The 100% Perfect Girl, Or, Reflections on a Sunny Afternoon on a Park Bench Options

[mipadi]

Has a book ever grabbed you and shook you so hard that you felt that your life wouldn't be complete without it?

I went to campus today. I'm a grad student at William & Mary. Or was. Or maybe is, I'm not sure. I'm taking a leave of absence from The College because I haven't really been satisfied studying computer science. I'd rather be studying creative writing again (which I also did as an undergrad), or possibly journalism (which, again, I also did as an undergrad). Anyway, I had some forms to fill out, and due to the bus schedule, I had some time to kill.

So I popped into the campus bookstore, which is, of course, a Barnes and Nobles. I wanted to check out some books by Arthur Miller, since I'm a fan of his plays (and plays in general from the 1920s through the 1950s, which was a great time for theater, but I digress). They didn't have much, so I ended up checking out the books by Murakami, a writer with whom I am currently enamored. I found a collection of his short stories called The Elephant Vanishes. Upon opening the book, I turned, by pure happenstance, to the first page of his short story, "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning".

The short story was, in a word, phenomenal. Short and sweet (it weighs in at less than four pages), the story told an interesting narrative that seemed to really speak to me. Since I'm between jobs now (or, more to the point, between incomes), I almost put the book back on the shelf, thinking I'd buy it when I got a job; but then I thought, no, I really can't live without this book, it'd be like a piece of me was missing, left on a dusty bookshelf for some other soul to find.

I had to have that book -- or, more importantly, that short story. I'm sure the rest are good and I fully intend to read them, but that's the only story I really care about.

So I bought it, and paged through it on a bench outside the bookstore. And I was filled with a sense of inner calm, as though, if I opened my arms, I could let in not only the sun and breeze and world, but the rest of my life, too. Like something was somehow different, something had changed for the better. Like I had it all figured out.

Like sitting there with that story in my hands, in my head, was where I'd wanted to be all along.



I sort of wrote about the experience in a recent blog entry, although I might post this twist of the story on my blog, too.

This post has been edited by mipadi: Jul 6 2010, 06:48 AM

Reason for edit: Fixed blog post URL

[*KINGdinguhling*]

since its only 4 pages, could you type the whole thing up and post it



oh i c u wut u did there

[brooklyneast05]

i think that story made me feel depressed for them.

[mipadi]

since its only 4 pages, could you type the whole thing up and post it

I want to, and I was going to post it on my website, but I'm afraid that could run afoul of copyright laws. However, one fine individual has posted it on his website, so here it is: "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning".

That was actually another thought that I had when read the story: That in a more perfect society, we'd be free to share stories like this with our friends, and good ideas would spread like a mental virus; but unfortunately, copyright law generally only serves to inhibit the spread of ideas. But, as usual, I digress.

[*KINGdinguhling*]

Haha reminds of this other sad story about a boy who was too scared to tell his crush he liked her until she died and he found her diary which had entries containing love stories about him

[mipadi]

Haha reminds of this other sad story about a boy who was too scared to tell his crush he liked her until she died and he found her diary which had entries containing love stories about him

Yeah.

I liked Murakami's because the story was pretty simple, and to the point. It said what it needed to say, and did so in a stark kind of way, but was also succinct. That's what I liked about it, anyway.