Dates inspired by Murakami and Moore
Thanks to Murakami Haruki and Michael Moore, I’ve got a couple of hot dates coming up.
I’m just about to finish Murakami Haruki’s The Elephant Vanishes, which I’ve been reading at my wife’s suggestion. She’s taking me to a new play based on this book, you see, and she says I need to have some background knowledge to fully appreciate the performance.
She introduced me to translations of Murakami’s work when we lived back in the States, and I’ve always enjoyed them a lot, but it has only been more recently that I’ve started reading his work in its original Japanese (again, with the aim of understanding the Japanese in the play). It’s been good exercise for my brain, because I don’t read Japanese for pleasure as often as I should.
Although I think Murakami’s best work is found in his stand-alone stories, this collection of short stories was perfect for reading on the train during my daily commute. I can also imagine that these shorter stories would be much easier to adapt to the stage than, say, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Still, the surrealistic fringes of Murakami’s stories are sure to be a great challenge for both the actors and the director. I look forward to seeing how they handle them.
In the same vein, my wife has been reading Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men in preparation to see ”Bowling for Columbine”.
Hmmn...The Elephant Vanishes and “Bowling for Columbine”. Odd choices, perhaps, but that’s what our respective cultures are producing these days.
