Top 5 Books to Read

1Q84 Haruki Murakami 

To be honest, I could’ve never imagined that I would finish this 900 page novel. I remember I was at the book store with a friend and picked up 1Q84 because it was the biggest book on the shelf. Jokingly, I said that I would never be able to even get half way through it and wouldn’t expect anyone to finish it all. But, as soon as I read the first sentence, I knew that I would not be able to put it down. Why? Because Murakami is a genius. I don’t know how he does that, but the book is written in such a way that you are drawn in by its first words and can’t stop yourself from turning the pages until you reach the last sentence. The language is in no way flowery or beautiful, but its straight-forward realism gives you such a vivid description of the setting and the characters that, by the end of the book, you feel like you know them personally.

Summary: 1Q84 follows the lives of Aomame, a fitness instructor, who kills unfaithful and violent men in revenge, and Tengo, who works as a mathematics teacher at a local cram school, while writing fiction in his free time. Although very different, their destinies are intertwined in the surreal world they both end up in.

The novel doesn’t have the typical “introduction-climax-resolution” structure, but is rather like a jigsaw puzzle, in which you can’t see the complete picture, until the last piece is put into place. In other words, as you read the story, it seems like a 900-page piece of description with barely any action, until you get to the last chapter and realise that everything has reached a conclusion.

Would I recommend the book? Definitely! 1Q84 (surprisingly) doesn’t force any kind of message on you. It doesn’t have the “moral of the story” and doesn’t leave you thinking. At least, that’s what I felt after I finished it. However, it did teach me a couple of things about writing and how you can structure a piece of writing in an alternative way. (It also taught me how depressing being an adult is.)

Side note: this was the only Murakami book I’ve read, so I can’t compare it to his other work. According to many internet reviews, this isn’t his best work, but, hey, I enjoyed it.

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Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 

If you refuse to read this book because it’s “about pedophilia”, please rethink your life choices. Seriously. Everyone should read it and here’s why.

The language! Damn! The language this book is written in is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The little metaphors, the French phrases, which slip in now and then, the long sentences, split by never-ending semi-colons… it’s beautiful! And it’s not the kind of language you’d find dull or boring. On the contrary, it’s so delicious you’d want to devour it! It draws you in and leaves you speechless because, after having read something so beautiful, the everyday English we use just sounds plain or even revolting. (I could spend hours talking about the language in this novel.)

And it’s so beautiful how the description makes the main character so disgusting! It’s amazing how the whole book is literally just a huge juxtaposition of the flowery language and the repugnant story, making the novel so revolting, so disgusting and, yet so… beautiful! You feel such strong hatred towards the filthy Humbert, who raped and destroyed the life of little Dolores. But, again, you can’t hate the book for the awful imagery because the DAMN LANGUAGE IS SO BEAUTIFUL.

Three of four miles out of Wace, I turned into the shadow of a picnic ground where the morning had dumped its litter of light on an empty table; Lo looked up with a semi-smile and without a word I delivered a tremendous backhand cut that caught her smack on her hot hard little cheekbone.And then the remorse, the poignant sweetness of sobbing atonement, groveling love, the hopelessness of sensual reconciliation.  In the velvet night, at Mirana Motel (Mirana!) I kissed the yellowish soles of her long-toed feet, I immolated myself…But it was all of no avail.  Both doomed were we.  And soon I was to enter a new cycle of persecution.

Lolita left me absolutely speechless. It is, without doubt, the best piece of writing I’ve ever read. 

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Nothing to Envy Barbara Demick 

Sometimes I would forget that this book is an account of actual lives and think that I was just reading some 1984-like dystopian fiction. The novel follows the stories of six North Koreans, who fled the country after or during the famine of the 1990s. The characters include Mi-ran and Jun-sang, two lovers, separated by the gruel cast system; Mrs Song, a faithful believer in communism, who is forced to betray the ideology in order to survive; her exact opposite and rebellious daughter Oak-hee, who is never afraid to stand up for her rights; Dr Kim, a doctor, trying to save countless patients during the famine; and Hyuck, an orphaned thief. Each story is interesting in its own way and shows how the six completely different people all end up in the same place – South Korea. Some struggle to adjust to the capitalist way of life, while others embrace it wholeheartedly. The book shows that, even in such drastic conditions, people, no matter the social status or upbringing, will never lose the human element.

A peculiar thing about Nothing to Envy is that it doesn’t have any blunt (or subtle) American propaganda you would expect. I say that because the last book I read on North Korea had a very delicate message against the DPRK and often compared the two regimes to show which one was best. Nothing to Envy, on the other hand, tells the story (and history) without favouring either side, portraying the genuine trust the characters had towards Kim Il Sung without any bias.

As I’ve mentioned before, it does read as a dystopian fiction from time to time. For example, Mrs Song’s husband was a journalist, who rewrote the news in favour of North Korea. I couldn’t help, but think of the famous Ministry of Truth from Orwell’s classic.

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Battle Royale Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi

You don’t need to be a fan of manga to appreciate this piece of art.

Look at it. Wow. Just wow.

The story is set in an alternative (or futuristic) universe, in which Japan is a dictatorship. Every year, a class of middle schoolers is selected to participate in “the program”, a cruel game, where the classmates have to kill each other until only one remains. The manga focuses on everyone’s background story, making you attached to the characters, so that you feel empathy even towards the antagonistic ones.

The main character is Shuuya, who loves rock (despite it being banned in Japan) and is quite popular at school. He grew up in an orphanage with his best friend Nobu, who is in love with a fellow classmate called Noriko. When Nobu is shot, Shuuya promises to protect Noriko and keep her alive until the end. The two form an alliance with Shogo, a menacing-looking student with scars all over his body, who transferred to the school recently and is much older than the rest. I’ll leave the summery at that because the end is very unpredictable. (And, no, it’s nothing like the Hunger Games.)

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The Twelve Chairs Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov

The Twelve Chairs is a satirical novel set in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and it’s the funniest book I’ve ever read. Don’t ever read it in a public place because it will make you laugh and giggle uncontrollably.

Ideas occurred to Father Theodore unexpectedly, and when they did he used to get down to work on the spot. He once started making a marble-like washing-soap;  he made  pounds and pounds of it, but despite an enormous fat content,  the soap would not lather, and it cost twice as much as the Hammer and Plough brand,  to boot. For a long time after it remained in the liquid state  gradually decomposing on  the porch  of  the house, and whenever  his wife,  Catherine,  passed it,  she  would  wipe away a  tear.  The soap was eventually thrown into the cesspool.

In the story, Ippolit and Ostap, who are each other’s complete opposites, unite forces in order to find the treasure Ippolit’s mother-in-law hid in one of the twelve chairs. To find the chairs, the two go on a journey to Moscow, the Caucasus and many other places in the Soviet Union. On their way, they are forced to find ways of making money to continue their trip and often trick the civilians, which is hilarious. However, Father Theodor, who was also told about the treasure, often stands in their way.

According to many internet reviews, the book is often found depressing, as it can be linked to the problems the Soviet citizens had to deal with at the time and the sometimes dreadful conditions the characters live in. Perhaps, I’m not mature enough to understand the book in such a way because the description of the communal apartments did not appear depressing to me.

Also, I can’t quite comment on the language of the novel because I read it in Russian. The important thing is to find the original version, due to the fact that the book was largely edited in the Soviet era and some of its editions exclude some witty anti-communist remarks and the characters’ background stories before the revolution. 

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