Word: seemly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Luckily the novel doesn't develop into the whiny piece that the opening chapters promise it will be. Murakami salvages a passable story out of what seems to be headed straight for crash-and-burn. Ultimately it's a book about love--a unique book in that the love with which it deals is fairly singular. The book doesn't seem to be trying to expose some broad message or preach anything to us. It is simply telling another story of love, loss and happiness...
...climax of the story, Hajime has to decide between his contented domesticity and realizing his dream of life with Shimamoto. Typically, he's faced with the dissatisfaction of what he has to leave behind. Unfortunately the protagonist doesn't even develop into a tragic hero because he doesn't seem to realize the importance of the quandary before him. What is frustrating about all this is that we are left searching for a point. It's a good story, but not that good. And the statement, if there is any, is not clear--so the book leaves us wondering...
South of the Border, West of the Sun can only gain a lukewarm reception from readers who, for the most part, can't identify with anything in the novel (besides, perhaps, the rather trite description of the painful process of adolescence), and who don't seem to have anything to gain by reading it. We are asked to think about happiness and its definition--that seems to be about it. And so we're left with a question, which in many cases is a suitable ending to a good book. Unfortunately in this case, the question...
...just seem to keep getting faster and faster," Hanson said. "Right now, it's getting to be more and more about fine-tuning. I run the starting leg, and it's important to have a good start and good exchanges...
Winter Hours stands alone as a thought-provoking collection of opinions on writing about the natural world, a hodgepodge of different forms and topics, tied loosely together as the thoughts of Mary Oliver, poet. To a reader unfamiliar with Oliver's work, Winter Hours could seem insufficiently structured, its components only loosely related and its subject matter too concerned with Oliver's personal writing experience. But to one familiar with Oliver's poems, the book is a valuable window into the author's character and motivation. And regardless of the coherence of the book as a whole, each...