Frogshake

I am very sensitive when it comes to sounds. No, I really mean it. I am ridiculously sensitive to the degree of madness. For example, I cannot stand heavy breathing. You know, when someone only breaths through the nose and it’s barely noticeable at first, but as time wears on it gets louder, and louder, and louder. The sound of heavy breathing, this whistling of the nose, air being sucked in and air gushing out. Constantly. In. Out. Shuuuuuh. Everything around you falls silent, you can only hear this one annoying, nerve-wrecking sound. Try as I might I cannot block this sound; it’s an impossible task. Shuuuuuh. Drilling itself into my auditory canal like a jack-hammer. Inescapable. This is especially annoying during exams, or while watching a movie; Whether that is at home or at the cinema doesn’t matter. Although, I have to say, I always have the pleasure to sit next to a weird person when i go to the movies. Either they breath heavily, cough all the time, or make some other funky, annoying noise. Same goes for munching, especially when I’m no eating myself. It pretty much works the same way as with heavy breathing. Why I am this way I do not know. Come to think of it, maybe the problem is me and not them… No, it’s them.

Neither did yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that and so forth. Actually, all I do is studying for my last two exams in this semester, talking to friends on msn or spend my days reading and watching The Office. I started to read A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami and love it. I guess I am generally quite fond of Japanese authors, however, I only know, besides Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto.

Anyway, I don’t really know what it is, but somehow Japanese authors, albeit translated, have this certain charm, a somewhat extraordinary feel to them. Their style seems to be different, yet familiar and maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with them being Japanese (although I doubt that is true), but merely with their artistic skills being simply overwhelming. They manage to suck you into their stories, their worlds and after a while you don’t really care anymore what they write about as long as they write… anything. I know, I know, style does not make up for a lack of substance and fortunately substance is something Murakami and Yoshimoto certainly don’t lack. To me, they are superior contemporary novelists, and all those critics who resent them for being “too pop-culture” are either to narrow-minded when it comes to literature or too arrogant to acknowledge the genius of what contemporary literature is: not the same old thing, but new, exciting, and above all different in the best possible way.