I consider Haruki Murakami my favorite author. Over the last 8 years I’ve read every book of his. Except one. I have a thing for cats and wells and pretty ears. One day in lecture I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes by him, from Kafka on the Shore: “The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory”.<\/p>\n
When I was choosing classes this quarter I knew that I definitely wanted to take In Search of Lost Time. I assumed I was so drawn to it because of my interest in literature and history but as class goes on I’ve begun to suspect I’m way more into memory and perception than I thought I was. It’s one of the reasons I love Murakami’s work so much, too. I feel like the connection should’ve been obvious but I certainly didn’t figure it out for myself until very recently. I’m also discovering delightful parallels between Proust and Murakami.<\/p>\n
The only book of his I haven’t read yet is 2011’s IQ84. Maybe I found the 984 page length daunting, or maybe the underwhelming reviews I heard from both my friends and actual, professional critics (though I tend to love many things that are poorly received by critics. Like Pootie Tang). <\/em>Sitting alone at my favorite bar last weekend, thinking of all the non-required reading I’m looking forward to doing when I have more time, IQ84 came to mind. And out of nowhere I remembered that I’d heard, somewhere, that Proust was involved in this novel. Being impulsive, I ordered IQ84 from Amazon. It arrived the following Monday.<\/p>\n In the novel, it turns out, a female assassin goes into hiding and is given only the entirety of In Search of Lost Time to occupy her. Behold, this hilarious exchange I stumbled upon from IQ84, presented without context because I haven’t actually read the book yet:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “I think I have everything I need”<\/p>\n “How about books and videos and the like?”<\/p>\n “I can’t think of anything I particularly want.”<\/p>\n “How about Proust’s In Search of Lost Time<\/em>? Tamaru asked. “If you’ve never read it this would be a good opportunity to read the whole thing.”<\/p>\n “Have you read it?”<\/p>\n “No, I’ve never been in jail, or had to hide out for a long time. Someone said that unless you’ve had those kinds of opportunities, you can’t read the whole of Proust.”<\/p>\n “Do you know anyone that has read the whole thing?”<\/p>\n “I’ve known some people that have spent a long period of time in jail, but none were the type to be interested in Proust.”<\/p>\n I think there’s some truth to this. Not that only criminals and assassins would read all of In Search of Lost Time but I also highly doubt that the average person can read all of In Search of Lost Time without some outside circumstance, like jail time, or a class at Evergreen. I’m a super nerd and I really doubt I would ever get this far in ISOL on my own. Now that I’m this immersed I’m pretty sure I’ll go back and read it in its entirety at some point in the near future.<\/p>\n It almost feels like we’re all in this weird, secret Proust club.<\/p>\n Now I kind of wonder if IQ84 was poorly reviewed because there’s Proustian tie-ins that book reviewers aren’t picking up on. I’m really suspecting that there are not many people in the world that have read the majority of In Search of Lost Time. I’m pretty sure Haruki Murakami has, though.<\/p>\n I’m looking forward to reading IQ84 and seeing how much Proust comes into the story. I feel like it will be a much richer experience after having studied In Search of Lost Time. I’ll let you know what I find out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I consider Haruki Murakami my favorite author. Over the last 8 years I’ve read every book of his. Except one. I have a thing for cats and wells and pretty ears. One day in lecture I was reminded of one… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}