“The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore.

"A viagem que estou fazendo é dentro de mim. Como o sangue que viaja pelas veias, o que estou vendo é o meu íntimo e o que parece ameaçador é apenas o eco do medo dentro do meu coração". -- Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the shore
("The Habit" - photo by Carlos Guerriero)

I have just finished reading this wonderful book. The highly anticipated new novel from the critically acclaimed author of Tokyo Cancelled. Solo recounts the life and daydreams of a reclusive one hundred year-old man from Bulgaria. Before the man lost his sight, he read this story in a magazine: a group of explorers came upon a community of parrots speaking the language of a society that had been wiped out in a recent catastrophe. Astonished by their discovery, they put the parrots in cages and sent them home so that linguists could record what remained of the lost language. But the parrots, already traumatised by the devastation they had recently witnessed, died on the way. Wondering if, unlike the hapless parrots, he has any wisdom to leave to the world, Ulrich embarks on an epic armchair journey through a century of violent politics, forbidden music, lost love and failed chemistry, finding his way eventually to an astonishing epiphany of tenderness and enlightenment. I dearly and wholeheartedly  recommend it!