Saturday, January 17, 2015

Tax collection in the Ottoman Empire

I'm reading Haruki Murakami's The Strange Library now. Twas a gift. And the present tense is correct. I could have read it cover to cover tonight but the library isn't open until Tuesday and I won't be able to pick up my requests until I get off from work. Besides, I don't mind enjoying this one over a couple of days. Murakami is very good at writing people who aren't drones but who basically do what they're told. Which is arguably most of us in real life.

2 comments:

semiconscious said...

'Murakami is very good at writing people who aren't drones but who basically do what they're told. Which is arguably most of us in real life...'

well put. he's also very good, i think, at describing 'subjective reality'. to the extent that there's never much of an objective reality to latch onto in many of his books. which's also true of most of us in real life :) ...

Ben said...

Which isn't to say that there's no reality at all. Curiosity drove me to start reading another book of his, Underground, which is about the aftereffects of the Tokyo subway sarin attack of 1995. He's a good interviewer. One funny thing about it is how many of his other books could justifiably be called "Underground."