Justine chaired our first (proper) book club meeting, below she describes
what happened!
"....sexually explicit language and imagery, deep dark thoughts,
suicide, grief, mental illness, political angst.... just some of the
things discussed during GF's first book group meeting - not in a
getting to know you session with it's new members you'll be happy to
hear but in relation to the first book read by the group and up for
discussion.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is a deliciously discussable book as
we found out! Murakami is a Japanese author who has written many other
books that have quite a dream like quality to them. NW is essentially
about mental illness, the Beatles and is set in 1960's Tokyo covering
the highs of lows of student life For a full review please see
html There were mixed views in the group but it had seemed to have
successfully sucked all of us in as there were some quite strong
opinions expressed as we shared our thoughts, and the evening turned
into a most enjoyable one with some new friends made..
Here are some quotes from the book, which are typical of Murakami's
poetic prose:-
"You were so nice to me when I was having my problems, but now that
you're having yours, it seems there's not a thing I can do for you.
You're all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try
knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go
right back inside."
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can
only think what everyone else is thinking."
"There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one
strange woman after another. It just tires you out and makes you
disgusted with yourself."
"Only the dead stay seventeen forever."
"Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action."
"A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do but what he
should do."
"Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that as
the premise for everything else though. I'm going to give it hundred
percent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what I
don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and it things go bad,
I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an
unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit
your abilities to the limit."
"Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that."
"Letters are just pieces of paper. ... Burn them, and what stays in
your heart will stay, keep them, and what vanishes will vanish."
They are also making it into a film for autumn 2010 http://www.
haruki-murakamis-norwegian-wood/ and if you want to know more about the
author look at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/murakami/site.php ?
id=
Looking forward to the next meeting on 3rd Dec where we will be
reading the Great Gatsby. See you there!
Great that book, read it and made me cry more than once.
ReplyDeletespecial and real sometimes
liked also the review!
cheers melisa