Sorry Haruki, it’s not you, it’s me.
When I started reading this book, I was immediately hooked by the richness of the scene descriptions. I usually don’t like long descriptions, but Murakami is magnetic in this. I still remember details of scenes from 1Q84, which I read a very long time ago, and this is not typical for me.
It was getting absorbing. I was even enjoying reading in a methodical way because there are two stories, so I was reading two episodes of each story at a time. Yes, it was “weird”, to use the word one of the members of the book club I go described it. But I was liking its dreamlike weirdness.
Until there it was: the unspeakable torture of that poor cat.
I tried to carry on, but the voice in my mind kept asking: why are you focusing your attention on something you’re not enjoying?
So I stopped, reflected, and my next action was to go and check the content warnings of the book. I know, I hear you – I should have read them first. But I’m trying to go into books with an open mind. I want to explore what I don’t know, because that’s the only way I can learn. From the book, from myself, from how the world works.
The content warnings were animal cruelty (yes, I can confirm), pedophilia, rape, incest… Ok, byeeee.
Now, the real issue here (issue? Is it an issue?) is that this is the second book I’m DNFing in a little over two months. But I had almost never DNFed a book before, so something is happening.
The good news is I know exactly what it is. The bad news is that I hate that it’s this. I don’t want it to be this.
It’s because it was only a few months ago that Goodreads added the “Did Not Finish” folder by default. Before then, you had to manually create it yourself. Which I never did. I had not even contemplated the possibility for a second.
And now I don’t need to finish reading a book to feel I have cognitive closure.
Putting it in my Goodreads-default folder is my closure. An official one. One that means: if Goodreads has it, it’s something I’m allowed to do. It’s normal, it’s expected that you might not finish a book. Other 3,298 people on Goodreads have not finished it.
It’s an external validation that I’m getting. And I’m getting it from Goodreads. From Amazon.
So they can sell me more books. ARGH!!
Author: Haruki Murakami
Year First Published: 2002