Murakami’s Fire

I re-read all the time.

Some people are impressed with reading.  I’m not.

We read all day, long.  Billboards, ketchup labels, any item manufactured for that matter.  So I am not impressed that your read a book a week, or day. 

I’ve re-watched the movie Man on Fire probably 75 times.  I’ve re-read Emerson’s Self Reliance at least 25 times.  These things never get old.

We take for granted that we actually perceived something when we take it in the first time.  The brain registers a stop sign, and you stop at it.  You got it right.

But what about more complicated things like Beethoven’s 4^th Symphony?  Or a conversation?

Things are never as they seem if we examine them. 

I think I used to believe I was smarter if I read 25 different books in a month than if I re-read the same book 25 times. 

But these are one and the same.  Reading the same book 25 times is reading 25 different books.

I thought of this as I made a fire this morning.  I piled the kindling and logs and it took off marvelously from one match.

Maurakami wrote a short story where he descries a trio of individuals building a bon fire on the shore.  I never understood it the first two times I read it.   

Now I understand.  I can't wait to re-read it for the first time again.