How would you react if...

Tweet

I have a friend in South Carolina that has more or less become more of a pen pal than the confidant that she used to be. (We were really close, but now the reality that she's a few hundred miles away makes it difficult to really keep in touch like I would like to.) Lately we have not been talking much. My busy schedule and hermit-like tendencies have yet again gotten in the way of me being social and pleasant, so when she asked for my address again for the sake of wanting to send me a letter. (I sent her a lengthy one sometime before Christmas that had gone on without response) She kept asking if I had gotten my letter yet when I'd see her online, and I'd always respond with a somewhat disappointed 'no, not today.' So then today I finally got it and I tore it open, taking a few moments out of my precious study time, to look at two pages of notebook paper. They were filled with writing on both sides, which was a good sign... Until I started reading it, and realized that it didn't sound much like her, and that it really had nothing to do with anything. I began to realize that the vocabulary and everything really had nothing to do with my friend, and that she was not actually talking about any events, just musing about random things... It was then that I thought to google a selection of it, to see if it was from something, or just her being bizarre and somewhat insightful. I found that nearly the entire letter was simply a selection from a Novel by the name of 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle', which is actually by Haruki Murakami. I'm not really sure how to respond. I'm sure tomorrow if I see her on the computer she'll ask yet again 'did you get my letter?' - the bitter part of me that has spent hours over the years writing out letters by hand to her wants to say 'oh yes, I'm so very pleased that you haven't stopped reading. Murakami is a grand author, too bad you've forgotten how to write.' but another part just wants to say yes and thank her for the effort... Does anyone have any suggestions? If you don't know what I should do, can you at least tell me if my being upset by this is rational? (I mean, it's perfectly logical for someone to want to send someone else a snippet of song or story or whatever, but I would have liked to have been told that it was not hers, and that it came from this book, and perhaps have had some other, alternate content... but I'm still somewhat disrupted by what feels to me like dishonesty.) Has anyone read this book? (If so, the snippet that was snagged was the bit from page 460-461 about rice pudding mix.) Thanks for reading.