Mislaid by Nell Zink .. A Review

This is a 3.5 rating for this novel.

I feel the author is ambitious and I would give her credits for trying and she’s got some effort into this novel.

The main characters Lee Fleming the flamboyant poet in residence at an all girl college at Stillwater and Peggy ‘ Megan’ villiancourt a lesbian student who became his wife and then a mother and then a runaway.

Ten chapters from the 1960s till 1980s. Their children are separated and two narratives appear. The male and the female.  yet both are confused in their own ways and each one is built on lie , love , deception and devotion.

It starts as a campus novel which I wished it stayed a campus novel with booze, affair, drugs etc but it breaks into a separate narrative that didn’t allow the female to.grow she was still stuck in her sexuality. . she couldn’t express herself for fear of being exposed.

The last two chapters felt sort of boiled and not done properly. Maybe sugar coated .. too many coincidence

Though the language is beautiful and brilliant, I feel the author would a winner as a poet if she decides to go that way.

The Strange Library – A Review

A very short fable by Haruki Murakami. I think this fable is addressed to Young Adults. The main character steps into the public library to look for answers. To read. To research a topic ( taxation in Ottoman Turkey) a random topic which is so Murakami.

He is then sent away into the depth of the library to face an interesting destiny.

The cast of secondary characters include a sheep man. A mysterious girl with no vocal cords. and the old man.

I think this could be a warning tale to children not to approach public libraries before closing time and get locked in it. or just a fantasy when you read a book and just get lost in it and escape into another world. another dimension. 

The narrative is crisp and fresh. yet it’s lacking the complexity of a regular Murakami.

Fragment #5 For the love of Gossips

Gossip…was her addiction. He loved her dearly..she was his mother, yet her gossip was prohibited to be immortalised in the vast library of books.

Red .. red shoes

Red flats.. red suede flats was the first thing that caught my attention. New red suede shoes.. a back to school purchase, perhaps a gift from her mother.

She sat by the window..the rays hitting her chestnut coloured hair and giving it a honey coloured shade. A lovely profile, small nose..thin lips painted in a pink rose hue, and a cream coloured silk scarf with a frame of roses wrapped loosely around her neck. Two cubic zirconia stuffs in her left ear, nothing visible of her right ear. Three rings on her left hand, two on the index and one on the pinky.

I sat behind her.. to the left, so I can easily observe her without rousing any attention.. occasionally looking at her.. absorbing her actions.. drawing a memory of her in my mind.. a micro picture to store in the album of life.

Her brown satchel .. a Cambridge satchel .. brown and black ..sleek and classic.

Me , the lone spider .. just a spider knitting a sticky web, a dark web longing for a victim, a smaller insect to devour or enjoy. I wanted to touch her hair, whisper some archaic words into her..fill her with the beauty of life. The jeans is one size tighter, blood is rushing downward.. a solo act of love in public.. are people looking at me..

The red stop button is pressed … A jerk .. a stop .. she stands up.. walks three steps to the electric door, waves her right hand in front of the door… The sun hits my eyes and she is gone…forever.

I forgot her leather bound Dante’s Inferno… She was reading canto four.. the noble souls who died without a baptism.

Money – A Quote

Money – Lady Chatterley’s Lover