Norwegian Wood

I went book shopping with Pat on Friday afternoon, first Nishikita then Umeda. We're both in the Japanese novels class. I bought Norwegian Wood and three other books. Started reading it on the train when I accidentally got on the wrong one and Pat proved more clever than I. I finished it just now. That's 2 am Sunday morning. I haven't read a book that quickly since I devoured Michael Chrichton's Sphere in one night in second year.

I'm not sure I liked it that much either. It sort of feels like a Tokyo-an Catcher in the Rye but with all the sexual stirrings of a Pat Barker book. It's a kind of brutal eroticism that pumps the entire work forward but proves pointless and ultimately self-destructive. There's a point near the end when the protagonist begins to take on some responsibility for the plot, but mostly he exists as a shadow to the soliloquies of others.

Or maybe I just haven't read anything but the Tale of Genji in a really long time. I wonder what my writing looks like? My English, these days, is in truancy.