Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

Short description (Goodreads.com): Toru Wanatabe, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before.  Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable.  As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. A poignant story of one college student’s romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man’s first, hopeless, and heroic love.

Norwegian Wood, a Beatles-song (Rubber Soul). It’s played several times in the book. At first I thought I didn’t know the song, but of course I did. Like you all will. If you think you don’t, check out this YouTube-video. The song is starting with the words “I once had a girl, or should I say she once had me”. And yes, the girl once had him. Or better, the girl had him for eternity. When Wanatabe hears this song he remembers his youth, the time he was studying. He remembers the loss of his dearest friend and the love-affairs he had.
Norwegian Wood is about life and death, love and friendship, happiness and sadness. Wanatabe tells you everything he thinks and feels. About his love for Naoko and Midori, about him growing up and about the impossible choice he has to make.
I really enjoyed reading it. May be the story is simple, but I like the way Murakami writes. He pulls you into Wanatabe’s world and even after the last words it’s hard to leave it. Great novel. Four stars!

For the dutch Murakami fans, here you can find a website with all kinds of Murakami-events. Another Murakami-website. And for those who would like to read some reviews, this website has got an overview.

A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan

Short description (from Goodreads.com): Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

A very short description. I did that on purpose because I think you have to discover the book all by yourself. Like I did. It really is much more fun that way.

So, what did I think of it. Well, thank you Goodreads Book Club, thanks for putting this book on the bookclub reading list. It is one of the best, if not, the best book I’ve ever read. At first it was quite a struggle. Many different persons, different timelines and yet, all connected. Really needed a notebook whilst reading the first chapters. But I like puzzles. Egan ensures that you get to know the characters well and I can imagine that different readers have different characters they sympathize with. My favorite character was Sasha. Of course chapter 12, Great Rock and Roll Pauses, is the best of the book.  Egan’s written an ingenious book that really deserves the Pulitzer prize. To me there is only one possible judgement, five stars!

If you enjoyed reading the book as well, be sure to check this short story, written by Jennifer Egan, in the Guardian. And Egan’s got her own website where you can find reviews, interviews and a lot of other interesting stuff.

Slotakkoord – Michael Connelly

Van de achterflap: Harry Bosch wordt gevraagd terug te keren naar de LAPD, de Los Angeles Police Department. Samen met zijn voormalige partner Kizmin Rider wordt Bosch op onopgelost zaken gezet.
De eerste zaak die Bosch en Rider aanpakken, blijkt politiek heel gevoelig te liggen. DNA-onderzoek toont een verband aan tussen een blanke racist en de moord in 1988 op de zestienjarige Rebecca Verloren. Waarom was het politieonderzoek destijds zo slordig? Was dat opzet of het resultaat van diensten die elkaar tegenwerkten? Bosch en Rider komen er achter dat corruptie binnen de politie er af en toe de oorzaak van was dat de zaak onopgelost bleef – en dat diegenen die toen de touwtjes in handen hadden Bosch er Rider nu bedreigen. Harry Bosch stort zich met hart en ziel op het onderzoek en Kiz kan hem daarbij nauwelijks afremmen.

Afgelopen winter las ik Echo Park van Michael Connelly. Ik vond het een spannend boek, een goed verhaal met een verrassende ontknoping. Daarom begon ik met grote verwachtingen aan dit boek. Naar nu blijkt met te grote verwachtingen want Slotakkoord viel me enorm tegen. Het duurde lang voor het verhaal op gang kwam. Weinig spanning. Oke, de uiteindelijke dader was weliswaar verrassend maar deze kronkel in het verhaal vond ik tegelijkertijd ook heel ongeloofwaardig. Ik was ook niet erg tevreden over de vertaling. Een boek uit het Amerikaans vertalen en dan Nederlandse woorden gebruiken die verouderd zijn of soms weinig worden gebruikt, past niet zo bij elkaar. Volgende keer toch maar geen vertaling meer lezen.

Mijn eindoordeel is dan ook maar twee magere sterren. Zou Hans Knegtmans in Vrij Nederland echt vijf sterren hebben gegeven en de opmerking Connelly’s beste sinds Spoordood?

Wie weer over Michael Connelly wil weten of over de boeken die hij heeft geschreven, hier kun je zijn officiële website vinden.

Solar – Ian McEwan

From the cover: Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time it is different: she is having the affair, and he is still in love with her. When Beard’s professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster. Ranging from the Arctic Circle to the deserts of New Mexico, Solar is a serious and darkly satirical novel, showing human frailty struggling with the most pressing and complex problem of our time. A story of one man’s greed and self-deception, it is a profound and stylish new work from one of the world’s great writers.

Solar is entirely from Michael Beard’s point of view, a bit of a pathetic and dislikable person. He is anything but a breath of fresh air. Self-centered, incapable of love, insecure and dishonest. He is living on past glories. Eating to much, nog charming at all, a bit of a fool and yet women seem to like him. Don’t expect to learn about clean energy. The book is all about the drama of sex, compromised integrity and serial irresponsibility played out by Beard’s shambling figure.

McEwan tells an engaging and funny story that I really enjoyed reading. My judgement, four stars.

Ian McEwan has got his own website. If you like to read some reviews, try the Guardian and Times Online.

Sacramentsprocessie Amsterdam 2011

Ook dit jaar is Fotowerkgroep De Verbeelding gevraagd om de sacramentsprocessie in beeld vast te leggen. We hadden het plan om met vijf man sterk, gewapend met camera, naar Amsterdam af te reizen. Maar het leek het verhaal van de tien kleine negertjes wel. Alleen bleven er in dit geval twee over die in Amsterdam present waren om de foto’s te maken. Ook dit jaar bleken goede afspraken met de weergoden te zijn gemaakt, want de zon liet zich weer van zijn beste kant zien.

Vorig jaar was het voor mij  de eerste keer dat ik als fotograaf mocht optreden. Toen was ik vooral heel druk met langs de gracht heen en weer rennen zonder nou direct een idee te hebben wat ik wilde vastleggen. Dit jaar wist ik wat me te wachten stond en had tevoren wat beter nagedacht over de foto’s die ik wilde maken. Daardoor rende ik minder als een kip zonder kop rond en had meer oog voor de achtergrond. Maar vooral die andere fotografen….die zijn toch lastig

Achteraf ben ik wel tevreden. Op deze blog een selectie van mijn eigen foto’s. Wie meer wil zien kan de foto-expositie gaan bekijken in het ontmoetingscentrum naast de Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk aan de Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Vanaf 22 juli. Daar zijn ook de foto’s van de andere fotograaf, Josephine Selles, te bewonderen.

Oh ja, in het Amsterdam Stadsblad, een huis-aan-huisweekkrant stond op de voorpagina een van mijn foto’s bij het verslag over deze processie. Dat heb ik gehoord, maar niet gezien. Als iemand dat blad nog heeft, ik hoor het graag. Ben alleen al zo benieuwd welke foto het eigenlijk is.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter – Jeff Lindsay

From the cover: Dexter Morgan isn’t exactly the kind of man you’d bring home to your mum. At heart, he’s the perfect gentleman: he has a shy girlfriend, and seems to lead a quiet, normal life bordering on the mundane. Despite the fact that he can’t stand the sight of blood, he works as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police. But Dexter also has a secret hobby: he is an accomplished serial killer. So far, he’s killed 36 people and has never been caught because he knows exactly how to hide the evidence. And while that may lead some people to assume he’s not such a nice guy, he tempers his insatiable hunger for brutality by only killing the bad guys. However, Dexter’s well-organised life is suddenly disrupted when a second, much more visible serial killer appears in Miami. Intrigued that the other killer favours a style similar to his own, Dexter soon realises that the mysterious new arrival is not simply invading his turf but offering him a direct invitation to ‘come out and play’…

Dexter, a novel about a serial killer and the catching of the serial killer isn’t interesting at all. It’s all about Dexter, and Dexter alone. So if you like to read a book about the murders that are committed by a serial killer, do they find out who did it, yes they do and the killer gets caught. Try another book. If you like to read about the charming Dexter – a man with no emotions at all – and the way he tries to survive in the normal world. This is your book. I did enjoy reading the book, it’s quite entertaining. After I’d watched the tv-series I was curious how the book would be. I can tell you, it’s not the same. The story is different and Dexter as well. In the book he has got no emotions at all. In the tv-series Dexter claims to have no emotions but it’s hard to believe. But it’s fun reading. On a holiday for instance, in the sun, not to difficult. Three stars.

If you like watching the tv-series, here you can find the official Dexter-website. And googling the internet, this came up, a website that compares the books and the series. Enjoy!