The heart of Things

I am reading Soseki these days. He is Murakami’s favorite author, so I thought I should try. I don’t know why I am obsessed with everything Japanese. Their culture fascinates me. It’s so much like ours, conservative to the boot. You can actually relate to a lot of things. And, let’s not forget the two great gifts from Japan to the rest of the world; Anime and Kurosawa.

I found out about this book through Murakami’s blog. I did not delve into the story before buying it. For once I wanted to read some book without any expectations. It’s one of the most depressing books I have read in a while but I couldn’t stop myself from reading it. There is this perverse need to understand the characters, to know why the act the way they do. Its simplistic writing style makes it such an easy read. There are no distractions, just the characters and their struggle with their lives.

The book is divided into three parts. The first deals with the growing relationship between the author and his mentor (Sensai). The second part deals with the age old conflict of generation gap and finally the third part gives us the background as to what motivates Sensei.

I don’t want to talk much about the book, because I would give away the story. But I will put in a few lines that I marked off for myself.

"You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves."

" I value your opinions because they are the results of your experience. Your opinions would be worthless otherwise. They would be like soulless dolls."

I would definitely recommend the book because in such a simplistic way it talks about how we try to be so idealistic when we are young and as we grow we become more disenchanted because of what we have been through and it changes the way we look at things. It’s a sad story but a story of such simple emotions and how they shape our lives.