murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

expensive school trips. For instance, if we went to Kyoto, they'd put
us up in a first-class inn and serve us tea ceremony food on lacquer
tables, and they'd take us once a year to the most expensive hotel in
Tokyo to study table manners. I mean, this was no ordinary school.
Out of 160 girls in my class, I was the only one from a middle-class
neighbourhood like Toshima. I looked at the school register once to
see where the others lived, and every single one of them was from a
rich area. Well, no, there was one girl from way out in Chiba with the
farmers, so I got kind of friendly with her. And she was really nice.
She invited me to her house, though she apologized for how far I'd
have to travel to get there. I went and it was incredible, this giant
piece of land you'd have to walk 15 minutes to get around. It had this
amazing garden and two dogs like compact cars they fed steaks to.
But still, this girl felt embarrassed about living out in Chiba. This is a
girl who would be driven to school in a Mercedes Benz if she was
late! By a chauffeur! Like right out of the Green Hornet: the hat, the
white gloves, the whole deal. And still she had this inferiority
complex. Can you believe it?"
I shook my head.
"I was the only one in the whole school who lived in a place like Kita-
Otsuka Toshima. And under "parent's profession' it said "bookshop
owner'. Everybody in my class thought that was so neat: "Oh, you're
so lucky, you can read any book you like' and stuff. Of course, they
were thinking of some monster bookshop like Kinokuniya. They could
never have imagined the poor, little Kobayashi Bookshop. The door
creaks open and you see nothing but magazines. The steady sellers are
the women's glossies with illustrated pull-out sections on the latest
sexual techniques. The local housewives buy them and sit at the
kitchen table reading them from cover to cover, and give 'em a try
when their husbands get home. And they've got the most incredible
positions! Is this what housewives have on their minds all day? The
comics are the other big-seller: Magazine, Sunday, Jump. And of
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