Suicide

This is my second Murakami book, and there’s a better than not chance it’ll be my last. Norwegian Wood seems well regarded by most people, reviews on Goodreads mention frequently that it is the book “everyone in Japan has read.” It has been recommended to me somewhat highly, though not always as a ‘good’ representation of Murakami’s broader ouevre. Unfortunately, the things I bumped against in my first Murakami read (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World) are all here, and in huge force. There are maybe six major characters, and four of those are women. Our protagonist is good at most things, in that he has no trouble with school, no real problem finding work, seems to infatuate women, and apparently fucks so well that at least one of the female characters swears off sex afterwards. Do you think this sounds true to life? I’ll get back to the sex in a minute. ...

I first read about Clancy Martin’s memoir sitting at the breakfast bar of a local restaurant. At the time I went every Sunday and read the New York Times Book Review. Whatever Sunday that happened to be, I read Alexandra Jacobs’ review and added it to my to-be-read list. I haven’t thought about the book much even as I’ve read several other texts on suicide and suicidal ideation over the few years since. Having now read it, I can scratch my head at Jacobs’ review and wonder: is this, in fact, a review? ...

Simon Critchley often references this work in his book, “Notes on Suicide.” Levé, on page 29, writes: The way in which you quit it rewrote the story of your life in a negative form. Those who knew you reread each of your acts in the light of your last. Henceforth, the shadow of this tall black tree hides the forest that was your life. When you are spoken of, it begins with recounting your death, before going back to explain it. Isn’t it peculiar how this final gesture inverts your biography? It is now impossible for this book to be read as anything other than a form of suicide note, which makes it voyeuristic. Levé ended his life ten days after submitting this manuscript. It is of course interesting that this happened, and, as Jan Steyn writes in his afterword, “demands” the work be interpreted through this lens. For me, the author’s actions are less compelling than a simpler fact: the book demands that we imagine ourselves as both Levé’s “you” and “I.” The character who ended their life, and the narrator who imagines and recalls the life ended. ...

Review “This book is not a suicide note.” A fair opening line, as Critchley (SC) goes on to list several novels and essays published under titles containing the word “suicide” which are closely followed by the completed suicide of their authors. It is a cloud that follows this book, which is pure white with NOTES ON SUICIDE in large, blue text on the front cover. I felt self-conscious reading it on the metro this morning, and at work I put the book upside down on my desk, and at the park I held it in such a way as to obscure the title. Lest people think I’m planning to off myself (I am not, FYI). ...

Review I picked this up because Singular Adventures is cited in Philippe Besson’s Lie With me, which I adored. This collection of short stories has entries in it that I love and will re-read, but the first half is flat out bad. Some of the first part has the sort of over-the-top smut eroticism that I wrote in high school, fantasizing about the locker room, and yet it almost always punishes the reader for having fun by taking strange and dark turns. ...

I think this is my favorite book I’ve read in a book club. I am afraid to share what I love so much about it. But I see myself in this book in a way I never have so completely. Not all of Leda is me, but so much is that it felt fragile and scary to read at times. Sometimes it was a loving familiarity, or even a pleading with him to do something different. My copy is riddled with sticky tabs sometimes two to a page and often every other page so that it looks like the centrepiece of a research project. I have filled the margins with pencil scratchings. I have no idea if I could ever describe my feelings for it. ...

Table of Poems Title Page Flag Poem. (cornflakes) 31 Favorite Daggers. 74 Favorite Poem. (rip) 86 Favorite “Let him go in mind” 91 Favorite True Homosexual Love. 105 Favorite Dear Friend Go Away, Please. 106 Favorite There You Go Baby. 148 Favorite He is a Rose. 155 Favorite New brave wired ones. 24 Poem Queers 35 Poem How Odd. 43 Poem “soon the mind will be heavy” 62 Poem I Tell You Now. 65 Poem From Hospital. 67 Poem Bootless. 70 Poem “Two queers live on a hill” 80 Favorite “oral pictures of love” 93 Poem Nerves Blotted Out. 108 Poem “I love my arse to be sucked” 112 Poem “desert bones” 114 Poem All Sunday Long. 122 Poem Radio-Me: The Big Send Up of Everything Around Us. 130 Poem “The world is at war” 139 Poem To my mother, dead. 141 Poem Looking for a Poem. 20 Stanza Between You and Humanity. 21 Stanza “I can’t sell my penis because” 41 Stanza This Poem. 54 Stanza Answer don’t move. 119 Stanza Reatity. 127 Stanza I am frozen with knowledge. 148 Stanza Review I picked this up from the bookstore after loving Love Leda so much. I have been trying to read a little more poetry. Like my recent review for Rupi Kaur’s The Sun & Her Flowers, I have no idea how to review poetry. I don’t know what good poetry looks like or what bad poetry looks like. All I know is that sometimes words are strung together and they give me an emotional reaction. So that’s what I’m rating this collection on. ...