the best action sequences Martin has written—even including the mainline A Song of Ice and Fire series—and The Mystery Knight is another fine example of that quality. But I couldn't help feeling that, while this entry is important to Martin's worldbuilding, it doesn't work nearly as well as a novella as The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword do. It lacks the focus and the tight narrative of the prior episodes, instead choosing to depict a conspiracy that deserves far more sprawl and page count than it gets here. I chalk this up to Martin's desire to fully flesh out his world's history, and not having the format to do so prior to the conception of his world books, The World of Ice and Fire and Fire and Blood. I believe that both The Mystery Knight and A Dance With Dragons are markedly weaker entries due to the fact that they're jam-packed with worldbuilding that Martin feels is important, but does not always make the stories in those two works better themselves.

The Mystery Knight is generally well-regarded by ASOIAF fans, but I found it clearly the weakest novella of the three that have been released thus far. It's still worth a read for its likable protagonists and its viscerally affecting depiction of jousting, but both The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword are more cohesive and more consistently readable.

⭐⭐⭐

The Sworn Sword (2003) (The Tales of Dunk and Egg, #2) by George R.R. Martin

Martin does so enjoy parading the reality of feudalism in front of us. Feudalism-inspired fantasy has so classically been stilted towards the romantic that it can be shocking to see it depicted as it actually was. We're dosed with a close-up view of the peasantry in The Sworn Sword, and it isn't pretty. As a child raised on Disney films, it's easy for me to forget that the peasantry weren't actually the noble, lowly heroes with good hearts that we so often see depicted in media, but instead a class of people so intellectually stunted they read more like they're mentally challenged to us. We are so used to dealing with other educated human beings each day that it can be difficult to imagine someone wholly uneducated, but Martin does a staggeringly good job in depicting a peasantry that feels so real it shocks and saddens.

It's not a miserable read, though. The characters in The Sworn Sword are markedly deeper and given more screen time than those in the most previous novella, The Hedge Knight. Rohanne Webber is one of my favorite characters that Martin has ever written. She's intelligent, interesting, and motivated by a situation that feels real to us. She provides an interesting encounter for Dunk, and Martin's dialogue and the body language he creates between the two make for a compelling dance. Some of the minor characters, such as Septon Sefton and Ser Bennis, are equally compelling, and the presence of so many enjoyable characters makes this such a satiating read for being only just over a hundred pages.

The Sworn Sword also features a riveting climax to rival the one I liked so much in The Hedge Knight. Martin pours the action on heavy, and at one point I found myself literally holding my breath. It's quite good, and the ending is perfect—It hits such a satisfying, bittersweet conclusion that I couldn't wait to move on to Martin's next novella.

There's not much wrong with this one. It's Martin at his swiftest and his best. Highly recommended.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Hedge Knight (1998) (The Tales of Dunk and Egg, #1) by George R.R. Martin

I've written both ostentatiously and at length about my love for Martin's Ice and Fire world. While The Hedge Knight digs into some of Martin's preferred themes regarding honor and character, his novellas generally have a far different tone than the main series.

Dunk is a more genuine, naive, and straightforward character than Martin typically writes. He's blessed with prodigious size and strength, making his earnest, do-gooder character something that he can get away with (just barely) in the story. That he does gives the story a far more whimsical, light-hearted tone (again—generally) when compared to some of the occurrences in both A Song of Ice and Fire and Fire & Blood, though it can still be quite gritty in its depiction of cruelty and violence.

One of Martin's favorite themes—and undeniably a core theme to ASOIAF—is the use of legally and socially permissible violence by those in power, against those without power. It shows up constantly in the main series and it's the main plot-mover in The Hedge Knight. Dunk endears himself to us not by being intelligent or particularly skilled, and not even by trying to do the right thing—but simply by doing it, without thinking. That it's not a conscious decision is both what makes it endearing and what makes it interesting. Dunk does not choose to be protect the weak after considering the potentially drastic consequences of doing so, he just does, because that's the kind of person he is.

As to be expected by its short length and 'novella' moniker, this is very much narrow-scope Martin. There's no real worldbuilding, and though his characterization is as enticing as ever, it takes more of a backseat to the two leads—Neither of whom serve more than a perfunctory role in moving things forward. The real meat of this lean serving is the conflict it follows, and the strength of the action writing at its conclusion. I don't typically think of Martin as a great writer of action sequences or thrilling narratives (at least, not any longer, since I've read A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons), but The Hedge Knight's brevity and action makes it a great treat for those with an interesting in the setting, and features enough depth to place it alongside the main series' more weighty and literary offerings. Highly recommended novella.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fire & Blood (2018) (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin

I so badly wanted to hate this book.

I was so angry when GRRM announced its publishing. Like many other ASOIAF fans, I viewed it as the reason that the eagerly anticipated The Winds of Winter had been pushed so far back from its expected publishing date of 2015-2016. I vowed not to purchase Fire & Blood, instead wishing to wait for Winds in order to 'punish' Martin for his insolence in choosing to finish the first leg of this offshoot in lieu of completing the next chapter of his magnum opus. So I didn't purchase this on its release date—the first time I've done this with an ASOIAF book since I began reading the series nearly a decade ago.

The moment of truth came in Budapest's Franz List International Airport just last month. I had been sick for nearly two weeks with that pervasive, annoying traveler's cold that seems to make you just sick enough that you can't enjoy anything, but not so sick that you're confined to your bed. So you stay ill for weeks at a time, never resting enough to get better, and feeling like garbage the entire time. I still had a number of hours until my flight left, but I had finished the book I brought on the trip with me and had no other means of killing time aside from browsing social media on my phone like some sort of a plebeian. So I wandered over to one of the stores near my gate and perused their selection of books, which—luckily enough for me, being the monoglot American that I am—were all in English. And, staring me right in the face, right in front of the stack, was an English language version of Martin's Fire & Blood, Volume 1. At the time my head felt as if it might detach and float away, and my faculties were dulled by a persistent sore throat. So my steadfast commitment to boycotting this Targaryen tome weakened, and I purchased it and decided to see if it was worth the time.

As I read my opinion of it went from, "this is all just shit from The World of Ice and Fire, what the hell?", to "okay, this is a pretty inspired portrait of a (fictional) enlightened despot", to being brought nearly to tears by the so-called Death of the Dragons.

God damn it, George. You got me again. I wish you'd just go away. And by that, I mean, please defy all the odds and keep writing these books for another 30+ years.

Perhaps it's best to first discuss what the book is not. Gone is the limited third person narrative that Martin uses to such great effect in the mainline ASOIAF series. Fire & Blood feels like George had all of these ideas for storytelling in his head, continuously building over the years. He'd sprinkle them here and there throughout the mainline ASOIAF series, of course—but eventually, his mind reached critical mass, and he just had to unload them. First to Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson (the authors of the previous world book, The World of Ice and Fire), and then onto the page himself with this book.

So these are very much summarized versions of various events Martin has dreamt up, though he does allow for a flourish of style or dialogue here and there. And that might put some folks off. But it also allows Martin to forget about some of the shackles the limited third person perspective places upon him; he can now jump from cherry-to-cherry, neglecting the rest of the sundae, and give us the best bits. While the book loses the atmospheric quality of the mainline series, it gains the punch of a quickly paced, impactful narrative and loses the weakness that is the glacial pacing of both A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons.

Fire & Blood starts off with its weakest portion—the conquest of Aegon and his sisters—but grows more and more enticing from there. The characters and reign of Jaehaerys and Alysanne, and, perhaps most affecting, the civil war in the dance of the dragons, are superbly affecting and quite entertaining to read. Martin proves his storytelling is as strong as ever, despite the criticisms he has received for his most recent entries in A Song of Ice and Fire and the flak he's caught by publishing this book prior to The Winds of Winter.

The dance of the dragons, in particular, is one of the most singularly affecting events of the entire series. Martin spends little time focused on the great dragons of the Targaryen dynasty, preferring to tell us mostly of the Targaryens themselves. Despite this, the dragons come to occupy a place as treasured pets, or beasts of war, rather than the unreal, magical monsters that they are. They are viewed more as 'parts of the family' rather than simply tools of war; children are raised alongside them, occupying the same cradle as the eggs, and love them as they would a family dog that has been assigned to be their companion for most of their lives.

I'm an animal lover, and viewing the dragons in this light created an attachment I hadn't realized had developed until I read through the dance of the dragons—or, as Martin tells us in the text, what some historians prefer to refer to as "the dying of the dragons". The dance of the dragons wasn't just a massive blow to Targaryen power within Westeros, but a massive blow to Westerosi civilization itself, the catastrophic loss of such total war is put into terms that we thus feel personally and emotionally with passages such as this one:

Silverwing had taken to the sky as the carnage began, circling the battlefield for hours, soaring on the hot winds rising from the fires below. Only after dark did she descend, to land beside her slain cousins. Later, singers would tell of how she thrice lifted Vermithor's wing with her nose, as if to make him fly again.

Martin's strong anti-war and anti-feudalist themes from the main series continue to occupy the backbone of his storytelling. If you're looking for something smart, rather than just something fantastical, you can find that here, too. It's convenient that the chapters involving the reign of Jaehaerys and Alysanne—the quintessential enlightened monarchs, who rule (mostly) successfully, and justly—are followed by those whose incompetence eventually led to the devastating civil war that destroyed most of the dynasty's power. As we're reminded of, time and time again, near-absolute power is a fickle thing, as capable of creating boom as it is bust. And the war which follows is, like nearly all wars fought within Martin's fiction, a net negative. Little is gained from the conflict, but much prosperity is lost, as is often the case with war in the real world.

So I suppose the real question is whether or not you'll view this change in storytelling style as a real hurdle. It's far less easy to lose yourself in this book when compared to the reading experience of the main series. It's basically a summarized version of an entire book series that Martin rightly realized he'd never be able to write. To me, it's no less worthwhile even considering the change of format—But I'm a massive fan of this world, this series, and Martin's storytelling and themes. So if you feel similarly about A Song of Ice and Fire, and you don't feel too put off by the fact that Fire & Blood reads like a summarized series, then you should definitely give it a shot. I cracked into it expecting another dry tome involving some excellent worldbuilding, but found it packed full of intriguing characters and storytelling, despite its format falling a bit short of that of the main series.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992) by Haruki Murakami

Perhaps this book is the result of Murakami looking at the protagonists he's written before and realizing, finally, that they just aren't all that interesting.

Our protagonist, Hajime, is typical of the men Murakami writes—Unfulfilled, uninteresting, and with no strong desires or momentous events earlier in their lives to give shape to what identifies most protagonists to us: What they want. They rarely show any agency, taking part in the story merely by being the vessel we as the reader use to experience the various weirdlings and surreal occurrences that Murakami dreams up and throws into his books. Murakami's protagonists are almost universally boring, unfulfilled, weak, middle-aged men to whom various interesting things happen to happen to. He's never been a great character writer—or even a good one—And perhaps this was the first time when he actually considered that fact.

South of the Border, West of the Sun is a book about finding purpose and fulfillment in a post-modern world dominated by capitalism, but for nine of its tenths it's focused mostly on masquerading as a book about relationships, sex, and how we sometimes make choices that hurt the people around us. For the vast majority of my read, I wasn't sure that Murakami was even aware of how unlikable his protagonist was. I waffled back and forth considering whether Murakami was blithely unaware of the supreme asshole his protagonist was, or whether Murakami was purposefully crafting a narrative subversion with consideration of his typical protagonists.

Towards the end of the novel it becomes obvious, as the protagonist himself undergoes an epiphany in which he considers his own self-centered, vapid, worthless character and finally begins to consider the people he has hurt throughout the story. The problem with this narrative is that it requires a better character writer than Murakami to pull off. The main character is an empty, uninteresting asshole, and the side characters all lack depth. Additionally, this book lacks Murakami's ethereal, quiet, melancholy atmospheric ability—One of my favorite things about his writing.

This is just an okay Murakami novel. Towards the end it became clear what he was trying to do, but most of the book is an unenjoyable read, and the conclusion left me questioning whether or not he said what he was trying to say in the best possible way.

⭐⭐

Red Country (2012) (The First Law, #6) by Joe Abercrombie

WARNING: Lots of spoilers in this review! Turn back now if you haven't read Red Country yet!

I have such an odd relationship with the fantasy genre. In general, I guess you could say that I hate it. I've read dozens of fantasy novels—most considered to be good-to-great—and I've disliked nearly all of them. However, there are two writers of fantasy genre that I consider to be among some of my very favorite writers, regardless of genre. One of whom is Joe Abercrombie. This is mostly because he does two things extremely well that most fantasy wholly lacks: Deep, interesting characters, and humor.

The latter is as strong as ever. Abercrombie's humor ranges from biting to dry and kept me reading. However, the characters fall somewhat short—especially compared to his most recent stand-alone, The Heroes. The protagonist, Shy South, and her adoptive father, Lamb, are both memorable and great to read, but the cast surrounding them tends to all fade into one homogenous amalgam of Western cliche. The climax sees a reveal regarding fellowship member Savian, which probably would have been quite the development had I been able to remember who the hell he even was. I was so enured with faceless, insignificant fellowship members that I couldn't even remember the character's gender, let alone who they were.

And that leads into another weakness of the book. The pacing bumps and drags quite a bit through the first half, as Abercrombie seems to struggle with what exactly to tell us as this roving band of nobodies traverses a large, barren landscape for several hundred pages. We're told a bit about some of the characters surrounding Shy and Lamb, but what we're told never seems all that interesting. This is in stark contrast to The Heroes, in which each minor character seems fleshed out enough that I'd gleefully read an entire novel based on them.

It's not an awful book, though. Abercrombie's humor is enough to carry it, and his voice is stronger than ever. Clearly a fan of the Western genre, he deftly blends it with his low fantasy setting to create something unique and worthwhile just by itself. There are also some neat instances of worldbuilding—something that isn't Abercrombie's strength, but is enjoyable to read nonetheless. The climactic scene in which "Legate Sarmis" finally shows up is particularly good as well, as Iosiv Lestek was one of the few minor characters that resonated with me, and was used expertly by Abercrombie. Additionally, his prose has taken a noticeable leap since his initial trilogy.

So, despite this book's great reputation among fans of fantasy, I found it a bit more uneven than the other two stand-alones set in the First Law world. It's Abercrombie's weakest novel since his very first, and I can see why he'd want to take a break from this world after completing it. But it's still worth reading, and it's still got me excited for the upcoming A Little Hatred—Abercrombie's first novel set in the First Law world in seven years.

⭐⭐⭐