I surprised myself, and that, in and of itself is not at all surprising.
As I looked back on my January reading, I was surprised that I read more than I gave my self credit for. I spent the biggest part of the month, over 3 weeks really, reading Haruki Murakami's Killing Commendatore, and that book has occupied my thoughts and imagination in a way that shoved other reading to the side, undeservedly so in fact. But those other books, the non-Murakami, were not forgettable bits of fluff, well perhaps they are, slightly fluffy, and I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed reading a couple of books that otherwise might never have crossed my path.
But since I haven't really been able to sort out what to say, I shall just work my way through the list chronologically. Reading Mark Sisson's Primal Endurance, which I read in December, sparked an interest in the work of Phil Maffetone. I ordered The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing, which I have peeked at but not yet read, even though I have no interest in racing. Before it arrived however, I saw Maffetone's older (out of date) book, The Maffetone Method, at my local second-hand book store, where I bought it for a buck and a half. I read it the first day of the new year and it was worth the cost. I can't say that I've made as much progress as I hoped with my own endurance training. What I've learned is that I need patience, and this process, if I am going to do it right, takes time. I do see improvements, but have also had minor setbacks as I've been struggling with sinus issues the last couple of weeks, and my arthritis has been acting up as well. Both have slowed down progress but I am slowly on the mend.
Billy Collins' volume of poetry, The Rain in Portugal, and Michelle Obama's Becoming, were both Christmas gifts. Both were books I might well have missed if left to my own devices, and I am glad to have received them as I enjoyed both. I was aware of Collins' poetry. He was, after all, poet laureate for a bit at the beginning of this century. His work is popular. Is that why I previously dismissed him? I don't think so, but in the end I often don't know my own oversights and biases until they smack me upside the head. Anyway, I discovered more depth to the poems than I had previously appreciated. As I mentioned, surprises abound.
Michelle Obama's book, Becoming, was another surprise to me. I was aware of the book, and as much as I admire Michelle Obama, I also dismissed the book as another bit of self-promotion and pandering, yet another "my time in the White House" marketing ploy. And it may be those things, but I was also pulled into the warmth and humanity of Michelle's story as she told it and the deliberate blurring of focus. It was both a personal story but also a reminder of community and the importance of being aware, or mentoring, and of reaching out without the all too common sense of being chided. I was really struck by the kindness and empathy that is expressed in this book, and am grateful for the opportunity to have read it, and the gift of being able to see the world in a new way.
And then I opened Killing Commendatore. It was a book I read very slowly as it seemed to beg to be read slowly. I savored the words and the ideas and was constantly stopping to let my own thoughts and understandings simmer beneath the surface of my life. In many ways it seems to be an atypical Murakami novel, in that it is the most linear of the novels I have read (and I have read most of them). It is also in many ways the most overtly directed in terms of the author's use of metaphor and "magical realism", a term I hate because it negates the importance of metaphor, of using metaphor and imagination as a way to explain and explore thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences that cannot be translated directly into words. I think Murakami has been a master of exploring this, writing novels that have strong musical elements in the way explore feelings and experience. In that sense this may be a masterpiece, and I certainly think it is a culmination in some sense of what has come before. But I also see enough reviews by people that hate it. It is more direct than previous novels, and really, in one sense, not much happens, while at the same time everything happens. It is a novel about love and loss, what it means to love. It is about art and creativity and transformation and the difference between practice and technique, order and art, being creative and creating, between being "in love" and love itself. It is a book about transformation, what it means, and about the process of finding one's true self through all the clutter of life.
In that sense the novel is very spiritually or psychologically adept. I am not sure I see the difference between faith, spirituality, and psychology, although I have friends who would argue for one discipline or another. I see the differences as one of mindset or frame of reference with similar goals, that of finding and understanding the true self, the one buried under all the layers of adaptation that life piles onto us. In that sense, the experiences and the journeys in this book use similar metaphors that are found throughout human history, in faith traditions, in psychology, in science, and the experiences of Murakami's unnamed protagonist echo and enlighten my own experiences. I also like the way Murakami uses the word metaphor, and explores metaphor and meaning, including his use of the idea of the double metaphor to explore all the inner self-doubt and fear that plagues all of us. I copied out huge sections of prose that led my thoughts down various meandering paths. My brain meandered to the point that I had trouble writing about other things, although I didn't really explore the book here, I found it far too personal at this point, although I did mention it here and here. I do think I will be returning to this novel and it will have a lasting effect, not the least because it has sparked relationships with other favorite writers, and I have also been drawn back into the works of Nietzsche, TS Eliot, and William Blake, all of whom explore related metaphors, in very different ways of course. Good company, don't you think?
I ended the month with Tana French's newest novel, The Witch Elm. It was, of course, well written, intelligent and thoughtful. I may prefer her mysteries, but I enjoyed this and thought it was a good and thoughtful exploration of character and family dynamics in a time of crisis. I grew impatient at times, but that may have been more a reflection of my own timing and state of mind when I read this book. Anyway, it was good and, as always, enjoyable. It was kind of an in-between book for me -- not light enough for treadmill walking and although enjoyable, not quite entrancing enough for me to curl up of an evening.
So that leaves one keeper in the lot, and that one a book I will probably reread multiple times. But all the books I read in January enriched some aspect of my life and my perceptions in one way or another, for why else do we read? To pass the time? To expand our horizons? To become the people we are meant to be?
