My biggest fear going into this book was that, simply, stuff would happen. The first thirty or so pages I was enchanted with the way Murakami wrote about the dull yet oddly mystical world of Toru Okada, and I was not looking forward for the plot the back cover described of “a man discovering the evil underbelly of Tokyo in an almost detective story-esque fashion.” Imagine my delight when I found out that hardly describes a small section of the very last handful of chapters. For the most part, it really isn’t a book where a lot happens, despite its general weirdness, and I can get behind that. Throughout its six hundred pages, I really never found myself tired and bored of the general nothingness. I will say, I did respect the really long and meticulously researched war stories way more than I liked them, and same goes for the news stories and letters from May. Toru Okada is a really enjoyable protagonist to read from the point of view of, kind of a Mersault-type protagonist. Ultimately, it’s delightfully peculiar, definitely a must read.

I'd heard this frequently hailed as a bit of a modern classic, somewhat of a present-day Bell Jar, and that I think is a fair assessment even if Rest and Relaxation's anonymous protagonist has more in common with Holden Caulfield than Esther Greenwood. One of those books that really works on the basis of just how much the main character is designed to test your patience. Repeatedly, [anonymous] is just kind of an unreasonably mean-spirited and harsh character, something that's highlighted by her friendship with Reva, someone who in essence is the Rowley to her Greg Heffley- a very inoffensively kind character, or at least in comparison to the main one. However, why her character works so well is because you get a complete understanding of her worldview and why she is the way she is. Moshfegh's writing style to me is one of the clear highlights of this book as well, it's almost Kerouac-esque in its constant bursts of ranting, listing, writing hypnotically long/short sentences that are easy to get lost in. +It's a decently funny book, albeit usually in a very cruel and morbid way lol

I finished playing LISA a while ago, about two weeks to be more precise, and this was possibly the greatest book I could’ve ever read following that experience. I mean if I had a quarter for every piece of media I’ve consumed this March relating to an apocalyptic future where a father has to protect their child and themes of fatherhood and morality are explored I’d have two quarters, which as they say in the biz, “isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.” The Road is a great albeit completely miserable read. The best line of comparison I can think of is if Faulkner was writing a book set in a post-apocalyptic landscape, the difference here being that McCarthy isn’t even half as boring as Faulkner. The Road’s writing, in terms of it kind of being a horror novel, are native (and excel in) the department of “being vague enough to keep you interested.” Ambiguity is one of McCarthy’s sharpest tools here, it’s unclear when dialogue is narration or when it’s actual dialogue, yet it’s done well enough that instead of just being confusing and a headache to read, it allows you to reflect on the different ways someone can interpret the book. The characters don’t have names and never is it outright stated what led the world to be like this. The Road, in other words, is cruel, bleak, and distressing while it lasts, yet not just a ridiculously self-indulgent misery-fest designed to make readers squirm.

Wittgenstein’s Mistress is a book that I had virtually no idea whether I’d love or hate even while reading because I wondered at what point the long strings of fun facts- well, actually, fun lies, I guess- and completely stream of consciousness narrative that presents little story would begin to annoy me. Markson is a brilliant author; it never does. Wittgenstein’s Mistress is a story about an insane woman who lives on a beach, used to live in museums, used to know William Gaddis (depending on how much of her stories you believe), burned down her own house, and is slowly deconstructing another one plank by plank. Not in that order, though, and even if you were to ask me the order, I would admit defeat and walk away with my head hung in shame. This book veers dangerously close to Pale Fire and Ulysses in terms of its nonsensicality and sense that you, the reader, have become a victim of trolling by the very author whose book you hold in your hands. Maybe it’s just this book being more modern and not nearly as gruelingly obtuse as Pale Fire or Ulysses, but there really is something here. Sure, the book can be silly at times, but instead of feeling like an elaborate prank, it feels like you’re actually listening to someone talking to herself after years of isolation. This book can be interpreted in many ways, however it can be broken down into two big categories for means of interpretation that both seem equally plausible by the end of the story: Kate is mentally insane and she’s not the only person left on Earth (the bit about her wanting to write an autobiography at the end could suggest this, too, and suggest that Kate is the author instead of David Markson), or all of this is actually happening and her insanity is caused by not being surrounded by any human beings. The constant repetition of lines reminds me of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Sometimes Kate says things that are very very astute, sometimes she says things that are funny, sometimes she says something truly confusing and seemingly off color. A brilliant, sometimes funny, sometimes perplexing, sometimes deeply philosophical work that serves as the modernist Pale Fire’s postmodernist counterpart.

To call this book a slow burn would be an understatement. I'd seen this guy compared to pretty much every author out there from Murakami to Kafka; surprisingly enough, I'd never seen anyone compare Kurkov to Rushdie, which is strange because Kurkov's writing style very much feels like if Rushdie had the attention span to remember to punctuate his sentences. Point being, though, these comparisons didn't really click with me 'till I was about halfway through the book. The color grey (and also bees for that matter) acts as recurring symbolism, but very fitting symbolism given the book's writing style. It's a mixture of a war going on and a hellish, bleak portrayal of the Russian government (the black), and also just this guy living his everyday life tending to his bees, going from place to place (white). Pretty good book, even if I wish I read Death and the Penguin first.