Haruki Murakami "Norwegian Wood"

Just finished reading last page of novel by, perhaps, most famous modern Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami "Norwegian Wood" (1987) in Saizeriya :)

Actually I read in Russian 5 years ago but completely didn't remember the story..In December there will be movie directed by Tran Anh Hung with Oscar-nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi and famous Japanese actor Ken`ichi Matsuyama. I watched trailer and thought it would be very beautiful movie (trailer video is really amazing - bright and colourful), so decided to reread in Japanese...

To tell the truth, although my major was literature (actually, modern Japanese literature) and I tried to read a lot of Japanese authors, I think this is very specific literature form..Its structure is completely different from one of Russian or Western literature...It is so "un-structured" novels, so pale heroes...It resembles Japanese wagashi - sweets which can be hardly called sweets in West...

Murakami novel is like ..how to say... long-long melancholic song... Author depicts not story or people, he depicts state of mind and impression....

Main hero -Watanabe-kun - occasionally met Naoko - a girlfriend of his closest friend who killed himself at 17..They dated first like old friends, then he slept with her and she disappeared...Only after then he got to know that she had serious problems with mental health after suicide of elder sister in her childhood and boyfriend, and that she is in special hospital for emotionally hurt people now...He writes her letters, visits her, but at the same time falls in love with his university classmate Midori - very lively girl, completely different type of girl than melancholic and ill Naoko...

Finally Naoko commits suicide..and Watanabe-kun decides to start his life from the beginning, continue to live and love Midori...

First volume of novel I liked - it ends at the moment when hero gets to know that Naoko is in the hospital, he goes to see her and he promises to protect and love her - very optimistic ending, but in second volume we got to know that mental health of Naoko keeps getting worse and worse, and hero more and more becomes closer with Midori..

I liked in novel depiction of Japan young people life in 70s - what they thought, how they felt..I liked brilliant language and style of author. And main hero - especially in first volume - is very alive....

I didnt like enormous detailed description of penetration (main hero sleeps almost with all female heroines of novel), sometimes strange dialogues and atmosphere of apathy and some endless melancholy through the whole story with too much melodramatic ending (really, pale taste of entire novel and too much sugar in the end) ..

So I don't know...

Just not to forget plot again, wrote this entry....

Sunday

Yesterday I went to Awa-odori matsuri in Kouenji station. Awa is the old name for province in Japan which is now Tokushima Prefecture. From old times they have traditional dance culture - this dance is called "awa-odori" and people gather in groups ("ren"), train and take part in this festival...Koenji - place where poor young people (students, punk rockers, design school students or just strange people live) were so crowded...Thanks God I live in Nakano - next station - and can return on foot. On the photo above is symbol of "Ten-sui ren" ("Ten-sui" dancing group). They are considered to be professional and came to take participation from Tokushima....



These days I wake up at 7 (and at 5 three days a week for jogging), have entered Gym (after checking and compairing facilities in maybe all gyms round Shinjuku - chose Oceans as they have three pools and very lively and kind staff), read books on Financial Account,　Computer Applications and so on and feel happy , really- got new passport, visa prolonged for 1 year more - true immigrant happiness.

Last week checked Adidas shops in Shibuya and Roppongi - and find that they have a lot of good stuff - bags, T-shirts - I suppose they hired bunch of young and talented designers and again started making real street style clothes...


With friends once a week we study Russian language and since I have PC, I planned to use it for teaching...somehow...showing fragments from Russian movies maybe..

Today is Sunday and Sunday means for me the day I have lunch at Wako - it is Japanese katsu food chain restaurant - my favourite - their miso soup I can drink in liters...

Sakuran

Excel guru to be

Yesterday I finally bought computer! Here it is..My chokin killer....

I never thought this day would come - I bought computer..2010 year and I bought my first computer..

From today I am planning to become "Excel specialist in 16 days", "Power Point guru in 3 weeks" and "Accounting master" with the help of all these wonderful books they sell in Book stores and which I bought today having spent quite amount of Japanese yen. Till my job starts in October I have one month, so I made tough schedule of learning, training with sometimes going to gym and pool...

Last week with Natalia and Rodion we went to 7 for All Mankind Daikan-yama Store

where they had launch party of their new clothes collection in collaboration with Japanese photographer Mika Ninagawa - she is famous for her colourful optimistic photos and also in 2007 she debuted as director of movie "Sakuran" - story about high-class prostitute in ancient Japan with famous Anna Tsuchiya as main heroine. This movie was presented in Berlin festival and was very successful collaboration with bright, vivid colours of Mika Ninagawa, beautiful actress Anna (she looked completely like original manga author depicted her) and great music of famous Japanese singer and song-writer Shiina Ringo..So kind of "girl power" made very stylish movie of strong woman...

We went to this party where there were lots of people - and no any Ms.Ninagawa there - but then alcohol power had it effect and we had wonderful time talking to different people, taking photos and eating some tiny but very delicious ...how to say...cakes? which were served during the evening.

P.S. Yesterday I watched "Inception" with Leonardo Di Caprio and Ken Watanabe - intriguing story - really good Hollywood SF movie - kind of "Matrix" conceptual action...Very good!

XXXO

http://mariotokyo.com/

Even I hate Shin-Okubo for it is dirty streets I went yesterday there to buy T-shirts in this small store - it seems it is Korean brand..They have good T-shirts with metal stuff on them - finally spent 4,900Yen on each.....

This song I found on TokyoDandy blog and have been hearing it these 2 days while walking around Tokyo.... stuck in my head...
very good song for club.

Boris Akunin "All the world's a stage"

These days I have plenty of free time, so read books like some machine - one by one. In several days finished reading detective novel by Russian writer Boris Akunin which title is the same as William Shakespeare's aphorism "All the world`s a stage". Akunin is fantastically popular in Russia today as brilliant novelist. But few people knows that first he started as Japanese literature researcher and translator and published his works by his actual name Boris Chkhartishvili (he is actually Georgian) and it is Chkhartishvili who finally translated maybe all most famous novels by Yukio Mishima and introduced them to Russian readers.

Boris Akunin (in Japanese his pen name means "villain") became famous for his historical crime novels. He has some novel series but the most famous is novels with Erast Fandorin as main hero. Fandorin is 19th century Russian detective and he is hero of this novel also.

In childhood i liked Agatha Christie and each novel by her was so thrilling for me - I used to switch off light in bedroom, turn the small lamp and read her stories till morning... She is master of crime literature for me and I think she made some kind of "intermediate" mass literature - yes, it is still "light" fiction for mas , but at the same time it is very clever, smart literature, language, story-telling techniques are sort of "pure literature".

So, Akunin made the same in Russian crime literature. Before him we had classic traditional literature, post-modernism literature "not for all" and "dime novels" which sold with cigarettes and chips...

Akunin novels are very stylish. Their language is language of 19th century literature. We can find a lot of allusions to classic Russian literature - to Chekhov, Tolstoy.. When you read them, you feel like you watch very beautiful album with colourful reproductions of 19th century Russia. And in his late novels there are also lot of "Japanese" theme (his hero speaks Japanese and spent some time in Japan).

Last year Boris Akunin received award from Japanese government for his contribution in spreading Japanese culture in Russia - and we also had program featured him.

This novel was very intriguing as all his novels are (sometimes too much melodramatic though). One by one admirers of famous theater actress Eliza Altairskaya are being killed and Erast Fandorin decided to investigate this matter, but he also fell in love with actress. So you find here mixture of historical novel, crime novel and "love affair" story... One more gem of this novel is play script which Fandorin wrote as present for main heroine - he wrote in Kabuki play-style and this play, published in Appendix after main novel, is truly another bright Akunin stylization work.

"Our people is our treausure"

"All my troubles seem so faraway..." And it is really so..

Finally I got job offer and will start working in my new "so-long-desired" company from beginning of October (I hope so.. I hope really, as it was so miracle to find job in Japan for 1 month that I don't believe it yet). This everyday racing and "hunting" for job finally finished and I feel myself like amoeba - no emotions, nothing- the only wish to sleep, eat..

So I wasting my money on food and shopping. Bought new jeans and suede shoes ( "a la Paul Smith" from ABC Mart) and satisfied..

Waiting for October..

Today met with Natalia and to my big surprise received this white Cheburashka from her (..to tell the truth I forgot her present twice in restaurants while talking...) - symbol of Russian team in Winter Olympic Games (they also have red and blue Cheburashka, red one was symbol in Beijing Games and blue one for Winter Games in Vancouver- maybe I am wrong). Cheburashka (which was translated to English like Topple) is character from 70s Russian Muppet cartoon. It is fantastic creature which was found in the cage of oranges and it looks like small bear-mouse-koala.. Cheburashka became friend with crocodile Gena and these two animals are actually main characters of series of famous Soviet cartoon. Every child in Russia knows them and since Cheburashka was introduced to Japan several years ago it is also popular here (last month in Ginza department store they even made special corner of "Cheburshka goods") and we also had one of NHK Russian educational program featured this cartoon.


Natalia said the first toy in her life was Cheburashka - she even has photographic evidence with her as small baby with toy that seems bigger than her! Also you can find white Cheburashka as character for Japanese chain coffee-shops Dotour.

Last year we had Halloween party in Roppongi and it was lots of fun..Only Natalia properly prepared for this event - when with Dmitrii I came to the club we found Ugly Betty instead of Natalia - her hair from blond turned brown, she wore some funny glasses and which the most surprisingly she had exactly the same outfit as heroine of this popular series wore.. So this year I decided not to be "Seryozha in the costume of Seryozha" as she said and prepared for Halloween. And today I found idea in some magazine. Dress like geek salariman with round spectacles, old trousers and grandpa shirt and from inside T-shirt of superman will be seen (T-shirt I have already found).

And one more..

I so love Japanese fashion magazines for their detailed specialization. They have fashion magazines for all sorts of young men and girls. Magazines for gyaru-o ("Men's egg"), magazine for host from Shinjuku ("Men's knuckle"), for stylish guys who dresses in United Arrows and Beams ("Men's non-non"), for b-boys and hip-hop lovers (like "Samurai"), for 40-50 old stylish "choi waru oyaji" - it is like fashion of 40-50 year old dandies with a bit of Italian mafia taste ("LEON")..

And today I found one more magazine. It is called "SOUL Japan". Fashion magazine for "ora-ora kei"which means Japanese gangsta (in previous my job I had deal with some kind of such type of people). It is mix of American hip-hop gangsta style, Italian mafia style, Japanese yankee style and gyaru -o style.. Actually I think readers of this magazine are also Japanese teen-yankees (especially in province)..It is really interesting..No matter how you think about gangster groups and what kind of business they do, but it is kind of culture and fashion is also (Afro-American gangsters born great hip-hop music and street fashion, Italian mafia dressing culture influenced on Dolce and Gabbana fashion, even Russian designer Denis Simachev made whole collection inspired by Russian mafia of 90-s)..

So Japanese fashion is also quite interesting phenomenon...

(interesting but , but to meet such "fashion idols" late somewhere at Kabuki-cho probably will not be much pleasure).

Here is some photos from DENIS SIMACHEV 07-08 Fall-Winter collection...

http://www.denissimachev.com/

These guys are not kinder then their Japanese colleagues.

Camillo*, Fatou, Vio & Cami - 'The Night' (by Blake McGrath)

Gabriel García Márquez "One Hundred Years of Solitude”

Finally finished reading novel by Gabriel Garcia Marques "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (1967).

　One of my classmate in university, my friend in Japan and another my friend - three people told me about this book, so when I finished reading Japanese novel and decided to read something on English I bought this book...

Now I am going to read Wikipedia article and Internet articles on author, historical backgrounds but before want to write my impressions not spoiled by other opinions yet...

Yes, it was a kind of magical book - I have never read such sort of novel before. No dialogues - long-long text - like manuscript...

Also genre and author writing manner is hard to describe...It is the story of family and story of city on one side, and it is history of Columbia on another . It is realistic story , but a lot from fairy tales, legends, myth at the same time..Feeling of passing time is main motive of the whole novel.

So many people, so many characters, but all of them live life in each own world..And these feeling of "solitude" - the key word of this book - it makes you feel depressed while all time you read it...