Thursday, March 27, 2008

art imitating life

i just finished the second draft of that blasted paper on public procurement. yes, yes, my nose bled trying to explain why despite the GPRA, procurement philippine style, remains dysfunctional aside from being supply driven.



i've got one more paper to check, then i'm off to computing the grades, accomplishing the gazillion blank forms (i never thought i'd do admin work as faculty in charge) and finally-- updating my public policy knowledge.



shocks, my life is boring me out of wits.



i went through my desk drawer at lunch time and found my latest murakami purchase. not louis vuitton murakami-- please! i'm talking of haruki murakami.



i've only gotten as far as the 1st chapter after i bought it at the national bookstore sale last month. i've got five more books from that sale. all remain unread. geez...




the book is south of the border, west of the sun.







i bought this book right away when i read the back cover:


growing up in the suburbs in post war japan, it seemed to hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. his sole companion was shimamoto, also an only child. together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. but when his family moved away, the two lost touch. now hajime is in his 30s. after a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. then shimamoto reappears. she is beautiful, intense and enveloped in mytery. hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.



it sounded good. now that i read the back over again, i am reminded of love in a time of cholera also by my one of my favorite authors, gabriel garcia marquez.


a synopsis i found summarized the book as follows:

In the late 1800s, in a Caribbean port city, a young telegraph operator named Florentino Ariza falls deliriously in love with Fermina Daza, a beautiful student. She is so sheltered that they carry on their romance secretly, through letters and telegrams. When Fermina Daza's father finds out about her suitor, he sends her on a trip intended to make her forget the affair. Lorenza Daza has much higher ambitions for his daughter than the humble Florentino. Her grief at being torn away from her lover is profound, but when she returns she breaks off the relationship, calling everything that has happened between them an illusion.

Instead, she marries the elegant, cultured, and successful Dr. Juvenal Urbino. As his wife, she will think of herself as "the happiest woman in the world." Though devastated by her rejection, Florentino Ariza is not one to be deterred. He has declared his eternal love for Fermina, and determines to gain the fame and fortune he needs to win her back. When Fermina's husband at last dies, 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days later, Florentino Ariza approaches Fermina again at her husband's funeral. There have been hundreds of other affairs, but none of these women have captured his heart as Fermina did. "He is ugly and sad," says one of his lovers, "but he is all love."

In this magnificent story of a romance, Garcia Marquez beautifully and unflinchingly explores the nature of love in all its guises, small and large, passionate and serene. Love can emerge like a disease in these characters, but it can also outlast bleak
decades of war and cholera, and the effects of time itself.



ah, the fiction, the story plots that i choose. just what do they say about me?

now if only i'll finish reading them.


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