Detroit 1Q84
Astros some less
submitted by NeilT
I’m really excited about the long weekend. I plan to fish tomorrow if it doesn’t rain, and the long weekend at the start of the summer just feels luxurious like it’s never felt before. Maybe it’s because the Astros have played so well. Tonight I sat on the porch and drank the season’s first gin and tonic—I’d had the bottle of tonic water unopened in the frig since last summer. I smoked a cigar and drank a couple of gins and tonics made with the dried out lime I found in the crisper and read my book, Colorless Tsukuru Tazake and his Years of Pilgrimage, by Haruke Murakami. I’ve read two other novels by Murakami, Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84, and I liked them both. His novels live in a mundane world measured against the strange.
The game was on in the house and I was listening to the TV feed through the speakers on the patio. Since I didn’t have Comcast I’m late to the party, and I hate to admit how poor my baseball sensibilities are, but I don’t mind Ashby at all. If I’m sitting on the porch and just listening without watching, I can follow the game pretty well. And I find him and Blum funny, and him and Brownie fine. It’s heresy, I know, but there you are. I even like the banter with Julia. I’ll gladly give up my recap space if you want somebody with better taste.
Anyway, I managed about 40 pages of the novel during the game. Like I said, Murakami writes a strange novel. This one is about a guy who doesn’t appear to be anything special, hence the “colorless”. He’s very short, not more than 5’5” I’d guess, and he has a wonderful life at a very young age. His best friend is a bat named Lightning, and he does everything with that bat. His last year of high school he wins the school batting championship, ending the season with a .341 average. But then he goes home over a college break and calls the bat, just to hang out, you know? And the bat won’t talk to him. He pushes. He calls the bat every day and the bat won’t answer his calls. Finally the bat returns his call.
“Jose Tsukuru,” the bat says, “I can’t see you again.” “But why?” says Jose. “You know why,” says Lightning.
Of course Tsukuru has no clue, and neither does the reader. Why does a bat who has been your closest companion suddenly shun you? Tsukuru assumes it’s his own failing, and the reader wonders, what has Jose Tsukuru done to deserve his fate? Tonight Jose Tsukuru went 0 for 4, and his average slipped below .300.
The novel jumps around in time, and Tsukuru in the present is in his late 30s and an engineer who works on the design of railroad stations. You wouldn’t think there was much call for a designer of railroad stations, but this is Japan, not Texas, and for Japanese engineers railroad station work is probably as common as highway interchanges for Texas engineers. Tsukuru meets a girl, Homaruna, who he likes. They go out. They sleep together.
McHugh made one bad pitch, but when you’ve got a team batting .228, you can’t really afford a lot of mistakes. In the top of the third, the Stros had gone up by 2 after Valbuena reached on a Kinsler error, allowing Castro to score. Then Springer doubled driving in Valbuena. McHugh’s mistake was to some dude named J.D. Martinez. Where did this guy come from? Martinez: 3-run homer.
So back to the novel, Homeruna tells Tsukuru that she will be friends, but she will not sleep with Tsukuru again until he tells her the name of his bat, Lightning, so that she can find where Lightning is.
Poor Tsukuru! He has fallen in love with Homeruna, and she has deserted him! Springer has a great night, 2 for 4, but no Homeruna. Gattis goes 0 for 3 with one walk, Tucker 0 for 3, Rasmus, 0 for 3 with a golden sombrero, Carter 0 for 3 with 2 Ks. It was ugly. Ugly. In the book, Homeruna is a very attractive woman, but when she’s not there, it’s ugly. And really, what can Tsukuru do when the woman he desires won’t sleep with him?
Castro, by the way, went 2 for 3. Nice night for Castro. Nice night for Springer.
I’m about a quarter through the novel. I’ll follow it to the end (unless, of course, I’m shunned for being ok with Ashby), but I gots to tell ya: after tonight it’s one hard read. I hope Jose Tsukuru finds out why Lightning is shunning him. I hope Homeruna sleeps with the Astros again. But you know what? After the last three years, it’s hard to have much faith. I still expect that at the end of the night it will be 6-2.