Unknown pleasure...(19/9)

1Q84, 1+2...(29/5)

He is getting older, probably my immediate impression after finishing Murakami’s 1Q84. Like the carnival, it should originally be a happy meal for the readers as all the elements of his work have been included: the year of 1984, the goat, the crow, the déjà-vu, the reality and the virtuality, self-consciousness, loneliness and nothingness, self-actualization in sex, loss in the modern life and city, list of jazz music and oldie films etc. It should be exciting news for readers to have ‘shortly’ after Kafka on the Shore another long novel of Murakami. But like what the character said, ‘maybe I have changed’. What I perceived from the story is more like a clumsy repetition of the writer’s catwalk presentation with his entire world has had. The storyline and the structure, as his trademark, were both decently organized, but definitely the story could be written in half of its length. Reading till the end, the story became more like the declaration of the author’s will and expression - much self-centred from the perspective of a reader like me and yet an unconvincing attempt to quantify or materialize his metamorphic development of ‘another world’. I must admit that reading the Chinese translation in this occasion is not a pleasant, and at the same time, a fair judgment to the writing in 1Q84...(more)
The stylish writing style of Murakami in describing the belongings of the post-modern urban world or the characters’ emotional variation turned to be an excessive meaningless and poetic-less burden in 1Q84. I used to be biased in the beauty and the goodies, and in this case, I am truly unsatisfied with 1Q84. Put this story into a fairy tale way of perception, I cannot still find any way to tune myself into the two-moon world. I feel awkward about the abrupt switch of the emotion of the character, especially that of Green Bean. The story could be more romantic and ‘dreamatic’ but the translated version I read did not provide me with this wishful thinking. Visualising the scenes of the story such as the conversation in the dark hotel room, the windy sunny morning on the Tokyo highway, the young evening on the sloppy playground, the afternoon tea in the greenhouse-like meeting place for Green Bean and the old lady...1Q84 depicted much Hollywood style of scenic set up. The more you love your daughter, the more you find a reason to blame her. This should be the conclusion of the two episode of 1Q84. Book 3 of 1Q84 has been released. Well, readers, probably as always, have little choice but to immerge themselves again into another world of mystery and loss.

Varsovie...(20/5)

Warsaw is like a small vacuum space of emptiness in my memory. My debut trip to the city should have been taken place 12 years ago. Becoming a turning point in pursuit of my meaning of life, the city awaited my strolling around until present that embraces me into its evolving city form of architecture and its micro-development in between the modernisation of Europeanisation (read more)...the bearing of the massive destruction in the WWII and the heritage of communist sense of city development. My impression to the city was a mixture of classical conservation and functional presentation of its short-span intensive historic experience. Pending my plan to start the journey to the Eastern Europe at a youth stage, I have role-played a diverging possibility in life, which awoke my sense of consciousness about my world of uniqueness and abandonment. As a gateway city to connect to my past and present, Warsaw has been stably developing right next to my awareness of well being for the decade. This day, I finally landed in the city during another transitional stage of life. Presented itself in its best panoramic mode of pride and unity, the city turned itself into a memory of the past as well. I was next to the ‘déjà-vu’ Stalinist model of the Warsaw Centre of Culture and Science – a pop-up reminder of my wandering in Moscow. Flights were flying over and over Warsaw, and I behaved in a group of collective memory, and everyone stood up when the sourness sank. Being the most robust economy in the region during the crisis, Warsaw has proved from its urban form and business stability with its energetic life. Zloty is a symbol of their partial insulation to globalised collective fluctuation. It retains people’s purchasing power and domestic demand. At least this has been my perception in the commercial centre that transactions have demonstrated. Like Berlin, Warsaw revived its appearance after the Second World War. The present moment was a replicate colourful Rococo façade of the old town. The East defined by defending the West, and now the West encircles and enriches the community again. A stunning presence of the remaining of the communist planning to me is the cold-façade of public housing in town. The public green between the residential buildings figure out a communistic belief of commonwealth. In this springtime of calling for another cycle of growth, the green vividly diversifies its form of life, and it landmarked its freestyle way of existence in contrary to the Anglo-Saxon gardening art form. Aged people tend to come up on stage in the area and along the industrial ulica to showcase their pride and glory about their city in front of my eyes. It is a call for the blossoming, or an actualisation of Joy Division’s mind in the name of ‘Warsaw’ to count down its ‘3, 5, 0, 1, 2, 5 go’…
‘…I was there in the back stage, when the first light came around, I grew up like a changeling, to win the first time around, I can see all the weakness, I pick all the faults well, I concede all the faith tests, just to stick in your throats...’ (Warsaw by Joy Division, as Warsaw)

Ian Curtis on Mojo April 05 ...(18/3)

A detailed coverage of the vocal of Joy Division this month on Mojo, and the feature reviewed the story of the legendary band 25 years ago. Iif you are a die-hard follower of the post-punk guru, this should not be missed... A legendary story usually starts in an era of chaotism...so do you think it's the time for one??