I have finally found my match. Unfortunately he is a 57 years old married Japanese man. Don't get me wrong, what I mean is that I have finally discovered someone with an imagination so far fetched and fertile that my own imagination seems almost like a pea to his universe. The good thing is that he is a famous writer so at least he has a proper avenue to channel his creativity and surreal ideas than being mistaken as a lunatic.
So far, I have read 3 of his books, one a novel called
Dance dance dance and the other 2 are compilations of short stories called
The Elephant vanishes and
After the Quake. The first 2 books are recommendations from Jasmine and all thanks to her, I have now become an official fan of Haruki's. Though his stories are all translations from different people, they carry his original writing style and ideas. There is definitely no mistaking it because who else is capable of making a sheep man appeared in a dingy hotel, believable or creating a scene in which an elephant vanished with his caretaker, touching and not out of the world.
Currently I am reading another of his bizarre novel titled
Kafka on the shore. Absurd things are happening
all the time
and while I am trying to make sense of these events, the suspense of yearning to know what is next is pushing me to just read on and on. Ironically, Haruki himself said that "If I choose to write about sheep, it's just because I happened to write about sheep. There is no deep significance." However, for readers who are just as imaginative like myself, I cannot help but wonder and attempt to decipher the deeper meanings of what he wrote.
In the end, I may end up either in a wild goose chase or dizzy standing transfixed looking at the wild goose chasing one another. Whatever the outcome, Haruki's novels are surely worth a read. They enable one to be transported into a fantasy temporarily but be permanently influenced by his daring exploration of the human mind.
