The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

This book was like reading a long dream, which vacillated between interesting and nightmarish stories with quirky characters.  The protagonist, Toru Okada, who calls himself The Wind Up Bird, quits his job and hangs out at home doing chores and waiting for his wife, Kumiko, to come home every night from her work. One day she does not return.  He sets out to find her and runs into a series of very odd characters ranging from Lieutenant Mamiya who serves in the Japanese Army during WW II witnessing some horrible atrocities such as the skinning of a live compatriot to Malta and Creta Kano, sisters who are clairvoyant and spend a lot of time listening to Toru's ruminations. In much of the book, I spent trying to figure out what is real, what is a symbol and what is pure fiction. It is a book about a young man finding himself and his strength of character after many years of aimless drifting (with periodic meditations at the bottom of a dry well).  The ending ties many of the complicated parallel stories together that revolve around Toru's life. I like weird endings so I particularly liked this book!

The Mormons by Wallace Stegner

Wow I realize it's been quite awhile since I have made an entry for books I have read. I have tried a number of them recently, but quit many of them as they just were not that good, including The History of Love. Dave and I went on  a vacation to Utah and stopped in Salt Lake City. I became a little obsessed with the Mormons. The Temple Square is interesting. I loved seeing the Tabernacle- it is a shiny gray dome building with a big organ inside. All this made me want to buy a book about Mormon life, plus recently in Texas a cult of Fundamental Church of the Latter Day Saints were busted for their polygamous ways (or multiple marriages as they call them) and forcing young teenage girls into marriages with older men. 

I saw this book by Wallace Stegner who is one of my all time favorite writers. So naturally I paid $17 at the Capitol Reef Ranger Station bookstore to read it. Each chapter deals win a vignette on Mormon life. Stegner spent part of his life in SLC and hung out with Mormons - going to their social events, etc.  He is attracted to the family fun they have and is not overly critical of them as they were so welcoming to him.  I was most interested in how Brigham Young sent out little groups of people to found new towns all over Utah and near by states. We went through many of these tiny towns - Orderville, Torrey, Dixie, etc. And it was fun because I had read a little bit about them. Orderville operated on communist principles where the Mormons gave up their personal wealth for the common good and ate boarding house style for all meals. In Dixie, the Mormons grew cotton to support the Confederates during the Civil War. I learned that for Utah to become a state, the Feds forced the Mormons to give up multiple marriages, which is not exactly what Sister Laura (young woman on a mission as a tour guide at Brigham Young's house) conveyed about the end of multiple marriages to our tour group. So while this was not a book for everyone, it was a good read as we travelled the small towns of Southern Utah and pondered how the Mormons could move into these areas and start from scratch to make a new life under trying environmental conditions.