We’re in Iraq for long haul: Labor | theage.com.au

Sometimes, I really fucking hate being proven right. Especially when I make predictions that some politician isn’t going to do what we all think he’ll do, and then of course, he doesn’t do that. Politicians make promises and often they’re bullshit. Complete shit. They tell lies to get elected because the truth is far from inspiring enough to have people put a ‘1’ beside their name.

And when Rudd finally listened to the mass antiwar opinion in Australia, he said he’d pull the troops out. But they were only ‘combat troops’, as if the other guys with guns were the nice ones being left there under the same proviso that Rudd was rhetorically rejecting by pulling the first lot out. And we looked at all of this with suspicion whilst relating to people’s hope in at least Rudd was pulling some out instead of none at all.

But once again, Labor has proved us right. It comes as no surprise that the Labor Foreign minister has come out saying they’re committed to the War in Iraq with their ‘non-combat’ troops. They’ve got some big ship sitting off the course guarding offshore oil exports and the minister said something about the region being ‘instable’ and ‘economically important’ which kind of actually tells the truth of why they’re there.

It’s not about democracy or any of that bullshit. It’s about the coalition’s economic interests in the region. Australia is still part of that because Labor still has to run the same system Howard was.

Technorati Tags: Rudd, Labor, War, Iraq, troops

This will be my second post in less than a week, which isn’t that impressive except if you look at my recent form, which is far worse. The news isn’t that exciting, except for the World Youth Day shit which I’ve already covered and don’t think it deserves anything more than the one post. But it is Monday morning, which is the most depressing time of the week. I’m tired, it’s cold outside and I’m bored at work.

I may sound like a whinger, but I feel I need to rant against work. It’s a waste of fucking time. The reason I am bored at work is that I could complete this week’s tasks in probably two days, but because I get paid for working a week, I need to string it out and look like I’m working the whole time. It’s lame and gives me the shits. I get two days a week to relax and it seems to go by so fucking quickly and yet the five days I am working go by so fucking slowly.

It’s also fucked that I will spend the majority of my lifetime sitting at a desk, wasting my time to earn a living to enjoy the other small fraction of my lifetime trying to enjoy myself. All of this so some fucking company can make money defrauding people that they are doing good within a system in which it is impossible to fix the problems of homelessness, poverty and unemployment among others.

And this is not unique to my situation. The majority of people, spend their time working to benefit some lazy boss to earn a living to just get by. It’s a systematic thing that stares me right in the face, most of all on Monday mornings. So much so that I feel that I need to spend the rest of my time organising to overthrow the whole system and replace it with something that is worth living for.

Technorati Tags: work, Monday, alienation, exploitation, life

My apologies for my lacking of blogging as of late, though not sure how many people will receive this because it seems my once respectable readership has diminished or are so bored by my posts that consist of nothing much more than rants against various aspects of capitalism, that they cannot be bothered to comment. I still have random urges to write, but any decent length of fiction is still eluding me.

Though, this post is being written 900km away from where my posts used to be written from. I have moved to Melbourne to live with my partner and enjoying it immensely. This will be a nice excuse for not blogging. I still have the same job I had in Sydney, though am doing it from the company’s Victoria State office. The sweet deal is that my boss is still in Sydney. Hence an excuse for blogging.

My current position at work is that those around me have no clue what my role is so I can effectively do what I like, which includes novel writing, blogging and msn. There’s one manager watching me for my boss in Sydney but he does his own thing and can’t see my screen from where he sits. I will use this all to my advantage because aside from this, the new office is shit. Everyone is much older than me and sit too far away from me to have casual chat during the day.

Hence I’m bored out of my fucking mind. I will post pictures of me standing near a tram or something to prove to you all I live in Melbourne and I’m not just making it up to have something to write about. Do post comments if you’re still reading.

Volunteers refuse to use new nuisance laws - National - smh.com.au

Iemma has really created his own opposition this time. Amid crisis with his own cabinet shooting themselves in the feet with various antics and his own party revolting against his plan for privatisation of electricity, he’s basically invited people to protest against World Youth Day by creating these extraordinary laws against “annoying” WYD participants. Anything, like tshirts, that go against Catholic values can result in a $5500 fine.

This has obviously created an uproar amongst the public and civil libertarians. These laws are unprecedented. How the fuck do you find annoying anyway? It’s a subjective thing. The protests were likely to be small because whilst the Pope is a homophobic asshole, this does not mean all Catholics are. Also, protests run the risk of alienating progressive Catholics who may be going to some of the socially progressive sessions that WYD is providing.

But in a total paranoid attempt not to tarnish Sydney’s “image”, Iemma has pissed people off by trying to control every aspect of their behaviour. The protests are likely now to attract people on the basis of defending their freedoms, like the right to protest, in much the same way APEC attracted people last year. This would be a valid reason to protest World Youth Day, but I think it’s a fine balancing act between standing up for your rights and not alienating Catholics that are really on our side.

Iemma is really the main target in this. And he’s making himself such an easy one.

Technorati Tags: Iemma, Pope, World Youth Day, Sydney, protest, Catholicism

Billion dollars pledged for food crisis - CNN.com

The economy is really in the shit at the moment. Sorry to be crude and blunt. But if you look at the situation around the world, capitalism is acting pretty crude and blunt itself. We already know that the lives of billions of people below the poverty line is a constant struggle to even survive, but now it’s getting even worse. Prices on staple goods such as rice and wheat are skyrocketing. Suddenly that $1 a day or less that barely got you by is not even getting you that far.

And this is running in parallel to those few slimey scumbags living the highlife with too much money to even know what to do with it. There is a divide in the world between the rich and poor and no one can deny this.

So CNN.com runs a report today saying that the world powers have been so generous as to pledge over $1 Billion to help the food crisis. That’s fucking nothing. The UN Chief says we need $20 Billion to solve it. And then the we look at the price of the war in Iraq, which has been estimated by the New York Times to cost $1.2 Trillion. The numbers are so high it’s surreal.

So $1 Billion spent on try to feed people compared to $1.2 Trillion to kill people. Draw your own fucking conclusions on what the priorities are.

Technorati Tags: Capitalism, poverty, food crisis, UN, War in Iraq, economy

Empty dwellings in a city desperate for places to live - National - smh.com.au

I was shocked reading the paper this morning at work to discover this statistic: there’s around 120,000 empty properties in Sydney. This is amidst everyone scratching their heads for solutions to a housing crisis where students struggle to find places to rent, families struggle to buy a home and keep up with the repayments, and then there’s the ongoing and growing homelessness problem.

What kind of mad system do we live in where we have a housing crisis whilst at the same time have an abudance of unoccupied housing? Well, it’s the same system that can have a crisis of overproduction and yet millions starve.

You read further into the article to find that what lies beneath the problem is that a majority of the properties are owned by rich fucks too lazy to rent them out. They can’t be fucked to invest a bit to fix the place up for people to live in and then deal with pesky ordinary people living in their property. They’re just sitting on the property value. Some others are pubs waiting for development applications and because they can’t make profit out of it, they just shut it down.

The problem is that those 120,000 or so homes are not profitable. Who gives a fuck if people freeze to death living on the street. They’re worth nothing in this world anyway because they can’t pay the rent.

Here’s a stat. Mission Australia says that there are 100,000 homeless people in Australia. There are 120,000 empty homes in Sydney. We are more than capable of fixing the homelessness crisis. This is so fucking insane and outrageous that we live in a system that is only interested in profit and these problems won’t be solved as long as it exists.

Technorati Tags: housing, homelessness, crisis, profit, capitalism, property, real estate, poverty

Money talks as billionaire set cheques out Rudd - National - smh.com.au

If ever there was a story to make you vomit, aside from the news of another fucking payrise for a Mac Bank executive and Allan Moss’s $80m payout, then this is it. Rudd, the supposedly working-class hero, wining and dining in comfort with whom he really fits in well with, Australia’s mega rich, whilst they all pretend to be caring for the world. They were at some cancer luncheon making sacrifices for cancer research by being subjected to a lunch of “gently sealed scallops on cauliflower puree, beef tenderloin with a tombe of field mushrooms and a nougat glace.” Dear me, and you think third world Africa had it bad!

And the most vomit worthy quote comes straight from the journo’s mouth: “And there was no clearer evidence of how cancer transcends the socio-economic divide than the gathering of silvertails and society types who turned up to meet the PM.”

Is that just a really bad joke?! Give me a break! As if rich scumbags like the ones in Rudd’s ear have the same horrible experience of cancer suffering as a working class family. There is no way working class people receive the same level of health care, and therefore comfort and chance of surival, as some of those rich fucks “doing it hard” on scallops and caviar. In a sane society, everyone would have equal access to decent health care, but health care under capitalism is not just a right, it’s now a commodity to be bought and sold in the case of private care, whilst public care is just a joke on the working class that gets cut to pay for bombs to kill people on the other side of the world.

And this is on top of living in the real world. Working class people work their arses off just to get by in the world. And when a family gets hit with cancer, they still have to work to get by and then on top of that, look after their sick loved one. It’s not as if James Packer or Frank Lowy’s family have trouble making ends meet if they have to stop “working” to look after a sick loved one.

And then this: “Ironically, Mr Rudd’s $50 million gesture generated a round of applause but for many of his dining companions $50 million would barely register a blip on their financial radars. During lunch, the 100 guests coughed up $750,000 in donations, with one anonymous donor shelling out $500,000.”

So, if Rudd’s $50 million was barely a blip, then what was the $750,000 split between a group of crooks worth $10 billion?! It’s like me donating 5c and getting praised as generous. It’s nothing except for cheap publicity for them. It’s a drop in the ocean and what’s ironic is that Rudd is spending $50m to try and save people’s lives, which isn’t enough, but he’s spending billions towards killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rudd and the rich have to do a lot more than fine dine and donate their spare change to go anyway towards do anything meaningful about cancer, let alone make up for the destruction that their whole fucking system has created. Now, excuse whilst I go vomit.

Technorati Tags: Rudd, cancer, capitalism, charity, rich

It’s 60 years since Palestinians were forcibly removed from their land by massacre and intimidation. Millions of native people to that land were kicked off. Kicked out of their homes. Killed for resisting. This is what happened in modern day Israel and this is what should be remembered, not this mythical idea of the Jewish people coming back to their righteous home.

Governments around the world, most notably Bush from the United States and Rudd from Australia, are celebrating the birth of Israel 60 years ago, with barely a mention of the suffering Palestinians went through to achieve this. Bush said Israel was the only true democracy in the Middle East. This shows his racism and the racism of the state of Israel.

Bush thinks Arabs can’t be trusted to bring democracy to their own countries, mainly because they don’t vote for the people Bush wants in power. And Israel, well it’s democractic for Israelis only. If you’re a Palestinian, or even an Israeli-Arab, you’re not human enough to be counted.

The media is basically homogonous in its vomit-worthy praise of Israel, except for an article on Tuesday’s Sydney Morning Herald calling for a one-state solution in the region. There has hardly been a mention of the history of Palestinian’s suffering. It happened 60 years ago and it’s still happening today.

Violence of the worst kind. Think of a life where you didn’t know anything other than war. Tanks and soldiers patrolling through your neighbourhood. Men, women and children are all targets. Think of a life where to visit your friend down the road, you have to line up for hours and go through checkpoints where soldiers search you and humiliate you.

It’s truly fucked and this violence is what Bush celebrates.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Israel, Palestine

Work is pretty flat out this week, especially since I’m only working four days because I’m going to Melbourne on Friday. So, guess there isn’t much time to post, except for this gem I found yesterday reading a book on the insanity of capitalism, Economics of the Madhouse by Chris Harman. I was ironically reading the chapter on alienation at work yesterday and was struck by a chilling quote from Karl Marx (italicized below) and sourced the manuscript it came from, Estranged Labour in 1844. I’ve included the whole paragraph below:

Firstly, the fact that labour is external to the worker – i.e., does not belong to his essential being; that he, therefore, does not confirm himself in his work, but denies himself, feels miserable and not happy, does not develop free mental and physical energy, but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind. Hence, the worker feels himself only when he is not working; when he is working, he does not feel himself. He is at home when he is not working, and not at home when he is working. His labour is, therefore, not voluntary but forced, it is forced labour. It is, therefore, not the satisfaction of a need but a mere means to satisfy needs outside itself. Its alien character is clearly demonstrated by the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, it is shunned like the plague. External labour, labour in which man alienates himself, is a labour of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Finally, the external character of labour for the worker is demonstrated by the fact that it belongs not to him but to another, and that in it he belongs not to himself but to another. Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of the human imagination, the human brain, and the human heart, detaches itself from the individual and reappears as the alien activity of a god or of a devil, so the activity of the worker is not his own spontaneous activity. It belongs to another, it is a loss of his self.

Technorati Tags: work, alienation, Marx, exploitation, capitalism

What a May Day. Ten years after May Day celebrations were also a celebration of the victory of the wharfies of the MUA after the Howard government tried to smash their union, the union movement have had another victory where Labor MPs revolted to overturn Iemma’s plan to privatise electricity. Thousands of unionists and workers rallied outside the conference in quite an inspiring rally.

This post is being written from my new Toshiba Satellite laptop and the photo was taken from my new Sony Cyber-shot camera. On Thursday, I was robbed and my laptop full of photos, writing and music was stolen as well as my Olympus SP550UZ. I salvaged the music, had the more important writing backed up and may salvage some photos. But it’s all pretty fucked

Technorati Tags: May Day, labor conference, Iemma, Costa, unions, protest

How many is too many? - National - smh.com.au

Another solider is killed. Sinking in yet? The media’s been pretty gross on it, naturally. The papers are filled with nationalist bullshit talking about him being a hero and saving lives, blah blah blah. At least the article above kind of moderately criticises it. It accepts the fake logic of the ‘War on Terror’ but says it can’t be won. Even military figures have come out saying it can’t be won.

But two more important sources of criticism are mentioned. Of course, the majority of the greater population are opposed to the war. This latest death will most certainly continue that trend. The other source, is from the secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Brian Boyd, saying, “it’s got nothing to do with defending Australia”. The growth of an anti-war movement is dependent on more of these comments from the union movement, which judging from the WorkChoices rallies, has the power to mobilise a lot of people.

So with the majority of people opposed, what does Rudd say? Suck it up. There’s more to come, he reckons. He’s positioned himself as side by side with the world’s most hated man, George Bush, as totally committed to the war in Afghanistan, despite other countries backing away. He’s using the apology, and 2020 talkfest etc. to give him some breathing room whilst he backs imperialism in the region to the hilt.

His other comment was really a ‘foot in the mouth’ one. He said, “The history of Afghanistan is one which is not only bloody but one which has consistently resisted foreign troop activity.” No shit. He basically admitted that Afghanistan has a bloody history of Imperialism where foreign occupiers, like himself, have meddled in the country and always been resisted. If only he’d take that as a cue to get the fuck out.

N.B. To the stoned right-wing troll whose comments I deleted, tough shit. No one will take you seriously. You write like you’re self-obsessed and all knowing. Get over your ego. I couldn’t care less what you think because you’re gutless. You can’t use a real name, email or URL and you hide your right-wing criticisms under vague attacks on my writing style and other apolitical shit. You do this because you don’t have a leg to stand on. That is all.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, war on terror, Rudd, Jason Marks

Bosses’ power to check email, smh.com.au

Mondays are always shit. They’re especially shit when compared to big weekends, like this last one for me. But to read that Rudd is going to give more power to bosses to look at worker’s emails really rubs salt into the wound. This is just another attack on workers, making them less secure and even more under the thumb of their boss. And of course, the excuse they use is national security.

It feels like the boss can basically own and have access to every aspect of your life between the hours of 9am to 5pm, and in some cases, beyond that. There is no personal privacy. In some software companies, coding work workers do in their own time belongs to the boss! You’re not human but a machine in this system.

This attack is also a way of cutting off ways of communicating between workers without the boss knowing. This makes union organising much harder, which is clearly more of a reason for doing this than under the name of the War on Terror. The War on Terror and national security has become the magic word for getting away with anything. Howard used it all the time but not even that could save his sorry ass last election.

Rudd’s been the subject of the wet dreams of every international leader or journalist for the last couple of months. What made Howard unpopular can a lot of the time be allowed under Rudd, but this could be something that really pushes worker’s buttons. It’s a real indication that Rudd is on the side of the bosses’.

Technorati Tags: email, Rudd, civil liberties, privacy, War on Terror, cyber-security

Rudd voices concerns on Tibet - World - smh.com.au

Before I went to lunch today, I was in the process of writing a weighty post explaining my position on the Chinese crackdown in Tibet as well as the response of Australia, The United States and other Western countries to the whole turmoil. Except, some application froze and fucked with my computer and in the process of trying to recover that, I closed the webpage with my blog post in it and now it’s lost. I can’t really be bothered trying to replicate that post, so I’ll start again.

The riots and protests by Tibetans calling for independence need to be unconditionally supported by anyone who wants to see a world without oppression and imperialist dominance. The violent reaction by the Chinese state is to be condemned and highlights yet another example of how China is not in anyway Socialist, as it is arch-opposite of a socialist world that is fully democratic.

Rudd’s approach to China is a balancing act between supporting China’s right to trample on Tibet’s right to independence because the Australian economy is married to China’s, as well as making gestures that are nothing by hypocrtical crocodile tears against China’s human rights abuses because ordinary people will not stand for it and also, Austalia is in a contradictory position because although the two economies are married, they are also competing as China is rising to challenge for world superpower status.

Western intervention in the region will not be done in the interest of Tibetans, but in the interests of Western powers in attempts to stave of the rise of China as a competitor. We only have to look at current occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan that are painted as fights for freedom, to see that these powers are far from benevolent.

Though, we can be sure that actions by ordinary people, such as the sabotaging of the Olympic relay in Paris, can be seen as genuine actions in opposition to the grave abuse of human rights by the Chinese state. We stand side-by-side with Chinese workers and the people in Tibet in resisting the agenda of the Chinese government as well as the agendas of our governments at home.

Technorati Tags: China, Tibet, Rudd, human rights, Olympics

I guess this post will be similar to a post I wrote maybe last month or something when I first felt the muse coming back, except I was writing that one at work and this one’s at home. I’m trying to write it before it hits midnight for no reason why. My head’s awash with thoughts again, but like I said in that post, I can’t express them here. Actually, I’m not quite sure I can express them anywhere or to anyone. I don’t even know what I’m really thinking myself.

I guess I’m writing for the sake of writing again. I wrote a poem tonight. It felt therapeutic, like I needed to get some thoughts out. I think I’ll do it again. I haven’t written poetry in fucking ages. I won’t publish it though. I guess that was a mistake publishing my poetry last time. It’s kind of personal shit that shouldn’t really be revealed to the world. Perhaps I’ll post this one anonymously on some poetry forum.

I watched The Butterfly Effect for the first time in a while tonight, as well. That movie fucks with your head, and considering the weird mood I’m in at the moment, it probably wasn’t a good idea. So yeah, not sure what gems of wisdom I’ve revealed in this post, not sure who’s reading it, but leave a comment or something. Some human contact would be nice.

Technorati Tags: musing, rants, midnight, The Butterfly Effect

Gay shooting: student’s slaying sparks outcry, smh.com.au

This latest and very brutal story of violence against a gay man really fucking disturbs me. It’s been on my mind since I read it yesterday. And given the amount of horrible shit I rant about on here, and my acute awareness that homophobia still exists, it shouldn’t surprise me. It’s just fucking enraging that this still goes on.

Larry King, a middle-school student in the U.S., used to go to school out and proud of his sexuality and is fucking brave for doing it. I can only remember how repressed and scared homosexual kids in my grade were and how much courage it took for them to come out, let alone be so open about it. Well, some fucking homophobic piece of shit in his computer class walked into class one day and shot Larry. Killed for being gay.

And to make it more enraging, the way the police are dealing with it, is disgusting and of course, expected. They’re being evasive about whether or not it’s a hate crame, as if it isn’t obvious. They’re trying to cloud over discrimination in society that they of course up hold. They’d rather the media just shut up about homophobic violence because they don’t want to confront it themselves.

As much as we can say gays and lesbians have equality before the law, which really they don’t, stories like this highlight the fact that capitalism is still ideologically feeding off homophobia, sucking the lift out of ordinary people for what? Who they choose to fuck.

Technorati Tags: Larry King, homophobia, GBLT, police, violence

Kovco ‘mistakes’ don’t add up, inquest told, smh.com.au

The inquest into the death of Private Jack Kovco, the first Australian soldier killed in Iraq, is in shambles. They can’t work it out, or more accurately, they don’t want to work it out. How two men can be in the same tent as him when he was killed and not be able to explain anything is beyond me.

It’s pretty clear that the powers that be are putting up all kinds of smoke and mirrors to hide something, and we only need to look at the rest of situation in Iraq to see why they need to. The whole war is in shambles. They’re losing. They’re not wanted there. They’re not doing any rebuilding. Infrastructure like water and electricity might as well not exist. The 4,000th troop just died. Their puppet government’s strings are clearly visible and is horribly unpopular. They’ve had to buy off the resistance to hold them off in the meantime. They’re fucked.

And I’m not legal expert and I probably haven’t heard all the evidence, but it seems kind of likely that he killed himself. No accident, not messing around, not someone else, but deliberate. And the other statistic that shows how fucked the situation in Iraq is proves it. Something like 25,000 Iraq servicepersons or Veterans have commited suicide. So you only have to look at the odds to see how likely it is.

It’s the whole experience of Iraq. Soliders, who are ordinary people, are fighting a war not in there interest, but in the interest of those that rule them. They have to do fucked up things and live with it for the rest of there lives. We’ve been in Iraq for five years and Afghanistan for seven, it’s about time it ended.

Technorati Tags: Kovco, Iraq, war, suicide, soldiers, mental health

This is my first post in a couple of weeks. I haven’t really had the urge to write until now as I’ve been caught up with other things. Or more like the things I have wanted to say haven’t been for public domain. I tried to write this post at work today, but couldn’t as I was torn between wad to divulge and what to keep to myself.

Well I spent a few days in Melbourne from Thursday to Sunday morning and it did things to me that writing for therapy can’t. I’ve been feeling a lot better and been on a high that only work manages to dim and only for the hours I’m lifeless chained to my desk and I’m free again there after.

Sure, after two weeks of feeling good and not needing my muse for therapy, my muse has come back and I’ve got the itch to write. Problem is I’m so busy with everything else and just having fun that the times I feel like writing aren’t available to me. Complicated, I know.

So I guess this post says little but confirms I’m still around and haven’t in fact fallen of the writing wagon as quickly as I’ve jumped back on it.

Technorati Tags: writing, inspiration, therapy

I finally wrote something. Not sure if it’s any good but it’s a concept that’s floated around my head at work over the last week or two. This piece of flash was done for the latest Absolute Write Flash Fiction carnival.

I popped two more Panadol despite if it’d been less than three hours or whatever. It wouldn’t relieve this sense of being boxed in but it would lift a bit of the pressure that hung over my head since I walked into work this morning.

“It says, I quit.”

Technorati Tags: fiction, boss, writing, flash fiction, Absolute Write

I’m not going to link to it. I just can’t. But take a look at the front page of today’s weekend Sydney Morning Herald. The headline is “After the slaughter, sickening jubilation” and two photos, one of Israeli schoolboys morning the death of a couple of a their friends and in the other Palestinians celebrating. When you look at the events in Palestine over the last couple of days, you have to ask the question, out of all the events, why the fuck does this make the front page?

For days Israel has been bombing the shit out of Gaza killing hundreds of civilians. This has been relegated to fine print in the depths of the Herald. Despite it being the most pressing issue in the world at the moment, those hundred or so dead Palestinians didn’t make the front page. Because they’re Arab. Arab lives don’t matter to the Herald. This clear bias is totally outraging. I was visibly overcome with anger when I saw the front page this morning.

More so because I had written on here and on the FLBU blog about the bias in the media over the issue, sweeping the Palestinian deaths under the carpet like it was nothing more than an insect problem being exterminated. That’s how the Israeli government sees it. And more so again because I even went to the length to write a letter to the Herald over this very issue, as well as how they deny that Hamas is the legitimate government of the Palestinian people.

The Herald are doing this because the interests of Western Capitalism are bound up with having Israel, a Western backed state keeping their foot in the Middle East. It’s about making sure if the Middle East do anything that doesn’t sit with the U.S., there will be repurcussions. So, for the fat cat media mogul heading the Herald, James Packer, his profits are put in a better position when Palestinians are killed.

Technorati Tags: Palestine, Israel, media, bias

I’m kind of encouraged by my consistency in both writing and reading lately, even if fiction writing hasn’t entered the equation just yet. It’s slowly bringing my muse back and fighting off the opposing forces of work being so damned boring, uninspiring and devoid of humanity and even the concept of humans as humans rather than machines or tools.

Haruki Murakami is quickly becoming one of my favourite writers. There’s this consistency to his style that is highly addictive. Like I’ve said in other reviews of his books, he has this ability to draw you straight into his world, to make you feel like your dreaming with a writing style that is so out-there, you know it just flows rather than trying to be clever.

So, what is After Dark about? In the true spirit of postmodernist literature, I couldn’t tell you. The story takes place over one night and involves two sisters. One is sleeping and one can’t sleep. I guess you’d have to read it to make complete sense of it, but maybe like me, you’ll finish and its meaning will still elude you, if it has a meaning at all. In a practical sense, I usually don’t like novels with no meaning or some up themselves that they would rather not reveal it to the reader, but with Murakami it seems like it doesn’t matter. It’s the writing that hooks you in and is worthy of praise.

Technorati Tags: Murakami, After Dark, fiction, Japanese, review