Just finished Haruki Murakami’s The Windup Bird Chronicle. I read it in a little more than a day, I was so possessed by it. The first half of the book a series of losses, absurd seductions, and weird new elements, the second a gradual ravelling up again but only after a total descent into total strangeness. The ending sad — actually, the whole book is sad; one of the qualities that makes it so compelling. I said to Gary it reminded me of a cross between Kafka and Stephen King. The metaphors Kafka, the crystalline suspenseful structure King.

I’ve been also trying to read Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain, but when I do I notice two things happening: 1) I realize I don’t necessarily agree with all the constructs and analogies she’s setting up, so I have a hard time getting to the end of her arguments intact, and 2) my body starts to hurt! I think it’s probably a great book, but these two things are stumbling points.