In the Distance

In the Distance

By Hernan Diaz

My 150th entry! It took a little longer to get here than I anticipated, but a milestone nonetheless.

I picked this book up primarily because of how much I enjoyed Trust, the last book I read by this author. That work felt a lot like a crossword puzzle, which I find myself trying to unlock more frequently of late. It featured basically the same story told from four different, sometimes intertwining, points of view. It's not an uncommon method, but the way he wrote it made it take a while to figure out what was going on. And even by the end, you don't really know who to believe.

This book was much different, but no less interesting and, at times, riveting. It is, as the dust jacket explains, a book that "defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre." It is a tale of the settling of the west, with a twist. The main character, Hakan, or The Hawk as he becomes known, wants desperately to get east. After setting out with his brother from Sweden, he somehow becomes separated and winds up on a boat bound not for New York City but for San Francisco. When he arrives there, he becomes determined to reunite with his brother and takes up with an Irish family in search of gold. Against all odds, they find it -- only to have it stolen from them by a powerful woman from a nearby town who takes a liking to Hakan and keeps him as something of a sex slave.

He escapes, and spends much time wandering the desert, taking up with a scientist in search of the first signs of life on planet earth in the salt flats around what I can only assume is Utah. The scientists' help becomes tired of the desert mission, and, when he stops to give assistance to a recently-attacked group of Native Americans, they leave him. Hakan stays, and for his efforts he is gifted some medical training and tools, as well as a horse, which makes his journey much faster.

Eventually, he runs into settlers on the Oregon trail. One day, he is offered another horse, this one strong and healthy, if he would only serve as a bodyguard to a confidence man who has somehow convinced many settlers that he has land in Oregon that he can give them, which prompts many to shower him with gifts from their meager possessions. One day, they run into a band of Native people, or so they think. In fact, it is a ruse; a group of "brethren" (Mormon's?) who pretend to be Native and then change clothes to chase them off. The settlers fall for it, and welcome the "heroes" into their wagon circle. Whereupon they are fired up on indiscriminately. Hakan, who is an enormous human, reacts quickly, and almost single-handedly defeats the brethren. 

Word of his deed spreads far and wide. He is a hero! He is a villain! He goes into hiding. For years, his legend grows outside of his isolation. He grows too, never stopping. He is, it seems, the embodiment of the western tall tale, growing taller with every telling. Even years and years after the event, he is recognized and almost taken captive once more. He manages one more escape, does a kind deed for a fellow Swede who has come into wealth and funds a trip to a place where he won't be recognized: back home. 

The cover of the book is a mirror image. A mountainous desert landscape above; the same desert landscape below. I will admit that I was a bit too involved in the plot of thee book to fully consider its message, but that image seems a key to it.

The City and its Uncertain Walls

 The City and its Uncertain Walls

By Haruki Murakami

A new Murakami novel! Well, actually, only partly new. This is an extension of one half of the novel Hard
Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which was actually two novellas combined into one. Anyway. It arrived just in time for my annual Murakami read, and I was excited to pick it up.

Part 1 of the novel felt almost exactly like what I'd read before, which was a little disappointing. It was surprising to read in an afterward that he almost stopped there, because it didn't seem like there was much new. A 17-year-old falls in love with a 16-year-old, who claims that she is just the shadow of a real person living in an alternate world, a small city surrounded by a wall where time has no meaning, every day is basically the same, unicorns roam the streets, and no one may leave or enter. The pair carry on an intense relationship, but one day the girl simply stops replying to his letters and seems to disappear. Soon after, this version of Murakami man finds himself there one day at the bottom of a hole that the gate keeper to the city usually uses to burn the bodies of the beasts (unicorns) who die off during the harsh winter. Gotta love the Murakami man in a Murakami hole! To enter the village, the man must be separated from his shadow. His eyes are scarred so that he can fulfill his function: to read dreams that are ensconced in old skulls in the city "library" -- where the "real" version of the girl he loved was supposed to work. He visits with his shadow regularly, and becomes concerned when it seems that his shadow is dying. They make an escape plan, hoping to get back to the other world at the bottom of a mysterious, swirling pool in a river that runs through town. They make it, but the man decides at the last minute to stay back.

Or does he? The novel picks up back in the man's life, but something is a bit amiss. He aimlessly wanders into his 40s and decides he needs a change. He finds a job as a librarian in a small town several hours from Tokyo. He is befriended by his predecessor, who, it turns out, died a year before his hiring; he is, in fact a ghost. And, of course, they meet in the bowels of the library -- kind of like a hole. The shadow makes a few acquaintances in the town, including a woman who runs a coffee shop but, perhaps more importantly, a boy who dresses every day in a Yellow Submarine sweatshirt and spends his days reading everything he can in the town library. One day, "Yellow Submarine Boy" overhears the man talking to his predecessor's grave about the walled city and his time in it; the boy, who is likely on the spectrum, decides he must go there. 

One day, he does, sending the reader back there. The man is there too. Or maybe it's his shadow? Because he recognizes the boy, but only as a feeling of connection not as an actually remembrance. The boy seeks him out and they "become one" in some mysterious ways, which is helpful to the man because the boy, a voracious reader, is far better at reading dreams than the man. Where once, the man could only get through two or three dreams, and poorly, now he can get through seven. The boy and the man "meet" in a room in the man's head, and the man decides he must leave the city. The boy helps him, telling him he must only believe fervently that his shadow on the other side will catch him. As the book ends, we think that's what happens.

Not my favorite Murakami, but enough of the familiar themes and dream-like qualities were there to get a fix. He is still raising questions about the role that our imagination plays in shaping our world. Are we all just wandering around in cities surrounded by walls that we, ourselves, build? Are just acting as our shadows as the real us lives in that city inside our minds? I hope he comes out with another book soon.