I've finished Kafka on the Shore. It's kind of lame how long it takes me to get through a book, but I just have to savor every word and let it absorb through my skin, right down into the depths of me.

One more excerpt from the end:

"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there -- to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there."

Now it's onto Freakonomics. It's time for some.

Visitor

On the plane ride down (up?) to Canada, I kept my nose buried in Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. I've been reading and not reading this book for a while and really need to finish it both because I have a pile of others waiting and because it's terrific. Anyway, I was so into the book that I didn't notice we were landing and as the plane was touching down -- at the exact moment -- I was reading the part of the story where the words to the song Kafka on the Shore are revealed:

You sit at the edge of the world,
I am in a crater that's no more.
Words without letters
Standing in the shadow of the door.

The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,
Little fish rain down from the sky.
Outside the window there are soldiers,
steeling themselves to die.

(Refrain)

Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,
Thinking of the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.
When your heart is closed,
The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx,
Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.

The drowning girl's fingers
Search for the entrance stone, and more.
Lifting the hem of her azure dress,
She gazes--
at Kafka on the shore.

On the flight back and also as the plane landed, I read these words:

"The entrance opened up, thanks to you."
"You know something, Gramps? I mean, Mr. Nakata?"
"What is it?"
Faceup, eyes still shut, Hoshino took another long, deep breath and exhaled. "It better have opened up. Otherwise I killed myself for nothing."