book double feature: enon + the wind-up bird chronicle

now that i've vented a bit and actually reflected on australia i'm going to play catch up with some of the books i've been reading. i'm doing them as double features because there are some tenuous thematic connections but mostly it's just to save on time and reduce the amount of filler posts between my last one and the next australia one (giant rocks! desert! dingos! did they take the baby?! you'll have to wait and see!).

so double feature 1 of 2 (both featuring a novel by haruki murakami, so at least there's some consistency in format): enon by paul harding and the wind-up bird chronicle by haruki murakami. i saw enon on a end of year list or two and it didn't even occur to me until after i started reading it that i had read harding's previous effort, tinkers, while in korea. tinkers was a slow, moving book full of beautiful language that poured over you like molasses. the story was almost a non-story, the wandering thoughts of a dying man, something could let wash over you without stressing too much about where it was going (you knew where, he was going to die). harding continues the story of the crosby family in enon and it too deals with death. this time however it is a tragic death, the unexplainable and terrible. although the language is just as fluid and poetic, because of the subject matter it doesn't have the same calming affect as tinkers. rather, it insists on punching you in the gut. its a bit of a contradiction in substance and style. however harding is obviously a talented writer and the book is often beautiful and touching through the claustrophobic sadness of it all.

like enon, the wind-up bird chronicle is about a man dealing with sudden and inexplicable loss and the process he goes through to deal with it. that's about where the comparison ends. you could draw ties to how each character is a bit rudderless and ineffectual without the female other in their lives but i don't want to belabor the comparison too much. whereas harding is a craftsman when it comes to language and the unfolding of a story, murakami seems to throw everything at the wall and then becomes too impatient to even see what sticks. his stories (having read four now) are always interesting and drawn by a sense of mystery, fantasy,  horror and the just plain bizarre. but those same traits can make them pretty uneven as well. but i'm not really complaining. there's not many authors outside of murakami who can make me feel so comfortable reading a story. i'm not sure what it is but i never feel bad reading him, even if it does get silly sometimes.

i would actually suggest reading these books back to back. they balance each other nicely. while the wind-up bird chronicle suggests a supernatural solution for loss, enon begs for one and becomes haunted by it.