“Is it possible, finally, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close are we able to come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”
—Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
I’m currently trudging through Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It’s one of those books high school English teachers love to assign, and high school students love to use as a nice door stop or eye pillow (It’s 607 pages long in like 10pt font with line spacing approximating 0). The book doesn’t have a nice snappy, linear plot. Instead, it follows Toru Okada, just a normal guy without a job, and the many people he meets as he tries to find his cat. While it’s taking me forever to finish, I find the book thought provoking and beautifully written (hence all the block quotes). Mostly, it’s really made me think about the difficulties of knowing others and even knowing ourselves.
Make the Welkin Dance 