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yuusasih 's review for:
The Strange Library
by Haruki Murakami
I put it to 'children' shelf. heheh.
This book is about a boy who came to the library to return his borrowed books. He was about to borrow another book(s) on Ottoman Empire tax collecting system, out of curiousity, when the receptionist girl sent him to a librarian in the basement. The librarian gave him three thick books on the subject on the condition that they were only for internal reading and cannot be borrowed. The boy, pressured to read those books in the library, following the librarian through a maze corridor and into a cell--where he's being kept as a prisoner there.
I listen the audiobook of it so I don't have the previlege to look at the illustrations--I will someday. I love the narrator, he got the creepiness of the evil librarian and in the few last chapters his voice really creep me out I want to skip the minutes but can't. This book is categorized as absurd-Murakami, with The Wind-up Bird Chronicle level of absurdness. I love the boy, though. This time Murakami doesn't play with void character, but use an obliging, sensitive child instead. The boy never could say a straight no and always talked into doing things he didn't want--like reading in the library basement. He's not a rebellious child by nature, so escaping from the cell or not is gonna be his hardest decision.
Short and magical and creepy. Just like what I like from Murakami.
This book is about a boy who came to the library to return his borrowed books. He was about to borrow another book(s) on Ottoman Empire tax collecting system, out of curiousity, when the receptionist girl sent him to a librarian in the basement. The librarian gave him three thick books on the subject on the condition that they were only for internal reading and cannot be borrowed. The boy, pressured to read those books in the library, following the librarian through a maze corridor and into a cell--where he's being kept as a prisoner there.
I listen the audiobook of it so I don't have the previlege to look at the illustrations--I will someday. I love the narrator, he got the creepiness of the evil librarian and in the few last chapters his voice really creep me out I want to skip the minutes but can't. This book is categorized as absurd-Murakami, with The Wind-up Bird Chronicle level of absurdness. I love the boy, though. This time Murakami doesn't play with void character, but use an obliging, sensitive child instead. The boy never could say a straight no and always talked into doing things he didn't want--like reading in the library basement. He's not a rebellious child by nature, so escaping from the cell or not is gonna be his hardest decision.
Short and magical and creepy. Just like what I like from Murakami.