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November 2025

	kafka on the shore (murakami) ★ not sure why I heard good things about this book. maybe I hate fun but it was childish and a little YA. sometimes I would feel too old to be reading kafka on the shore and then it would become so erotic; I'm beggining to have the impression that japanese coming-of-age does not tend to look over teenage horniness. I can like a little freudianism but it's hard not to feel like the incest isn't just the author's thing. and I really gave up on murakami after the "feminists owned" chapter. at least it served the purpose of light entertainment between studying for finals season, though the alternating chapter povs gave the pacing a monotony. not for me.
	melancholy of resistance (krasznahorkai) ★★★★★ [read for bookbug] I hadn't heard of Krasznahorkai before his nobel win to be honest, though I did watch the seven hour satantango adaptation one hour at a time in high school. and I was surprised that his writing wasn't like the dryness of tarr's intepretation; melancholy of resistance was so much fun. I really enjoyed the maximalism of krasznahorkai's prose, the lack of paragraph breaks read much more naturally than I expected, especially for a translation. why did anyone even try writing after this? I thought I couldn't do long sentences after my failure to get through Proust but I will make the likely correction of reading him in French next time; melancholy of resistance has enlightened me against conciseness. what really hooked me was the resonance of reading Mrs Pauf navigate the train in the winter while I was on a train myself and the november sun began to set at 4pm, and I was only more excited by the un-sentimental, eastern european morbidity that I enjoy in dostoevsky. as well as the dostoevskian relationships based on accidental proximity, and the alexei karamazov-ness of valuska, though I will have to read dead souls to see the likely more accurate comparison to Gogol. I also have to admit that I still haven't read the comparative herman melville, though maybe I can name melancholy as my substitute for moby dick. what was most impressive about this book was that I was capable of supressing the need to always break only after completing a chapter. I watched the bela tarr adaptation after reading too, Werckmeister Harmonies, and I think it's interesting to see what little action really happens when the story is removed from the characters' thoughts (though I would have liked to see mrs Pauf). I had fun. here's a favourite passage: 'No wonder,' he once winked exaggeratedly in the direction of the armchair, 'that after thousands of years of the earth spinning about its axis people should find themselves somewhat disorientated, since their whole attention is devoted to simply remaining on their feet …'
	persuasion (austen) ½ [read for class] putting down melancholy of resistance in the obligation of reading persuasion was painful (in the words of eszter on austen: "the sheer bloody boredom of it!"). most of it went through one ear/eye and out the other, knowing I could wait for class to tell me what to think. at least I'm relieved from ever reading jane austen again.