Skip to main content

Tiger's Wife to 70

Two great, magical scenes in chapter two.  Grandfather brings Natalia out at night to watch an elephant being coaxed across town in the dark.  Grandfather describes to Natalia a strange encounter with a man who could not die.  Village hit by TB.  The man is drowned by villagers, but sits up in coffin and asks for water.  He's then shot in the head twice.  Grandfather (a doctor) arrives. Man is in coffin (again) and sits up again.  Tells GF all about his inability to die.  Challenges GF skepticism. GF, in melancholy, dark place, agrees to a test.  Man puts stones around his feet and walks into lake.  GF has a rope.  The man is to tug when he needs help.  No tug.  GF distraught.  A man is not a porpoise.  After an hour, the man emerges on the opposite side of the lake and walks into the woods.

Right out of Murakami, and every bit as good

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY  Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of.  Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family.   Mom:  husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm.   Conversations together:   Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy.  Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house.  (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree.  Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example.  Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done.   Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...
Post a Comment
Read more

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

Bryant & May--Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery, Book 1 Lots that I liked.  Crime novel that is also historical fiction.  Fowler gives insight into London during the blitz.  Danger from street cars, some looting during blackout, stiff upper lip British still going to theaters, etc.  Fowler also takes reader backstage into the workings of a theater.  I learned a lot about the physical complexity of a major theater--production is a tremendous production.  I liked both the main characters.  Bryant, the eccentric loner who thinks out of the box. May, the more traditional "bright" guy, who is able to appreciate Bryant and help by keeping him in the real world, a little. Plot revolves around murders committed while cast rehearses and then performs Offenbach's scandalous version of Orpheus and Eurydice.  The murders are on the gruesome-detail side given the general British coolness of the rest of the text.  Spoiler coming.  The denouement wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Napoleon, Ch 18 Blockades

"The first qualification of a soldier is fortitude. . . . Courage is only the second." Conquers cities of present day Germany. Spandau, Berlin, etc. Shortage of men in France . . . Russians next, but his mind is on Britain. He wants to use trade sanctions to force Britain to its knees, but this doesn't work either. French (and others in empire) need to trade with Brits. Smuggling results.  Also, unintended consequences crop up. Example is shoes:  Napoleon requires 200,000 pairs of shoes from Hamburg.  Hamburg can't supply these to Napoleon, so they buy what they can't produce from Brits. So much for the sanctions!  British are supplying uniforms and shoes for Napoleon, and making $$$. . . . Continues after the Russians in December 1806. . . has to withdraw, 40% of his army out of commission.  Horrible battle with Russians, thousands killed. Napoleon in tears . . . dire moment, Napoleon orders full out cavalry attack . . . Eylau a massacre without any result . ...
Post a Comment
Read more