READING MATTERS - Sports News From Around Spain in H! Society Magazine
The H! Bookshelf
READING MATTERS The H! Bookshelf
IN THIS SPECIAL NEW FEATURE INTRODUCED TO START 2008 IN A MORE CEREBRAL FASHION THAN NORMAL – AT LEAST FOR MOST OF US − CHRIS VAUGHAN REVIEWS TWO BOOKS THAT WON’T JUST FILL A GAP ON A DILAPIDATED BOOKSHELF.
It has always been difficult to know what to read, especially living on the Mediterranean where leisure is so available that time spent reading a book often seems like time wasted − when you could be by the pool, golfing, eating out, or simply enjoying the benefits of guiltless inactivity.
I have often found that the problem is really about knowing what to read, wanting to ensure that those few hours aren’t used up on a trashy and forgettable novel that didn’t give half the pleasure gleaned from sitting comatose by a sunrise/sundown-dappled pool.
Which books to buttress against your telephone directory and the brittle and browning Reader’s Digests that lay prostrated on their corner of the bookshelf is no small decision; when do you get time to read, let alone read about what to read?
I am going to introduce you to books that will not only elevate the status of your bookcase, but will also entertain, alter your perception to a degree and hopefully motivate you to remove any superfluous and corroding material from an otherwise functional bookshelf.
In this article I am going to concentrate on books which will no doubt create conversation when others casually browse your shelves… “On the Road, eh? I think I read that when I was 15”, or “Who’s this Japanese author, Mara-ermm?” “Murakami,” you will reply confidently then flow casually into an explanation of his virtues and vices, his themes and foibles – and all because you read this little, concise article.
Of the two novels I’m gong to introduce the first is by far the best known. In fact the influence On the Road has disseminated reaches far, far beyond literature. William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac’s mentor and twin figurehead of the Beat Generation, once said: “On the Road sold a trillion Levis and a million espresso machines, and also sent countless kids on the road.” So perhaps without even realising it this book has already seeped undetected into your everyday psyche, and modelled your concept of what’s cool, what’s authentic and what’s really worth driving thousands of miles for.
On the Road was written in a somewhat unorthodox way. It was written over the period of three weeks on one continuous 120-foot tracing paper scroll. Up until very recently only the polished version has been available. Viking Adult Publishers have now taken the initiative of publishing the entire book in its original, beautifully frantic and uncorrected form.
It covers 416 pages and we can now see each sentence in its purest incarnation, just as Kerouac initially composed it over those three adrenaline-fuelled finger blistering weeks. The scroll can also be viewed at various museums and academic institutions as it is regularly toured throughout the world.
Following the success of On the Road one of the greatest literary ironies occurred. Shortly after the eventual publication of the novel the author was involved in a car crash and never got behind the wheel again. The guru of all road trips, the high-priest of the counter-cultural hitchhike, never took another road trip in his life. Kerouac died, somewhat disgruntled but lazily content, in his mother’s house in St Louis where he grew up.
To have this anniversary edition, costing as little as $15 online, will undoubtedly be the first of many trophies on your H! Bookshelf – and this is one certainly worth reading as well as exhibiting.
The second novel in this New Year introduction is a much more modern endeavour. Haruki Marakumi, after the publication of his first book, found that he was rocketed into the unlikely cosmos of celebrity writers, and in Japan this entails much more than going to the odd reading and book signing. In fact the fame got to Haruki so much that he moved to the United States to work and live for the next few years.
All of Murakami’s novels have something special: in the bizarre love triangle in Sputnik Sweethearts, the notorious Sheep Man in Dance, Dance, Dance, and the entirely original take on the sci-fi genre in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The novel I would like to recommend here though is South of the Border, West of the Sun. Even the title itself is poignant when put into context. The novel has a deceptively simple plot. A successful jazz bar owner, with a wife and two children, is haunted by his childhood sweetheart Shimamoto. She intermittently appears in his life and consequently undoes the seemingly ideal life which the narrator has established.
The title refers firstly to the Nat King Cole song South of the Border, which as children they would listen to on her mother’s hi-fi. The second part, West of the Sun, is explained by Shimamoto late in the book. It is a disease which farmers often suffered from, whereby they would become insane and walk endlessly toward the sun until they fell dead from deprivation and exhaustion.
This second part alludes to the narrator’s futile conquest of Shimamoto, as the further he pursues Shimamoto the less likely he is of surviving.
This book is a succinct, mysterious and passionate meditation on love, obsession and the human drive to pursue what will destroy. I hope these two books are fitting for the bookcase and are a welcome replacement for the outdated telephone directory.
■ ON THE ROADJack Kerouac(Viking Press)
■ SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WEST OF THE COASTHaruki Murakami(Random House)
