Favorite Books

I just made a quick (about two minutes) list of my ten favorite books, as part of an exercise on creativity that I was doing. I thought I'd share it, with the reminder that it's not meant to be a serious, well-thought-out thing: it's my top ten great books that occurred to me while sitting at my desk (away from my library) on a Friday afternoon.

In no particular order:

• Open House by Elizabeth Berg
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
• The Goneaway World by Nick Harkaway
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
• The City and the City by China Mieville 
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
• PopCo by Scarlett Thomas
• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
• This one about memory, about this guy in London...I LOVED it, and I can't remember its title off the top of my head, nor its author.

I just noticed that I chose five books by men and five by women. (Curtis Sittenfeld is a woman, and the person who wrote the book I can't recall is a man.) Unintentional gender equity. 

Anyway, if you've read any of these, please, let's discuss them! I love to talk about books I've read!

The Prisoner of Heaven

I just finished reading The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It's the third in his "Cemetary of Forgotten Books" series. I loved the first one, and really enjoyed the second as well. This one was pretty good, but not as good as I'd hoped.

Fermin, a side character from The Shadow of the Wind (book one), has a big problem in this new novel. He wants to get married to his pregnant girlfriend, but there's a problem with his legal documents. Due to some events that happened during World War II, he's recorded as having died years ago.  Then a figure from his past appears and leaves him a threatening message.

The bulk of the book is a flashback to the events that happened when he was in Montjuic Prison during World War II. He tells it to Daniel (narrator of book one), to explain why he's so afraid of this figure from his past. When he was in prison, he met David Martin, the writer main character of The Angel's Game (book two). He also met the cruel, pompous governor, who was in charge of the prison at the time. The story concerns his relationship with those men, and his attempt at an escape.

My first problem was just that I thought I was missing a lot because I didn't remember the plots of the first two books very well. Despite a note in the beginning of the book that says the books can be read in any order, I felt I was constantly struggling to recall the importance of different characters.  So if you're going to read this, I recommend reading the first two books first.

The second problem is that the book felt short and unfinished. It seems pretty set up for a sequel, with some unfinished issues, which is fine.  But really I felt like there was no huge climax. No complete resolution. And it was shorter than the previous books, so it wouldn't have hurt it to go on.

Should you read? If you've recently read the first two books, sure. But I wouldn't bother to buy it on hardcover, like I did.

MTV

I just finished a marathon read of I Want My MTV, a history of the network from its start in 1981 till 1992. It's by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, and comes from interviews they did with nearly 400 people.

I was obsessed with MTV when I was a kid and a young teenager. I used to fill VHS tapes with recordings of videos I liked, stay up late waiting to see my favorite bands' new releases--I once threw a viewing party for the Video Music Awards.  So, as you can imagine, the book was the perfect topic to grab me.

There were tons of hilarious and horrifying anecdotes.  I found out David Fincher and Michael Bay both started as music video directors. I found out Kurt Loder used to rip on MTV as a Rolling Stone writer before they hired him.  Most of the guys in metal bands come off as sexist in a naive way, like they have no idea why the things they did and the way they portrayed women would be offensive. (Except Sebastian Bach. He comes off like a cool guy.)

The only other book I've read in this style is Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. Please Kill Me is one of my favorite books. When I first read it at 17, I wanted to move immediately to New York City and start a band.  I Want My MTV was not quite as inspiring, not quite as shocking, not quite as amazing. Maybe because a lot of the characters involved were just filthy rich. Not the artists, at first, anyway, but the executives and directors and producers. It made it harder to care about their fates. (Even if they got fired from the network, they still remained filthy rich.)

Even with that caveat, the book was still a great read.  Lots of fun.  I wondered if the year chosen to end it would seem arbitrary, but it didn't. Things did change in 1992 for MTV. "The Real World" debuted. Grunge dominated hair metal and pop. I still watched it for years, though. I think the last time I watched it in any significant amount was, after a long gap, in 2003, in a hotel room in Amsterdam. (I wanted the TV on while I got ready to go out--I was not just sitting around in a hotel for lack of anything better to do in Amsterdam.) They aired episode after episode of "Jackass" and "The Osbournes."  No videos. It's too bad. I think if they showed videos, I might still want to watch it sometimes.

Airport Delays

How to survive massive airport delays without losing your mind or humanity (as determined by my recent experiences):

1. Don't let yourself get too hungry or thirsty.  
I had a little baggie of emergency almonds in my purse.

2. Remember that the flight crew probably has nothing to do with the delays. 
They don't want to be stuck on the tarmac any more than you do.  Telling them that they should be embarrassed, as one man on my flight did, just makes you looks like a jackass to the rest of the passengers.  Be nice to the flight crew, because then they will be nice to you.


3. Bring more to read then you would think you'd possibly need.
I still prefer actual paper books for day-to-day reading, but for traveling, nothing beats my Kindle.

4. Pretend you are a character in a light-hearted movie.
Perhaps a farce or a romantic comedy about a young woman trying to make it as a professional dealing with comically terrible travel luck. Just don't imagine the movie is a thriller or a horror movie.  The Philly airport at 1:30am is pretty creepy if you're in a horror movie.

5. When other passengers irritate you, think that your excellent behavior can set a good example for them.
Not for any noble reasons. It's so you get to feel all superior and smug with yourself.


6. Imagine telling it to people later.
"And then we were told we'd be sitting in the plane for another hour! Can you believe it?!"

7. In the words of Donna and Tom from Parks and Recreation, "Treat Yo' Self!"
When I found out I'd be arriving to my hotel at 2a.m. at the earliest, I canceled my early-morning meeting for the next day. I dropped money on a delicious dinner snack thing once I got to the hotel, and I realllly enjoyed it.  (Seriously, are you familiar with GoPicnic? I just had one last night. They are so delicious and clever and yummy, and come with little Sudoku puzzles for you to do while you eat.) Then I slept till noon the next day.

Gone Girl

Yes, it's been awhile.  I've been traveling a lot, and I've been reading a lot.  What do you NEED to read? Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It is an absolutely addictive, unputdownable mystery novel.

Nick's wife Amy is missing, and Nick is the prime suspect.  He's definitely suspicious, but it's unclear if he's the one behind her absence.  Chapters alternate between his point of view in the immediate aftermath of Amy's disappearance and Amy's journal entries from earlier in their marriage.  There were probably at least six times in the book where I set it down and shouted "What?! Seriously?!" to whoever was nearby.

Go read it.  Now.

Tofu, a new way

I made a very springtime-ish meal the other night: tofu, asparagus, and morel mushrooms all sauteed with olive oil and garlic.  What was noteworthy was that I tore the tofu into pieces instead of cutting it up into cubes, like I usually do.  This made it easier to evenly brown, or perhaps just made the parts that weren't evenly browned less noticeable.  (With cubed tofu, there's always one or two pale white sides on the cube when I'm done.) I got the idea to tear up the tofu from one of my new favorite cookbooks, Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

I reheated some at work (it tasted shockingly good as leftovers), and had two different college kids ask about the tasty-looking chicken dish I was eating.  They were right; it looked just like chicken! One of them even thought it smelled like chicken.

This makes me think that tearing up tofu and sauteing it would be a good food to serve people afraid of tofu, as a sort of entry-level dish.  On the other hand, maybe it would just trick them, since their mouth and their eyes would be giving differing reports...  Regardless, if sauteed tofu, asparagus, and morels sounds at all good to you, definitely try it! Super springy and delicious!

Don't forget to enter my contest for a free copy of The Year of the Gadfly and a tasty snack! Deadline Monday May 7th at noon, CST.

Giveaway!

It's time for my first giveaway!  Would you like to win a copy of The Year of the Gadfly BEFORE it's released? Since (as I said in my review in my last post) I got a review copy, I want to give it away, to share it with more readers.

I also will give the winner a snack to enjoy it with, as there's nothing I love more than eating and reading.  Snack will be pre-packaged and is to-be-determined.

The deadline to enter will be next Monday, May 7th, at NOON.  To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post with the title of your favorite book, one you think other people ought to read if they haven't. Also include a way for me to contact you. If you don't want to post your email address, you can email me with it.

I will choose a winner randomly next Monday afternoon.

Bonus! To get multiple entries email me (holden.elizabethann@gmail.com) with a link showing you posting a link to my blog on your own blog, or on Twitter, facebook, or Google +; or use feedburner to subscribe to my blog (feedburner link is on the right side of this page).

The Year of the Gadfly

I just finished reading The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller. This was one of those books where I had to stay up late to finish it even though I was exhausted and had to get up early the next morning.  It was actually a really great Friday night. I was in a hotel, traveling for work. I laid in a huge comfy bed, ate a vending machine snack or two (Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips), and read a great mystery novel.

The Year of the Gadfly is about Iris Dupont, a new student at Mariana Academy, a posh prep school not far from Boston.  Iris is recovering from recent terrible events involving her best friend Dalia, and her family has moved into the house of the former Mariana headmaster. Iris soon finds out that Mariana Academy is full of secrets, like the existence of a long-hidden group within the school called Prisom's Party. These secrets turn out to involve the new biology teacher, Jonah Kaplan, as well as Lily, the former headmaster's daughter, whose bedroom Iris is currently staying in.

I liked this a lot.  Besides the central mystery, there are a lot of thematically interesting things about moral ambiguity, fitting in, and fallibility.  It also, as books about teenagers often do, made me so glad I'm no longer in high school!

It goes on sale in a couple weeks, on May 8th.  (Yes, I got to review it ahead of time! Yay!)  Order it here: The Year of the Gadfly

1Q84

I just finished reading 1Q84, Haruki Murakami's latest. It was really not very good! Not good at all! It shocked me, because I've loved almost all of the books of his that I've read so far. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles was absolutely amazing, for example.  But this--I was disappointed.

Here's my quick plot review. It's a little spoiler-y (no end-of-the-book spoilers, but some mid-book ones), so you're warned:

Tengo and Aomame met when they were ten, and then were separated. They've been basically in love with each other ever since, even as they've gone on to get jobs, sleep with other people, etc. Now they're 30, and it's 1984. Tengo is a math instructor, and just ghost-wrote a novel created by this strange seventeen-year-old girl. Aomame, besides teaching at a gym, kills abusive men in a way that makes it look like they've died of natural causes.

Both of them have somehow been transported to another version of our world, one slightly off.  Aomame names it 1Q84.  This world has something to do with Fuka-Eri (the seventeen-year-old writer) and her novel, which turns out to be true.  1Q84 has two moons, and historic events aren't quite the same.  Most importantly, it has "Little People," tiny beings that remind me of faeries (the mischievous, dangerous type). Little People crawl into the world out of dead things' mouths, and somehow control events. There's a cult built around them, a cult led by Fuka-Eri's father, who Aomame gets assigned to kill.

We'll leave it there.

I have no problem with fantasy, or even a sort of magical-realism half-fantasy.  So the Little People, the two moons, etc., were not an issue for me. What I hated was the writing itself. It was repetitive.  Like, OKAY, I've got it, Aomame is in perfect health and very fit, but is insecure about her breasts.  (I feel like writing to Haruki Murakami and saying "No real woman thinks about breasts this much!")  And I've got it, Fuka-Eri has a strange way of talking.  Every little point was just beat to death, and taken incredibly seriously.

The very beginning of the book follows Aomame as she kills a man.  It struck me as almost a typical action-y novel where the protagonist is unrealistically perfect and hot, and we never really learn what makes them tick, and they do all this bad-ass stuff.  I didn't have that impression for the whole book, but I will say, I never warmed to Aomame, and I never really felt like I understood her or Tengo.  I was told why they felt certain things (told many times) but it never felt true.

I could say lots more, but there's no need. The point is, I just read a 900-page book out of a mix of stubbornness and confusion (confusion because I've loved his other books so much).  I don't recommend it.

Infinite Jest

So. I read Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace's 1000-page monster of a novel.  I've owned it since 1997. I got my first job when I was fifteen, at little bookstore, and Infinite Jest always looked interesting to me, sitting there on the shelf. So one day I bought it.  Then I hung onto it for 15 years.

I started it last fall because a friend asked if I'd ever read it, and said it was great.  I'd been reading for a long time about how amazing David Foster Wallace is, but a recommendation from someone I knew finally pushed me into opening it up.

I'd tried to read it before, of course.  But it takes place in the near future, where the years are subsidized by companies (The Year of the Perdue Wonder Chicken, for example, instead of, say, 2006), and it switches characters a lot initially, and it was just too much.

But my friend assured me that after the first 200 pages, it got a lot more readable, so I vowed to stick with it for at least 201.  By the time I got past 200, it was still kind of tough, but I was already 20% in, so I decided to stick with it.

It's not especially readable, particularly in those first 200 pages.  At first it follows Hal, a teenager at a tennis academy, then Hal's football player brother Orin, then Don Gately, the ex-junkie and -thief, then other random characters, all mixed around.  And you don't know how their stories relate.  And there are tons of footnotes.  And you don't know if you aren't understanding references to things because you missed something, or because it will be revealed in time, or because it's the future and things are different and it's okay if you don't understand all of it.

But eventually, things settle down, focusing on Hal, Don, and Steeply and Marathe, two undercover agents having a meeting on a mountain in Arizona.  There's a video, referred to as The Entertainment, that kills people, essentially. When you watch it, you get so entranced and entertained that you lose your mind and can't function anymore.

Figuring out who made the tape, and where the master copy is, and how to get it, could be considered the main plot of the novel.  But there's a lot more to it than that.  Like Eschaton, the complicated tennis-based world-domination game played at the tennis academy.  And Madame Psychosis, a drug addict radio host who is also Orin's ex-girlfriend and also wears a veil to cover her deformities. And Alcoholics Anonymous. And Hal's relationship with his dad, and his dad's relationship with his own dad.  And all these random objects at the academy disappearing and moving on their own.  And a million other things.

I'm glad I read it.  It was intense.  It wasn't easy to read.  It didn't tie everything up in a neat package.  But I don't think I'll forget it quickly.

Norwegian Wood

I read another Haruki Murakami book last week. Norwegian Wood is the first book of his that I've read that has a linear, explicable plot.  It takes place in Japan, in 1969 and 1970. A college student falls in love with the ex-girlfriend of his dead best friend, and feels understandably conflicted about it.  She has some issues of her own.  He also befriends an outspoken, funny girl and a confident, woman-chasing man.  The cultural revolution is going on in the background.

It's great.  And I have to admit to being so relieved that there was a tidy narrative structure, with answers and everything--particularly because I just finished Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Infinite Jest took me about six months, on and off, and it was definitely not tidy or explicable.

The Marriage Plot

I read The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides a couple weeks ago.  Loved it.  Couldn't put it down.  It's about three college graduates in the early 1980s: Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell.  It's a love triangle, but so much more.  Mitchell travels abroad, first to Europe and then India. Leonard struggles with bipolar disorder.  Madeleine gets consumed by her relationship with Leonard. It's very real, and the ending made me happy.  It ended on a positive note but didn't seem tacked on or false.

It was the first book I read on my kindle, instead of a paper copy.  I have to admit, reading on the kindle isn't as good.  But it does have advantages. I will be going to Europe for two and a half weeks this summer; the kindle will be packed full of books, and my suitcase won't be.

Published Again!

I meant to post information on this weeks ago!

I have a short story, "The Dog," published on Fiction365.  Fiction365 publishes a new short story every day, and then archives them.  I really like all the ones I've read there, AND it's the first time I'm being paid for my writing!  Yay!

Check it out.  Select "February 7th 2012" on their little calendar.

Go Here: Fiction365.com


I also have a short story, "Ella Hart's Mother," published on Every Day Fiction.  Every Day Fiction operates the same as Fiction365, sending flash fiction each day and archiving it, but they also have the option to send the stories in an app to your phone or tablet, which is pretty neat.  You can also vote on and comment on stories.  The author of the highest rated story each month is interviewed on their site.

Check it out.  Look for "Ella Hart's Mother" by Elizabeth Holden in the "recent stories" sidebar, or search for it in their search box.

Go Here: everydayfiction.com

Restaurant, Book

Another idea: A Japanese/Mexican fusion restaurant called Tako Taco. (Tako is Japanese for octopus.)  Perhaps a cute cartoon octopus wearing a sombrero as the mascot?

Also, I am halfway through the book The City and The City by Chica Mieville.  I am absolutely fascinated by it.  I started it for a brand new book club a friend started, and I'm so glad I did.

Before I started reading it, I didn't realize that it was sort of sci-fi.  Sci-fi isn't quite the right word... There are two cities in Eastern Europe that are made up, where the action takes place, but otherwise the rest of the world is the same. The two cities, Beszel and Ul Quoma, are intermingled, geographically, but their citizens ignore ("unsee") each other.  There's some great made-up language, like "topologanger."

Feminism and Spirituality

I recently re-read At the Root of This Longing by Carol Lee Flinders.  I'd read it in college, when I'd taken a women and spirituality course as part of my women's studies minor, but I didn't remember much of it at all. 

It's great!  It's all about the author's work sorting out the disconnect she felt between her feminism and her spiritual practices, and how she reconciled that disconnect, realizing feminism and spirituality are not only compatible but mutually beneficial to each other.  The book is divided in two parts.  The first uses the story of Julian of Norwich, a Catholic mystic, as a framework, and the second uses the story of Draupadi from the Mahabharata, the Indian epic. 

Flinders makes points that I'd felt but never been able to articulate.  She summarizes these contradictions as "vowing silence vs. finding voice, relinquishing ego vs. establishing 'self', resisting desire vs. reclaiming the body, and enclosure vs. freedom."  In the first part of the book, she tackles them.  In the second half of the book, she talks about using both feminism and spirituality to drive community action, to make change in the world. 

I loved it so much that I emailed the author to tell her.  She emailed me back the next day!  She was really nice, and recommended other things for me to read.

Should you read it?  If it sounds at all intriguing, yes!

Jonestown/Anne Shirley

Last week I bought a new book, One Thousand Lives by Julia Sheeres.  It's about Jim Jones and Jonestown, the cult in Guyana in the 1970s where over 900 people drank poisoned kool-aid in a mass murder/suicide.  I'd stayed up late last weekend reading about cults on various wikipedia pages, and decided to learn things in a more in-depth way.  The book is based on tons of somewhat recently released documents, including extensive notes by the government and diary entries of people who'd lived at Jonestown.

Yeah, but it was too much.  I did not get further than Jim Jones's cult's relocation from Indiana to Northern California before I gave up.  The descriptions of the ritual beatings of members to punish them for small transgressions was just too much.  I'd been reading in bed and, reaching this, I ran out into the living room where my boyfriend was on his computer.  I threw the book down, and we watched an episode of "Arrested Development" so I could clear my head.  Then we shared hummus and crackers and I read Anne of Windy Poplars until I was ready for bed.  I am really not much different than I was as a ten-year-old.

I just couldn't bear how terrible Jim Jones and his higher-level followers were.  I had imagined the book would investigate the "why"s of how it happened: why do people join cults, why do things get to that point without the government intervening, why do people do terrible things, etc.  And maybe later on it does.  But what I read was focused on the "how"s and "what"s, in detail, and I just can't handle it.

So more Lucy Maude Montgomery, more Anne Shirley.  Although Anne of Avonlea had bored me a little, I enjoyed this one.  Maybe it was the contrast to One Thousand Lives.  Anne is still a little too perfect when I think about it, but I enjoy spending time with her.  Most people get happy endings in the Anne books, and the bad characters are overly stern or unloving or short-tempered, not manipulative, deceitful speed-freak monsters like Jim Jones.

I caught a cold yesterday, and so spent most of today laying around finishing Anne of Windy Poplars and drinking hot apple cider with cinnamon.  It was a good day.

Apple Crisp

I made a vegan apple crisp tonight, out of the apples we picked at an orchard a couple weeks ago.  They've been taking up precious real estate on our kitchen counter, and their number needed to be whittled down.


I used this recipe from The Post Punk Kitchen.  

Apple Crisp

by IsaChandra

Serves 8

This apple crisp is just perfect. Sweet and crunchy and spiced just right, I like it served warm with Vanilla Bean Soy Cream.

Ingredients

For the filling
4 lbs apples (I use Roma)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup apple juice or water
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder (cornstarch will work too)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/2 cup raisin (optional)

For the topping
1 cup quick cooking oats (not instant)
1 cup flour
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup canola oil
3 tablespoon soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F

Peel, core and thinly slice apples. Dissolve the arrowroot in the apple juice or water. Set aside.

Place apples and raisins in the baking dish, add sugars and spices and combine everything well (you may need to use your hands to do this). Pour arrowroot mixture over everything.

To prepare the topping, in a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add oil, soymilk, and vanilla, mix well. Crumble topping over the apples. Bake for 45 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

It was very easy and very yummy.  I changed it up a bit - instead of all white flour, I used half whole wheat pastry flour.  I chopped the apples into little chunks instead of thin slices, because I started doing it that way without thinking and didn't want to change halfway through.  I also added a little bit of ground almonds and flax seed to the topping, since I had them sitting around.  And I have no idea what types of apples I used - at least five different kinds, I know that.

The Post Punk Kitchen is maintained by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, who are the authors of my favorite cookbook ever, The Veganomicon.  The Veganomicon is incredible.  The writing is irreverent and engaging.  The recipes are creative, delicious, and easy to follow.  I often like to read it just for fun, while I'm eating breakfast or just sitting around.  In the past I've only wanted cookbooks where every recipe has a photo, but I completely got over that with The Veganomicon. Less photos means more tasty recipes! 

Cinderella Ate My Daughter

How great of a book title is that? I love it.  Cinderella Ate My Daughter is by Peggy Orenstein, the author of Schoolgirls and Waiting For Daisy, both of which I love.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter is about, as the subtitle says, girlie-girl culture.  Orenstein discusses Disney Princesses, child beauty pageants, Miley Cyrus, and more.  She tries to sort out some nature-vs-nurture questions, and determine just how harmful or harmless some of these pink, glittery girl things are.  What the book ends up focusing on a lot is consumerism - how much advertisers push things on our kids, and then make the kids' desires for the products seem "natural."

It was fascinating.  It could've been more in-depth, but that isn't a criticism, really.  I think the book set out exactly what it meant to do, examining this part of our culture, and to look deeper would mean to actually read through some of the studies she's quoted.  Which I will probably do.

One problem: it was so hard to put down!  I stayed up way too late finishing it last night.

Now I'm re-reading The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld, another addictive author.

Anthropology of an American Girl

I just finished Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann.  At first I really liked it, but then... Well, if you're interested in reading it, I don't know how to discuss my feelings on it without spoilers, so be warned.

It begins when Eveline is a senior in high school.  Her best friend Kate has moved in with her, as Kate's mother has died from cancer.  Eveline's boyfriend Jack has just returned from a summer away.  Eveline and Jack's relationship felt real to me.  Jack felt real.  An angry young man, a musician, intelligent, isolated in his rich suburban family.  He had insight about the world and yet was also a hypocrite in some ways, cruel at times.  I thought I could've gone to high school with him.

And then there's a new temporary drama instructor, Harrison Rourke.  Eveline falls for Rourke immediately.  I thought she was going to end up embarrassed.  All the signs that Rourke was interested seemed like they could also be interpreted as casual friendliness.  And then after graduation, at a party, she sees him.  They kiss.  They spend the summer together.  She's in love.

It didn't feel real to me.  Rourke seemed like a blank.  Why did she love him? Because he was handsome and intense?

And THEN it's fall.  She's at college at NYU, her and Rourke are over, and she's dating Rourke's rich friend Mark.  Then she's living with Mark, still mourning the end of her relationship with Rourke.  Eventually it becomes clear that she'd gotten pregnant and had a miscarriage, but her and Rourke were already over at that time.  Mark seems like a jerk, and Eveline doesn't love him.  She says she's with him because she's given up on things, because of Rourke.  Or something.

I had a hard time understanding her motives in the second half.  As a high schooler, she was so vivid, an artist in a bohemian family, trying to deal with her best friend's mom's death, with feelings for someone besides her boyfriend, with life.  And then after Rourke, she was a mystery.  WHY not contact Rourke and talk to him? WHY decide to stay with Mark?  Another thing that made it a little tough to follow was the sheer volume of characters.  It was hard to keep track of people.

Eventually their paths cross again, and misunderstandings are put right, and at the very end of the novel, she leaves Mark for Rourke.  But I feel like this book could've been so much better.

South of the Border, West of the Sun

I finished another Haruki Murakami book today. South of the Border, West of the Sun.  This one was certainly smaller in scale than Kafka on the Shore or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  It's simple, actually: Hajime had a friend in his youth named Shimamoto.  They bonded because she was an only child, like him, which was rare in the early sixties in rural Japan.  He loved her, although nothing romantic ever happened between them.  When he was twelve, Hajime moved away, and the two friends did not keep in touch.

Now Hajime is nearly forty, with a wife and two kids.  He owns a pair of successful jazz clubs.  He loves his wife and thinks of himself as happy.  Then Shimamoto reappears.  Hajime's intense friendship with her resumes, kept quiet from his wife.  But Shimamoto is mysterious, and does not let him in on many things going on in her life.  She disappears for months at a time, and will not tell him why.  He wants to know, but really just wants her in his life, and so does not push the issue.

I should stop my summary there, before I just type out the ending.  But, in what is apparently typical Murakami fashion, not all the answers are given.  In fact, I found that frustratingly few of them were.  In the two other books of his that I read, I didn't see this as a weakness, necessarily, as the material was so dense that leaving some threads still tangled seemed okay.  But here, I wanted more.

I have another book of his out of the library that I'm going to start next.  We'll see what I think.