the pencil reads

Unlike Portugese Irregular Verbs, this is a book on grammar, composition and style. After reading this concise rulebook by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White from cover to cover, I am now intensely conscious of how rambly these posts are. I obviously break the first rule in the chapter on style: `1. Place yourself in the background'.


I also break (and intend to keep breaking) the first rule in the grammar section:

1. Form possessive singular nouns by adding 's.
Follow this rule whatever the final consonent. Thus write,

Charles's friend
Burns's poem

Some rules are a useful reminder:

9. The number of the subject determines the number of verbs.
A common blunder is the use of a singular verb form in a relative clause following "one of..." or a similar expression when the relative is the subject.

Wrong
One of the ablest scientists who has attacked this problem.

Right
One of the ablest scientists who have attacked this problem.

It is surprisingly witty:

Flammable. An oddity, chiefly useful for saving lives. The common word meaning "combustible" is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means "not combustible". For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.

No this isn't a book about Portugese grammar. This is the first book of a trilogy by Alexander McCall Smith comprising Portugese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, the third of which I read in April this year.

The series revolves around the adventures of Professor Dr Mortiz-Maria von Igelfeld, a pompous Professor specialising in ancient and obscure languages. Although it is touted to be "deliciously funny", the only chapter that made me smile was the first, `The Principles of Tennis', where a group of academics tried to play tennis according to a rulebook.

The other stories were mediocre, even on the verge of xenophobic. For example, in the last chapter `Death in Venice', von Igelfeld keeps imagining the water tainted and the stares of a Polish family. In both this chapter as well as `Holy Man', von Igelfeld is relieved to return to Germany, "dear, friendly, safe, comfortable Germany!".

All of this is to be taken in a light-hearted vein I suppose, but as a whole, it is not quite my cup of tea. The binding and cover of the book is lovely though.

Another lovely public holiday. Finished the novel Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami today, on smudgi3’s recommendation. There wasn’t a boring moment in it, but how do I put it, it was a little too skewed and dark for my liking.

The book wasn’t so much about love and death as about dependency and suicide. The love stories in the novel did not capture my imagination as it did not rise above the emotional and sexual dependency the characters had for each other. The deaths in the novel were overwhelming suicides. True, Midori’s parents both die of tumours, but in a way, to Toru, the main character of the book, this is a peripheral event. When it comes down to it, it isn’t so much about love as it is about survival.

Nobody actually understood anyone else, it seemed like. Everyone was closed within themselves, all prototypes of Nagasawa, the ambitious playboy. I think the passage with Nagasawa, Toru and Hatsumi is pivotal in understanding who Toru is. Nagasawa says to Toru:

“But Wantanabe’s practically the same as me. He may be a nice guy, but deep down in his heart, he is incapable of loving anybody. There’s always some part of him somewhere that is wide awake and detached. He has that hunger that won’t go away.” (277)

In some ways, I think Nagasawa hit the nail on the head. Despite this novel being written in the first person with Toru as the narrator, the readers never really understand him. I was almost taken by surprise when he declared to Midori that he loved her and that he would always take care of her. Really? When did that happen?

But I suppose this sense of terrible isolation, even from your own self, was the point Murakami was trying to make. There is no redemption in this novel – only leaving behind the past and trudging towards the future. It is most depressing.

I wonder – is Japanese society really as bleak as Murakami painted?

(Sidenote: lovely food and lovely names though. Lots of miso soup and rice, and beautiful names like Naoko.)

(Read about the differences in Jay Rubin's and Alfred Birnbaum's translations here. It is actually quite different.)