My skepticism isn’t new. Years ago, after reading his massive tome Kafka on the Shore, I wrote a “review” that was less an analysis and more a desperate attempt to catalogue the surreal absurdity I had just witnessed:

A while ago, an Oedipal Curse met a Body-Spirit Dualism at the edge of the world, on one side of which is this world, and on the other side of which is, you know, the other world. With me so far? Good. Exactly how long ago this was, nobody knows. Time is hardly of essence at that place. So, anyway, once the two of them met, they mated, quite naturally. To the background score of Beethoven's symphonies and/or the droning of pop philosophy (of the Occidental variety). It was raining that day. The skies were spouting symbols, or were they dreams? Metaphors, most likely. Metaphors are cheap, you can stock up all the metaphors you need for a few thousand yens. So, let's go with metaphors if it's all the same to you. And what do I know? I'm not too bright, you see. May be I should talk to one of the neighbourhood cats (also known as Harukists) for they know everything. Or I could find a friendly truck driver resting at a highway, and engage with him.

Anyway—to cut to the chase—on that fateful day when it was pouring down metaphors at the edge of the world, Oedipal Curse had raunchy sex with Body-Soul Dualism. As a result, eventually (how eventually, we don't know; time is not...but I repeat myself) a 600 odd page tome was born called "Kafka on the Shore".

Unfortunately, the book itself is no metaphor. It's quite real and I read it.

"Jeez Louise!"

Despite that experience, I did eventually decide to give him a second chance. I picked up his most grounded and beloved work, Norwegian Wood, hoping to find the magic I had missed. Resurfacing my notes from that reading now, I find the specific frustrations are just as vivid.

The novel is a recollection of Toru Watanabe, a man in his late 30s who, triggered by hearing the Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood” in an airport, drifts back to his youth in 1960s Tokyo. He recounts his time torn between two women: Naoko, a childhood friend consumed by a clinical, devastating depression; and Midori, a lively, enterprising classmate representing the pulse of life.

Naoko and Midori represent two distinct poles of existence. Naoko carries a profound, irremediable sense of loss. Toru is torn: he doesn’t know if he desires to be sucked into the vortex of darkness and the past offered by Naoko, or the future—dazzling and delirious—offered by Midori. He doesn’t know what creates happiness.

The novel is set in Tokyo during the 1960s. The ‘60s witnessed revolutions all over the world, and Japan was no different. Yet, while Murakami’s novel is set against this backdrop, it possesses a certain “spaceless” and “timeless” quality. I don’t mean that in a positive way. Quite the contrary: you could transform the story effortlessly to any postmodern milieu, anywhere on the globe—the United States especially. I find this problematic.

The Butter-Stink of Nowhere

In Japan, there is a term called batakusai (“butter-stink”), referring to things that feel uncomfortably Western. Norwegian Wood reeks of it.

With Murakami, one never runs the danger of learning anything about Japan. In his drama class, Watanabe studies Racine, Ionesco, and Shakespeare. “Stuff like that.” He reads Truman Capote and Scott Fitzgerald. He has nothing to discuss with peers who read Japanese giants like Kenzaburo Oe or Yukio Mishima because he keeps returning to his Western favourites.

As the novel progressed, my marginalia became increasingly snarky. At one point, a minor character appears with a dog named Pepe—even the incidental animals require Spanish names! Later, there is a discussion about the movie The Graduate and a barrage of references to Cream’s White Room and Simon & Garfunkel. When John Coltrane dies in 1967, Murakami notes the gloom that descended. It is as if the author is curating a playlist rather than a world. One wants to ask: Did nobody important die in Japan that year?

The Vacuum of History

This cultural rootlessness bleeds into a more troubling political vacuum. The novel is set in late-1960s Tokyo, a time of violent student riots and radical social upheaval. Yet, Watanabe and his friends remain safely hermetically sealed from the action.

The dissonance is jarring. Watanabe is a liberal arts major studying drama—a field that, in the 1960s, was the very crucible of sensitive idealism and radical thought. Yet, he harbours a profound, unexplained disillusionment with revolution. It is one thing to be cynically jaded, but Murakami provides no context for why.

And it isn’t just him. No one else in the novel seems capable of thinking beyond their own gloom, ennui, or sorrows. For that specific milieu, this collective apathy is a sociological oddity.

Murakami’s characters treat revolution as background noise. In one particularly telling scene, Toru and Midori sit on a roof drinking beer, playing guitar, and singing pop songs while a nearby building burns down. It is hard to say if Murakami is being clever here or if it is symptomatic, but the image is perfect: the world burns, and the Murakami hero strums a guitar.

“In terms of everyday life,” Watanabe says, “it made no practical difference to me whether the place was right-wing or left-wing or anything else.”

Lucidity Over Complexity

This, I suspect, is the secret to his global popularity. Murakami offers a safe harbour for readers who wish to experience the aesthetic of sadness without the burden of its context. It is a “commodity loneliness”—consumable, stylish, and ultimately hollow.

His writing has a certain fluidity—he is eminently readable, with a judicious dosage of sexual encounters and pop culture references. He avoids uncomfortable topics like politics, religion, or history. The conversations in the book, often mistaken for deep philosophical ramblings on death and memory, rarely hold up to scrutiny. They are the banter of adolescents who have mistaken self-pity for profundity.

Unlike the characters of his contemporaries, who are forced to confront the friction of reality, Murakami’s characters float in a beautifully curated limbo. Norwegian Wood is a story of “nowhere”—a stylish, comfortable void that offers the aesthetic of sadness without its weight.

The first thing that strikes you is the rhythm. The text is constructed primarily of short, clipped sentences—often just three or four words—that flow with a relentless, staccato pace. The language is deceptively simple and sparse. Yet, as you are drawn in, you realize how dense the construction truly is; there is an immense amount of history and heartbreak compressed into so few pages.

The story is set in a German-speaking Romanian village under the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. During this period, the German-speaking minority—the “Swabians”—were systematically oppressed and subject to the profound ills of ethnic cleansing. Their livestock, crops, and properties were routinely confiscated by the militiamen of the communist state. The Romanians do not want the Swabians there, and in this environment, women are treated as little more than currency by both the militia and the church. The village is a portrait of depravity and disillusionment—a place where the failed promise of communism has been replaced by a desperate, shimmering illusion of liberty in the West. Everyone is waiting for the single instrument of their salvation: the passport.

To provide some historical context—the Banat Swabians were ethnic Germans who settled in the Banat region during the 18th century, maintaining a distinct linguistic and cultural identity for over two hundred years. Under the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, they faced systematic oppression in an effort to homogenize the Romanian state. This created the desperate, corrupt environment captured in The Passport, where the West German government eventually began “buying” the freedom of these citizens through cash payments to the Romanian state.

The plot of The Passport itself is straightforward. Windisch is a miller waiting for passports for himself, his wife, and his daughter, Amalie. He has bribed the mayor with sacks of flour, but in a town fueled by corruption, flour is not enough. His wife knows it, and eventually, Windisch must confront the reality he has tried to ignore: that the priest and the militiamen require a more personal bribe from his daughter. She, ultimately, holds the key to their exit.

Müller’s approach to this seemingly simple story is anything but. She moves in elliptical arcs, blending stark reality with elements of magic realism and superstition. She uses a nonlinear structure to weave historical trauma into the present with such economy that the prose frequently ascends to poetry. The book is composed of short episodes with obscure, intriguing titles, each functioning like a poetic fragment that advances the plot ever so slightly.

Herta Müller herself was born into this very community in Nițchidorf, Romania, in 1953. As a Banat Swabian, she experienced firsthand the persecution she describes—her mother was deported to a Soviet labor camp, and Müller herself was later harassed and fired from her job for refusing to cooperate with the Securitate (the secret police). Her work is recognized for the ability to depict the “landscape of the dispossessed.”

While The Passport is undeniably a political novel, there is hardly a mention of overt politics or the mechanics of the regime. Instead, Müller uses imagery and a wry, dark sense of humour to communicate the absolute bleakness of the situation.

You might also find this interesting

I had written about it shortly after my first encounter with her masterpiece, The Door. Revisiting it today, I find that the questions it raised about trust, agency, and the “burden” of friendship feel more relevant than ever. It remains a story that haunts the periphery of my thoughts—a secret I feel compelled to share once again, with some minor editorial refinements.

There are novels with vast canvases, ambitious in scope and set against the backdrop of seismic historical events. There are others that are wildly imaginative, challenging our very conceptions of reality. But then there are those that affect us not through grand scale, but through the methodical sculpting of character. They shine a light—or rather, cause it to disperse—upon the commonplace, allowing us to see the world in numerous new, manifest colours. Magda Szabó’s 1987 novel, The Door (translated with precision by Len Rix), belongs firmly to this latter category.

The canvas here is decidedly intimate. Set in a quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of Budapest, it chronicles the tectonic shifts in the relationship between two women: the narrator, a fictionalized version of Szabó herself, and her domestic help, Emerence. A third, silent witness to their lives is a dog named Viola; inadvertently, the animal’s fate becomes inextricably entangled with those of the two women.

From its brief, absorbing first chapter, the reader is drawn into a world that feels immediately intriguing, dark, and mysterious. With a pithy, peculiar laying out of the plot—one that hides far more than it reveals—one finds themselves in the midst of the story before they realize it has begun. What follows is essentially a confession: a narrative of betrayal. Well-intentioned, perhaps, but a betrayal nonetheless. The narrator, deeply religious and burdened by conscience, feels she must confess.

We meet the narrator at a professional crossroads. A writer living with her husband (also an author), her career is on the verge of a revival after a decade-long “political freeze”—a mirror to the real-world banning of Szabó’s books in Hungary. They require domestic help to reclaim their creative lives, and a friend recommends an older woman named Emerence.

Emerence, however, is not looking for a master. She possesses impeccable professional qualities, yet she is neither easily amused nor easily pleased. In a sharp reversal of power, it is Emerence who interviews and evaluates her potential employers. “I don’t wash just anyone’s dirty laundry,” she declares during their first meeting—notably held in her home. Eventually, she decides to take them in.

Emerence is a force of nature: old, strong-willed, fiercely private, and caustic beyond belief. She is the neighbourhood’s silent pivot, helping everyone and knowing everything, from local gossip to national shifts. Yet, she remains an enigma. The door to her house is barred; no one—not even her closest kin—is permitted to cross the threshold.

Over the course of twenty years, the relationship between the writer and Emerence evolves into a rollercoaster of mutual spite, long-held grudges, and closely guarded secrets. Yet, as trust is slowly bricked into place, they become as close as mother and daughter—an intimacy that is almost painful in its intensity. Their lives become intertwined in that way where love and hurt are no longer separable.

Szabó’s mastery of the novel form is most evident in how she simultaneously constructs and unravels her protagonist. As the pieces of Emerence’s past fall into place, the “door” begins to open in more than one sense. When the narrator finally learns what lies on the other side, the gesture of trust becomes a profound burden—a test of loyalty that eventually cracks under the strain.

The novel poses questions with no satisfactory answers. What is the “right” thing to do when faced with a moral dilemma? Is friendship an act of unwavering loyalty regardless of consequence, or does it take a looser, more convenient, conscientious form? To what extent should we be allowed the agency to lead our lives—and face our ends—in our own chosen manner?

I discovered Magda Szabó only recently while researching Central European literature. Born in 1917, she was a versatile talent—a novelist, poet, and dramatist—and is now recognized as one of Hungary’s foremost and most translated writers. Having lived through the tumultuous shifts of the 20th century, her work often reflects the intricate layers of human relationships and the weight of historical memory. While much of her extensive bibliography remains untranslated into English, The Door serves as a staggering introduction to her mastery. This is due in no small part to the work of Len Rix, whose award-winning translation captures the rhythmic precision and unsettling atmosphere of Szabó’s original prose. Rix’s ability to render the caustic, enigmatic voice of Emerence ensures that the power of this story remains undiluted for readers who read the work in English.

The novel traces the lives of two sisters in Seoul. In Hye, the elder, is a pragmatist—an entrepreneur running her own cosmetic store, married to a self-absorbed artist, and raising a three-year-old son. The younger sister, Yeong Hye, is a freelance graphic designer married to a man who describes himself as a “corporate slave.”

What is most striking initially is the sheer ordinariness of the premise. We see an unremarkable corporate employee married to a self-employed woman, both from ordinary families living ordinary lives. It is a portrait of a family defined by its commonality.

But the narrative fractures when Yeong Hye has a dream. It is a dream that compels her to turn vegetarian—an act of non-conformity that slowly transforms their domestic life into a living nightmare. What begins as a seemingly isolated incident spurred by a dream reveals a deeper, darker background that unfurls with haunting precision.

The story is told through three distinct voices, none of which belong to our protagonist. The first narration comes from her husband, Mr. Cheong, a man content to be married to a “disinterested” woman so long as she keeps his home running and provides adequate company in bed. Her strange habits do not disturb him until the day she stops storing meat in the house. This “behavioural kink” soon escalates into a series of disruptions that unravel his orderly life.

The second voice belongs to In Hye’s husband, a mediocre artist chasing an elusive masterpiece. His quest for “genius” becomes hopelessly entangled with his own sensuous and erotic desires. His fixation leads him into a troubling entanglement with Yeong Hye, who is by then descending into what the world labels mental instability.

The third voice is that of In Hye herself. As an elder daughter, wife, and mother in a South Korean family, she carries the collective burden and guilt of her household. Despite her success as a businesswoman, In Hye is tethered to her roles—until circumstances force a choice. Ultimately, she chooses to be a sister above all else.

Through these three lenses, the reader walks alongside Yeong Hye, witnessing her pain, her confusion, and her resolute, non-conformist silence. Han Kang’s writing is physically gut-wrenching, exploring themes of childhood trauma, the weight of a patriarchal society, and the boundaries of mental health. In under 200 pages, she avoids detailed ramblings, instead leaving a vast, evocative space for the reader to inhabit.

Mental Health Alert: The Vegetarian is an extremely disturbing read. I would suggest holding off if you are already feeling low or emotionally unsettled.

About the Contributor

Anupa is an educator and an avid reader who brings unique insight to her explorations of the written word. With an eclectic taste in books that ranges from the classic to the contemporary, she believes that literature serves as a vital mirror for our internal worlds. Through her contributions to ruminata, Anupa seeks to understand the architecture of hope and the complexities of the human condition.

The book is structured in two (or three) distinct parts. The first is a memoir in which Frankl recounts his experiences as an inmate in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. While he describes the harrowing conditions of camp life in clinical detail, he does so with a profound sense of objectivity and dignity. He intersperses the narrative with observations on the prisoner’s psyche and the various psychological phases they endure. It is a powerful testament to the human capacity to find meaning and purpose under even the most extreme circumstances.

The latter part of the book focuses on logotherapy as a clinical approach (derived from the Greek logos, or “meaning”). This is a forward-looking therapeutic framework centered on the human search for purpose. This stands in stark contrast to his predecessors:

• Where Freud saw a “will to pleasure,”

• And Adler saw a “will to power,”

• Frankl identified the “will to meaning” as the primary human drive.

For instance, a classical Freudian approach often focuses on reconciling past conflicts or childhood traumas. Frankl, however, suggests that internal turmoil and tension are not necessarily symptoms of neurosis; they are often the natural byproduct of a thinking person striving for a reason to live.

In fact, Frankl welcomes conflict and frustration as potential signs of mental health. He even urges us to derive meaning from suffering—provided, of course, that the suffering is unavoidable. Drawing from both his survival and decades of clinical practice, Frankl argues that happiness and pleasure are not worthwhile ends in themselves. As he famously puts it, “happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.” In Frankl’s view, happiness is an emergent property—a byproduct of a life lived with purpose rather than a target to be chased.

Man’s Search for Meaning is a profound work that offers a vital lens through which to view our own lives. In an age often distracted by the pursuit of happiness, Frankl’s work remains an essential text for understanding the enduring power of purpose.

In the novel 'On the Banks of the Pampa', celebrated Telugu writer Volga (P. Lalita Kumari) makes us confront this timeless violence of the state through the reimagining of Sabari’s story and her encounter with Rama. She discusses the problems of modern notions of development and the displacement of Adivasis and forest dwellers by retelling an ancient tale from a leftist feminist perspective. Through the course of the narrative, she also challenges our anthropocentric worldview and presents a broader, more inclusive ecocentric worldview.

That Volga chooses to tell her story in an unadorned, straightforward manner reminiscent of the pre-modernist period is interesting and courageous. Perhaps it hints at a writer who feels secure, one who is confident in her craft. How well her conviction and vision have blended with the form and content of her novel is a question worth pondering. I found the narrative a tad simplistic, one-dimensional, and not very convincing. However, this is not the space for a detailed review of the novel.

Whatever the strengths or shortcomings of the novel, the translator Purnima Tammireddy has done a commendable job. She has ably translated the novel from Telugu to English. It flows quite naturally in English while retaining the essence of the original.

At the end of the book, a conversation between Volga and Purnima is included, and it is worth reading. It helps the uninitiated -- such as yours truly -- to get a glimpse into Volga's politics and writing. It is also instructive, offering insight into both Volga and Purnima's approach to creative writing, translation, and their interplay. Volga's creative vision shines through more clearly in this conversation — even more than in the novel itself.

This is Arundhati Roy’s most intimate memoir, written in the wake of her mother’s passing. Mary Roy—an eminent educationist and a forceful advocate for women’s rights—emerges as a woman of extremes. She is a complex and forceful presence throughout. As you turn the pages, it’s hard not to be struck by her many contradictions: you see her as a mad genius: sharply intelligent, determined, and enterprising, yet also capable of astonishing cruelty. She could be painstakingly meticulous yet impulsive, generous to a fault to strangers but cruel to her own children. To the young students of her school, she was a nurturing figure, Mother Mary herself; to her own family, she could be almost the opposite. It sometimes feels as though, in order for her life’s mission to succeed, her children had to carry the burden of her failures and follies.

One of the recurring realities of this memoir is Mary Roy’s severe asthma. It wasn’t just a background illness—it was tied up with the emotional climate at home. If she became angry with her children, or felt they had crossed a line, her asthma could flare up. This naturally left her children anxious and careful, always alert and suppressing themselves to avoid triggering an attack. It is as if her asthma not only suffocated her, but also stifled them, holding everyone in its grip.

For readers who know The God of Small Things, the echoes here are unmistakable. Familiar characters, narrative loops, and thematic arcs resurface and overlap, demonstrating how Roy’s fiction is intricately entwined with her lived experience.

Roy also charts her own course: a journey from remote Assam, to Ooty and Ayenmenem, and finally running away from home to Delhi, where she gradually comes into her own. Along the way are the struggles of leaving home, life as a lone woman in a big city, and the financial challenges she faces—and, just as importantly, the privileges: a strong education (thanks to Mrs. Roy!), a network of talented friends, and a certain kind of access that helped her along.

While Mary Roy is the heart of the memoir, the book ultimately traces Arundhati Roy’s own path: her childhood in Assam and Ooty, her coming-of-age in Ayenmenem and Delhi, and her later forays into architecture, film writing, and acting—right up to the breakthrough moment with The God of Small Things. And what a breakthrough that proved to be!

Woven through it all are candid glimpses of Roy’s activist life—her critiques of popular culture, her engagement with various movements, and her willingness to stand apart even at personal cost. The memoir goes beyond broad references and recounts concrete moments—she calls out the filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (director of Bandit Queen, though never named directly in the book) with her critique, “The Great Indian Rape Trick.” She narrates her journey as a co-traveller in the Naxalite movement and her involvement with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, giving spirited accounts of participating in struggles around land, justice, and rights. These stories, vivid and specific, show her fighting spirit and willingness to confront power and take unpopular public stands.

As a reading experience, it’s brisk and engaging. Roy’s prose, as always, is exquisite; and the emotions come across as raw and honest. Yet, for all its elegance, the memoir sometimes feels a shade less intense than expected; for all its honesty, there remains something just out of reach, leaving an aftertaste of underwhelm that is difficult to name.