thoughts while reading haruki murakami's "IQ84"

I sit in my living room under a quilt, the remains of a half-eaten lunch on the table before me, with a large pot of ambrosia tea and a cup. I have music playing softy on the computer. The windows open to a barren winter scene, and grey light filters through them. A few withered leaves still shiver on the thin branches crisscrossing over the parking lot. The lamp is on beside me, providing some warmer light. Mogmi is with me, alternating between sitting on the wooden chessboard and looking out the window, sniffing under the door that leads out to the hall, eating and drinking from his bowl, running and leaping wildly at whatever ghosts he sees, chasing them until they disappear through the cracks in these old walls, and sleeping like a sphinx on top of the TV.
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As I indicated in the title, I'm reading "IQ84." Lan Chi gave it to me for Christmas, knowing that Murakami is my favorite author at the moment. I don't really know if I have anything in particular to say about it; I certainly don't feel equipped at the moment to offer any deep analysis of what Murakami is trying to say in this text. As it is, I'm only half-way through the novel. But as I was reading, I felt my soul straining against my skin. Tears pinched my eyes. It's the feeling I get when art suggests whatever I feel is missing in my self. Does everyone have this unnameable sensation? That something inside you was lost in some mysterious past, and you spend your whole life searching for it, not knowing what it is? I know many people do, but is it universal? There's a German word for it, I think, but I can't remember.
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Murakami's work always touches me right on that scar, shudders me in some breathless way. As I read, I feel the calling to write. I'm not sure what, but I've vowed to myself to not ignore the call to write when I feel it, even if I feel unsure.
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What follows will be disorganized scatterings of thoughts and reactions.
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I long to ride a train through the countryside
to see stretches of plains starred with wind and light
and how they unwind low and long
clouds sagging with unspent grief, darkeyed
a mournful summer afternoon.
A train, a mechanism, a clock, a watch
the rhythm of galaxies spindled turns.
Somewhere on the coast the ocean's salted breath
rises to the ice moon. Tan children splash
in the tide. Their skin glows warm
against the rough hairs of sun-bleached towels.
.
I read my novel. A town of cats where I go
to disappear. Sink beneath the reedy waters.
My fingers brush the pulp of the page.
The slight raising of ink. Tick, tick, tick
the train on its track, the typewriter in measure,
stars blink out one by one.
What does anything, anything care?
.
Fish and chips in the hotel restaurant.
Later, a bad pizza and some coke. We walked
the quiet grounds, the clubhouse, the pool,
empty tables under the bells of umbrellas.
Quiet as a church. That was years ago,
and it no longer matters, probably wasn't even
me. The odd taste in my mouth lingered since morning,
I wonder if I'll even remember this book
next year.
.
I read for another hour or so, while the light changes outside my window. It becomes yellow with the setting winter sun. The music continues playing, a solemn drifting melody lilting beneath lyrics about sinking into the ocean. I imagine the end of a long film about lovers. An unkempt looking boy in a t-shirt and jeans with longish brown hair tickling his neck, just below his chin. He is riding a train in the window seat, his willowy dark-skinned girlfriend silent as a ghost beside him. One thin arm is stretched above her head, branching into five fingers with bud-pink nails caressing the leather of the headrest. The other is resting by her side, her hand just barely touching the boys. She stares ahead. The boy stares out the window as the panorama of the countryside wishes by like a swift-footed dream. The scene fades to black.
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Either way, there's nothing we can do. Repeat this to yourself like a mantra. Swim it into your dreams.