"I am the ordinary son of an ordinary man."

Aren't we all, really?

This is the reprint of an essay that was originally printed in The New Yorker several years ago, unabridged. I did not read the original article, and so this was my first time reading about Murakami's dad and the influence he clearly had on Murakami's writing. I was actually quite surprised and pleased with the amount of insight this particular piece of work gave me into why some elements are referenced repeatedly in his books. Their relationship was strained at best, so it was actually surprising how much I recognized of his dad in several of his books.

If you're looking for some additional context/insight into Murakami's writing, this is worth a quick read. It won't explain the really wild and out there ideas, but you'll see elements you recognize and I thought that this was a worthwhile read.

Spoiler alert: the volcano wins.

Remember those history and/or social studies textbooks you had to read as a kid, the ones that had little sidebars of "day in the life of" mini stories that pretended to be fictional, but were really a vehicle for facts to regurgitate on your next test? This really felt a lot like that, but like, a whole book's worth.

This book follows several different citizens of Pompeii on their (unbeknownst to them) last day. The author does a good job of selecting different positions of society to create her characters from, which are themselves cut either whole cloth or pieced together from what I gather were actual people in Pompeii at the time of the disaster. There's a wide variety of viewpoints here, from privileged politician to freed slave, which is nice to see. But because the book is so fact-forward, none of it really feels like a true fiction book, and there's no real character development or plot beyond what we know is about to happen.

It's not a bad book, but don't expect to spend enough time with any of these characters long enough to feel much for them when the inevitable happens.