Restaurant in Thailand urging people to use condoms to prevent disease.
I usually read science fiction for pleasure because it so often offers alternative ways to look at past and contemporary problems in society without being at all hampered by being bound by historical facts. In science fiction, anything is possible, but is usually based on an extension of scientific facts. That separates it from pure fantasy, which I don't enjoy nearly as much. I find that ideas put forth in science fiction have some possibility of coming into reality, although not always during my lifetime, and many of the ideas promise a better future for mankind--provided that we don't force ourselves into extinction by our own follies.
There are two authors I have discovered this year, however, whose writing does not fit into my preferred fiction genre. One is a Sufi poet called Rumi. He was born in the early years of the 13th century in Afghanistan but grew up in what is now modern day Turkey and Syria. He wandered widely, teaching, learning, enjoying friendships and reveling in the naturalness of living while always exploring his relationship to God. I know his work through a book named "The Essential Rumi: New and Expanded Edition," a book of translations of Rumi's poetry by Coleman Barks and others. (Harper San Francisco, 2004). As I read Rumi's poems I was astonished by how honestly and simply he wrote about the most mundane of daily behaviors but seemed to illuminate them as if they were stones found on the ground that, when washed clean by clear water, became the most startling of gems. He seems to speak of everything, from the lowest of bodily functions to drinking to excess to deep and abiding love of good friends. His observations of everyday behavior are so simple as to be masterful. He is a teacher I feel I could learn from by just being in his presence. He truly seemed to know himself and had no need to embellish who he was or wasn't. I think that anybody who practices psychotherapy--or wants to--could learn much of what it means to be human by reading his work. Besides, his writing is just fun to read.
A very unusual "modern" Buddhist temple in Thailand depicting Hell, Earth and Heaven.
I have just discovered a book by Haruki Murakami, "1Q84," (Vintage Books, 2013) that is providing one of the most intriguing reads I have ever found in a novel. The author is Japanese and his books are translated into many languages. I suspect that part of my interest is the references he makes to American, Japanese and European culture in such a casual way that I think he must be more of a world citizen than a person of only one nationality. He is also about my own age, so some of the cultural references he makes are about events and people very familiar to me. He has special skill at introducing strong and intriguing characters whose stories he introduces naturally and gradually as the book unfolds. In fact, like any good novel, there are several stories that serve to develop the characters while pulling the reader deeper and deeper into the book. Nothing is really obvious at first, but connections among the characters are revealed to the reader even before the characters in the book are aware of the connections. Although seemingly anchored in stark reality, Murakami introduces themes and situations that make both the characters and the reader wonder just what reality really is. One of the questions about this apparent distortion of reality leads one of the characters, Aomame, to rename the year this book was set in (1984) to 1Q84; thus, the title of the book. There are various references to a piece of music, Janacek's Sinfonietta, that appears to connect the two main characters in the book, just as they also both see two moons in the sky. It is unclear that anybody else experiences the world just like they do. Connections between them continue to unfold as the reader is lead toward their eventual reunion--or not. The Sinfonietta is easily accessible on the Internet and helps set the mood of the book. This is a long, satisfying, book, exceeding 1150 pages. The author is a master craftsman; no words are wasted. It is worth a look. From my perspective, this book examines the interfaces between the lives of people and all of the unknowns of Heaven, Earth and Hell.