I'm done listening to Haruki Murakami's A WILD SHEEP CHASE, listening, because someone (forgot who, sorry!) sent me the audiobook to listen to, after I said I loved 1Q84. And this struck me (Jesus, things keep striking me, don't they...). Explanations. I've been so guilty in my earlier books of explanations. Hell, I'm still guilty. Funny. I just remembered something. I actually wrote a blog post. Precisely after (or while) reading 1Q84. The title of which is...FORGET SUSPENSE, EXPLAIN EVERY DETAIL. You laughing yet? No? I think I'm laughing. No, not really. Because I have confused explanations for descriptions in that blog post. Hey, I was still learning, okay? What I meant there was, descriptions. Explanations are passages that dish on story shit. You know, explain the story.

I'll explain (the irony, eh?). What Murakami does is, he describes. Every detail. To the point of bristles on the toothbrush. And that's okay, it's all part of the story, depending on what type of story it is. There is something else though he doesn't do, neither in 1Q84 nor in A WILD SHEEP CHASE. He doesn't explain the story. Why is this, why is that. Why is there a sheep with a star on its back, why does it do the things it does? He explains HOW it does it, but he doesn't explain WHY it does it.