Kafka

A couple weeks ago, I finished reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I was really excited going into this book because of how much I enjoyed The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Unfortunately, it was not "as powerful as the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," as the cover promised. And I must admit some disappointment.

Kafka is a coming-of-age story of a 15-year-old runaway from Tokyo that quickly spins out into Murakami's "normal" bizarre world where metaphors actually invade reality; it addresses memory and the soul, especially how people can become trapped in the past. And the fact that I could sum up the book in a single compound sentence is the problem! For example, HBWEW dealt with many of the same topics (and Murakami performed a half-assed recycle of much of HBWEW's symbolism for Kafka), but left so many unanswered questions for the reader to deal with that after I finished it I was completely confused. On the other hand, Kafka winds up in such a neat way, all loose ends tied up -- everyone happy -- that it could be broadcast on Lifetime (well, maybe not Lifetime, but definitely WB). If you need a beach read that's challenging enough to actually be interesting, Kafka's a good choice. (As Erin put it, "Some stories are just stories.") If you're looking for a great book, I'd go with one of Murakami's other works.

In other news, I'm pace-leading the 8:00/mile group on NYRRC's 20 mile training run this weekend with the other Flyers. The instructions I received included this:

10:00 pace and up - the NYRR will begin to breakdown the water stops at 11:00 am [the run starts at 7:00] - if you notice the water tables are disappearing while you are finishing your run, make sure to know locations of water fountains on the 4 mile loop and ask your group if they need to stop.

If I haven't expressed my amazement at people who run marathons slower than 4 hours on this blog before, allow me to do so now. It's not so much the amount of time and dedication during the race itself that I find so impressive, but the amount of dedication required to put in the time to do the miles of training. I mean, for each 20 miler a 10:00/mile person is out 40:00 minutes longer than I am . . . week after week after week. And longer on the other runs too. You guys are ridiculous!

Wednesday: 11.3 mile Queensboro Loop, 1:28:11 (7:48/mile).
Thursday: 5.0 mile Williamsburg Bridge O&B, 38:40 (7:44/mile).