mybookjournal

“Happiness can reach a pitch so great that any further happiness can’t be felt. Pain, despair, humiliation, disgust, and gear are no different.”

What a beautifully dark and heart-wrenching tale this was! Like other Stefan Zweig novels that i have read even this had a strange impact on me. I felt restless while reading this. Neither i could continue reading nor could I stop. I loved the way how he forces his readers to get involved with his characters and their story even if they don’t want to which is evident in his writing he stresses every word, every sentence till the reader gets the hang of it.

Christine a simple girl working in a post office in a small village is ignorant of any kind of luxuries that exists in life till she receives a letter from her aunt and uncle to join them in Swiss Alpine resort to give them company for a while. But the moment Christine steps in her new life her old self is dead instantly. It becomes difficult for Christine to be the same old person that she was even after returning from her abrupt vacation and that’s when her life becomes a living hell. She feels caged. Neither she could fit into her current life nor could she get out. She feels a constant embarrassment to lead her life. Her every thought, her every move was heart breaking to read. But the curiosity of what step Christine takes next kept me glued to this story as it was unpredictable. And then she meets Ferdinand, a war veteran who is as unhappy with his life and the society as Christine is and somehow their coming together disturbs both their lives entirely. Although the ending is abrupt yet I couldn’t have asked for any better ending than that because personally i was not prepared for a closed ending as I didn’t wanted to know what Ferdinand and Christine ended up doing together.

Must say I love this author and I am sure of reading all his works, essays, short stories, novellas and anything that he has ever written. His prose is like poetry to me.

The interesting part of this book is that even though it’s written in 1985 almost 32 years back still it holds good even to this day. It’s scary but yes there are chances that this might happen one day, this world can turn in to one such hell! I know it’s a dystopian novel but a different kind that, which can turn into reality. The narration was a bit dry but, of course we can’t expect a flowery narration of the environment and situation which Offred was a part of.  At first it’s tough to get into the book but once you are in there it’s very hard to get out. Forget men, this is a world where one woman doesn’t respect or cares for the other, where even though a woman is going through hell the other just sits there and watches it rather than doing something about it, sounds so similar to this world which we are living in, right? That’s why it’s scary. It’s actually disturbing as hell.

“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.” (p.135)

Just like the above mentioned quote it’s in our nature to overlook things once it over we people tend to forget everything once the commotion is over, once headlines turn to a sideline. Everything will just be shadow for us. That’s why this novel so scary. I know i’ve been repeating the word ‘scary’ but IT IS!

It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many.

It’s been almost two days since i finished this book but neither i am able to write a review nor i am letting it go. So here i am with my scattered thoughts about this book, writing whatever i felt like when i read it.

Okay so how should I say how it was? Bizarre? Vivid? Dreamlike? Nightmarish? Or maybe all of the above.

If i keep this bizarre things that happened in this book at bay i can say that this novel was intriguing and informative. I feel the best part of this book is definitely Murakami’s writing. He is a master when it comes’ writing about loneliness and pain, he makes the reader feel what the character is going through. His writing has the power to make the mundane things as something special and surreal as normal something that occurs in day to day life which of course doesn’t.

Feeling estranged from his normal self and world Toru Okada ends up meeting a bunch of people who all seemed very interesting to meet with. Each had their own painful and disturbing story to tell and with each of their story there was some new information to gather which made the whole book, for me captivating enough to continue till the end. This book didn’t just have one story to tell but many. These sub plots somewhere ended up linking to the main plot but in the end everything still remained misty. Anyway, there has never been any clear-cut ending in Murakami’s book there wasn’t any in here as well. Well, all i can say is I’ve read few books by Murakami, but this one i didn’t enjoy reading as much as i did the earlier ones, which i am sure of. There was something lacking here that i am unable to pinpoint at.

[spoiler] I went through few discussions on Goodreads about this book that has actually given me a different dimension to the whole story. It said that Malta Kano is supposed to be Kumiko’s sister and Creta Kano is supposed to be Kukimo herself in the “other world”, now that’s interesting. [/spoiler]

‘Beware of Pity’ by Stefan Zweig is a psychological depiction of Lieutenant Anton Hofmiller . The only mistake he does is when he asks Edith Kekesfalva, a crippled girl for a dance ‘Unknowingly’. This actually turns into a major blunder and ruins his and the girl’s entire life. Well, on the other hand he could have just forgotten the whole thing as mere oversight but he makes sure not to and lets it grow. He keeps going back to her in one way or the other and he keeps repeating himself, it’s just out of pity.
It’s a pity that Hofmiller felt only sympathy for Edith and not love. When a man comes to spend time with a woman once in a while that can be considered as pity but when he visiting her becomes a regular affair it doesn’t stay just that but turns to something more, may be compassion or love. But Hofmiller was not ready to accept this fact, he kept suppressing his feelings because he was narrow-minded, he could not accept the fact that he could love a crippled woman. He was afraid that people would laugh at him. If only he didn’t care for the society, if only he was capable of loving Edith like she did but he forces himself not to.

Stefan Zweig has a way with words I mean a bizarre way! Even if the readers want to read this book as just another novel they cannot he makes the whole thing grow on them. He repeats the phrases again and again to have an effect on them so that the readers become helpless hence yield to his words and gets involved with the book. So, yes! This book had a strange effect on me too. While reading it made me edgy, restless also at some point i felt emotionally drained and i just had to stop reading it, to bring myself back to normal. And I love it when mere words overpower me. So I surrender to Mr Zweig, his words and now I am his greatest fan and will be reading all his books.