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My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Taking me more than a month to finish, this 1000-page-long tome by Murakami is surprisingly not a tedious read. Given the sheer length of the book, there were certainly moments when I wished the pace of the story was a tad quicker. Nevertheless, the author had managed to keep me interested from cover to cover and even drew a tear or two out of me toward the very end.

This is not a book preaching high morals or provoking deep thoughts. Instead, it is a philosophical examination into aspects of life that we often take for granted – in other words, a distinctively Murakami piece of work. With it Murakami did what he always does and did it well, mixing fantastical realities with realistic fantasies, and focusing on the existential concerns of the most common and bizarre characters. It is a tribute that Murakami pays to himself.

“Reality was utterly cool-headed and utterly lonely.”

“And the body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.”

“If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.”

“Nobody’s easier to fool…than the person who is convinced that he is right.”

“…the kind of laugh that you could laugh forever but never end up happy.”

“The pursuer’s blind spot is that he never thinks he’s being pursued.”

“Totally isolated, yet the one place not tainted with loneliness.”

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A very intellectual book with some truly original and thought-provoking ideas about how individual interests and collective interests sometimes diverge and how such divergence could lead to wasteful outcomes especially in a competitive environment. It is definitely interesting to see the author pitting Adam Smith against Darwin Charles and arguing that Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand Principle could be viewed as a special case of Darwin Charles more general Natural Selection/Sexual Selection hypothesis. The examples cited in the book and the thought experiments suggested by the author are all very illustrative, albeit a bit repetitive.

The major drawback is the way that the book is structured – or unstructured, for that matter. The entire book, when read from front to back, seems very fragmented. Ideas do not flow naturally and smoothly from one chapter to the next. The middle section of the book is devoted almost exclusively to the framework suggested by Ronald Coase, but it is not immediately clear how Coase’s framework fits with rest of the book. The best way to read this book, on hindsight, might be starting from the last chapter, picking out the points that are of most interest to the reader and flipping back to the chapters that elaborate on these points.



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My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book represents a courageous effort by Harvard University’s former president Derek Bok who offers a critical examination of America’s underachieving colleges. Drawing from his own experience and supported by concrete (albeit occasionally dubious) empirical research, Bok goes to great lengths to explain why he thinks America’s undergraduate education is not living up to its reputation and potential, and offers his own recommendations on what he believes the goals of undergraduate education should be and the necessary steps required to achieve these goals. Rather than championing a systematical revolution in undergraduate education, Dok offers his manifesto for a pedagogical evolution.

There are two things, however, that I disliked about the book.

One, the writing is unbearably long-winded and repetitive. The three main theses of the book (1. colleges need to ascertain their goals, 2. colleges need a way to evaluate students’ performance with regard to these goals, 3. pedagogy is important ) can be convincingly conveyed in much fewer pages.

Two, the author’s criticism of the educational system is too contained (maybe due to his own extensive involvement with the system). While reading the book, I couldn’t help feeling that every comment was made with measured honesty and subdued frankness. As a result, Bok’s passion – and this is a subject that he and his readers should be impassioned about – becomes lost in the dreary passages.

The highlight of the book, in fact, comes in the afterword where Bok illustrates his philosophy in the book by recounting a personal case study. He was invited back to Harvard one month after the publication of this book to act as an interim president due to Larry Summers’ departure and was charged with the task to lead an undergraduate curriculum review. The description of his effort (and the efforts of the various committees he formed) in the review process is lively and intimate, and an enjoyable read in and of itself.

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(P.S. I am in my early 20s.)

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@SI_BTBaseline Or Zheng Jie. Just saying… my wishful thinking. in reply to SI_BTBaseline #

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@sallynyan Chirp chirp! When are you getting back to school? in reply to sallynyan #

@vyssa May I suggest an Android phone? in reply to vyssa #

@sallynyan yup! Think I am going back on 21st as well. #

@sallynyan Of course!!!! I am definitely in. Can't believe it's been three/four years. in reply to sallynyan #

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