Forgive me for stepping off briefly into the cinematic world; but since Ian Fleming provided the basis for the James Bond films through novels and short stories, I think I will allow myself to digress just this tiny bit.
Two nights ago, my boyfriend and I braved the snow (the streets were mostly clear, so it wasn't really that brave) to go to the dollar theater to see the newer Bond flick, Quantum of Solace. I hadn't seen a Bond movie since Pierce Brosnan portrayed Bond; in truth, I thought Brosnan's Bond flicks were a bit on the overproduced side. I wasn't expecting to see Daniel Craig portray Bond, either; but, boredom and cabin fever had set in and we decided that we could blow four bucks seeing Quantum of Solace.
Although QoS is only nominally a tip to Fleming's existing work (it's not based on the story with which it shares its title), I was pleased and surprised. Different from the schoomzingly suave Bond portrayed in recent years, Craig's Bond is wryly funny, extremely physical, and manages to do well with the ladies without resorting to ridiculous one-liners or catch phrases. In fact, the entire film seemed to deviate from the old Bond schtick; not once did Craig utter "Bond--James Bond" or ask for a martini, "shaken, not stirred." James Bond seems to be undergoing a metamorphosis as a character, and I think it is about time. He has become more of a real man who happens to have an utterly kick-ass job and less of a knowing wink at the camera.
QoS picks up the plotline that left off from Casino Royale in 2006. The plot from Casino Royale was largely taken from Fleming's novel of the same name, although there were obviously some changes to modernize the events; even though QoS doesn't share a plot with an existing Fleming work, it does thoughtfully explore a plot that Fleming had already put into place, which I appreciate. The difference between the two latest films and the ones preceding it for 10 years is significant.
Much like life, the plotlines for Casino and QoS do not unfold predictably. Even after having watched both films, it's still possible to have questions (at least for me) about what in the hell just happened. Although this sometimes makes for a bad movie, the two more recent Bond films give you plenty of satisfaction, nagging questions aside. Most of the action scenes are well-directed (only two or three in both films were hinting at over-produced), the sex scenes aren't smarmy, and the unbelievable cheek of Daniel Craig as Bond makes you smile. The bad guys die, and Bond lives to fight another day.
All in all, I'd say if you enjoy Fleming's work but haven't enjoyed the recent Bond adaptations, check out Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace before putting Bond to rest permanently. You might be surprised.
18 January 2009
17 January 2009
It's not April yet, but . . .
Even though April is the month set for our modern Japanese lit overview, I found a link over at Condemned to Obscurity,a blog that largely appears to be about heavy metal but occasionally dips into other subjects, as well. Sam has written a great overview on a few modern Japanese authors, including Haruki Murakami, Oe, Mishima, and Kowabata. If you're interested in getting your feet wet with some Japanese writing, as many of us have been with Murakami, pop over and check it out! (Also, if you like heavy metal, you might want to check it out, too!)
15 January 2009
Literary Question of the Month - January
A new month brings a new topic to ponder over at the BBD. This month's question asks our members which authors they feel like they should like but don't like; I also asked what authors our members have enjoyed that they thought they wouldn't.
Charles Dickens is resoundingly on the lists; we have people in our group who love Dickens, and people who can't read him at all. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground when it comes to ol' Chuck. Also on the list is Toni Morrison, a woman that has had great fame and success as a writer, but whom many of us can't trudge through. Among other authors some of us just didn't click with were Maugham, Tolkien, and Henry James.
Books we were surprised to like? Being the critics that many readers tend to be, we produced a much shorter list (so far!) on this side. Among our picks were Barbara Kingsolver, John Irving, George Eliot (specifically Middlemarch), and .. well, that was about it, so far. Follow the entirety of the discussion here.
It's only halfway through January, so there's still plenty of time to weigh in! In fact, there's no time limit on any of these, so weigh in whenever!
Charles Dickens is resoundingly on the lists; we have people in our group who love Dickens, and people who can't read him at all. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground when it comes to ol' Chuck. Also on the list is Toni Morrison, a woman that has had great fame and success as a writer, but whom many of us can't trudge through. Among other authors some of us just didn't click with were Maugham, Tolkien, and Henry James.
Books we were surprised to like? Being the critics that many readers tend to be, we produced a much shorter list (so far!) on this side. Among our picks were Barbara Kingsolver, John Irving, George Eliot (specifically Middlemarch), and .. well, that was about it, so far. Follow the entirety of the discussion here.
It's only halfway through January, so there's still plenty of time to weigh in! In fact, there's no time limit on any of these, so weigh in whenever!
14 January 2009
Spanish/Latin America month, plus our group read: Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
This year, the BBD has decided to go all 'round the world to inundate ourselves with literature from other cultures. Picking up well-publicized foreign authors does indeed happen more often than it used to happen, no doubt about that; still, American readers (myself included) can all-too-easily find themselves in an American reading rut from time to time. This year, the BBD is branching out in search of fine literature that even Oprah may not have read. (We are sticking to 20th century works to give this massive undertaking some sort of scope!)
In our Latin American and Spanish discussion, Rob (my BBD partner in crime from the beginning) gave us a brief overview of 20th century literary trends and a few authors we might like to check out other than the famous Gabriel García-Márquez. Among them are Roberto Bolano (Amulet, By Night in Chile, The Savage Detectives), Alvaro Mutis (The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll), and Adolfo Bioy Casares, whose Asleep in the Sun I'm going to give another go in the spirit of Latin American Lit Month. (If I can find it in my boxes.) Note: The book wasn't bad, I think I just picked it up when I was busy, put it down, and never got back to it.
This month, to kick off All Around the World and the new year, our group read is Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar. Rob describes his style as being an amalgamation of modernist, surrealist, and nouveau roman. The book is unusual in that it is two books in one book; one can either read it straight through, from chapters 1 - 56, for a linear story; or, one can read it starting from chapter 73 and "hop" around the book as Cortázar instructs at the end of each chapter. I'm reading it the traditional way, but many BBDers are taking great pleasure in playing the game. I find Cortázar to be a bit of an Argentinian Kerouac, employing jazz-inspired stream-of-consciousness riffs; we find the main character bumming around Paris, unemployed, with a female companion called La Maga. The scenes in which he is spending time waxing philosophical with the Serpent Club have been described by one of our members as a weird college party where the honors students and the philosophy majors have gotten drunk and are arguing in front of the bathroom, blocking the hallway. I haven't yet finished it, but all in all it promises to be an interesting read. See the discussion thread here.
Set for February is French Literature--if you have any ideas about 20th century French Lit for the thread, pass them along to Rob!
In our Latin American and Spanish discussion, Rob (my BBD partner in crime from the beginning) gave us a brief overview of 20th century literary trends and a few authors we might like to check out other than the famous Gabriel García-Márquez. Among them are Roberto Bolano (Amulet, By Night in Chile, The Savage Detectives), Alvaro Mutis (The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll), and Adolfo Bioy Casares, whose Asleep in the Sun I'm going to give another go in the spirit of Latin American Lit Month. (If I can find it in my boxes.) Note: The book wasn't bad, I think I just picked it up when I was busy, put it down, and never got back to it.
This month, to kick off All Around the World and the new year, our group read is Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar. Rob describes his style as being an amalgamation of modernist, surrealist, and nouveau roman. The book is unusual in that it is two books in one book; one can either read it straight through, from chapters 1 - 56, for a linear story; or, one can read it starting from chapter 73 and "hop" around the book as Cortázar instructs at the end of each chapter. I'm reading it the traditional way, but many BBDers are taking great pleasure in playing the game. I find Cortázar to be a bit of an Argentinian Kerouac, employing jazz-inspired stream-of-consciousness riffs; we find the main character bumming around Paris, unemployed, with a female companion called La Maga. The scenes in which he is spending time waxing philosophical with the Serpent Club have been described by one of our members as a weird college party where the honors students and the philosophy majors have gotten drunk and are arguing in front of the bathroom, blocking the hallway. I haven't yet finished it, but all in all it promises to be an interesting read. See the discussion thread here.
Set for February is French Literature--if you have any ideas about 20th century French Lit for the thread, pass them along to Rob!
08 January 2009
What I talk about when I talk about running - by Haruki Murakami
I am not a Murakami fan; in fact, I have hardly read any of his novels to completion before. I started reading "Kafka on the Shore", but promptly gave it up as I realized that the genre was not really up my alley. So why did I decide to purchase a copy of "What I talk about when I talk about running", a memoir by Haruki Murakami?
Because I love to run. No other physical activity that I have tried gives me the kind of joy that I experience right after a long, hard, sweaty, pulse-quickening run. Nothing is simpler to do, more meditative, more solitary, than running. Nothing gives me the sense of achievement as setting a goal for myself - a 5K or a 10K or a 15K run - and actually training for it and completing the distance. I love to run, and that is exactly why I picked up the book "What I talk about when I talk about running".
I finished the book, however, with mixed feelings. As a runner, I appreciated it. I imagine I'll even re-read the book over and over again. I enjoyed the sections where he describes his running lifestyle, his thoughts and the feelings he experiences when he runs. Some of my other favourite sections in the book include his evocative description of Charles river and his runs along its bank. I could see that he was in love with that river. His musings about the surface of the river, how it changes with the seasons, how clouds are reflected on it, how various birds float and people row their boats on it, were thoroughly enjoyable. I have been to Cambridge, MA once and I could see myself running along the river as I read his words.
But this doesn't mean that his writing is stellar. On the contrary, I was very disappointed with it.
Unless an author's writing stuns me utterly, I've always been turned off when he or she waxes poetic about inanimate objects, anthropomorphising them. Murakami is almost obsessed with anthropomorphising clouds and wind and rain and other non-living things. For instance, in page 5, he talks about how a thick cloud moved in during one of his runs, but quickly whisked itself away "as if it had remembered, 'Oh, I've got to do some errands'". A cloud remembering its errands! That was a little too forced and sentimental for my taste.
The book is an undeniable easy read. In fact, it reads like a blog, one not very coherent or thought through. The chronological order is not linear and it is hard to follow his journey as a runner without flipping back a few pages and re-reading some paragraphs every now and then. The narrative, the style and the diction all seem to be pedestrian. There are too many repeated phrases and too many filler words ("sort of", "kind of", "after a fashion" etc.).
Many unoriginal observations presume to be philosophical musings. For instance, in page 121, you'll encounter this sentence that feels wrong on so many levels: "And one of the privileges given to those who've avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old." It seems like a tautology to me, essentially saying that if you don't die young, you grow old. Isn't that obvious? (My husband pointed to me, when I discussed this with him, that indeed both of us are not right: one can avoid dying AND growing old by dying in middle age.)
Not only that, note in the same sentence: "one of the privileges...is the right". Isn't there a difference between privilege and right - the former being conditionally granted and the latter being something one is born with? How can you put those two words together like that and expect the sentence to flow well? Perhaps the author is just trying to be funny, but the sentence makes one do a double-take, at the very least, before one can move past it.
There are other similar sentences that seem to hiccup on the pages: "No matter how much I write, I never reach a conclusion. No matter how much I rewrite, I never reach the destination". I don't see why those sentences are put together like that and to what logical end their pairing tends.
Overall, the book is prosaic, but as a runner, I am sure I'll cherish it and give it a second and a third chance. If you're a non-runner or someone not into endurance activities, however, I'd not recommend this book to you.
Because I love to run. No other physical activity that I have tried gives me the kind of joy that I experience right after a long, hard, sweaty, pulse-quickening run. Nothing is simpler to do, more meditative, more solitary, than running. Nothing gives me the sense of achievement as setting a goal for myself - a 5K or a 10K or a 15K run - and actually training for it and completing the distance. I love to run, and that is exactly why I picked up the book "What I talk about when I talk about running".
I finished the book, however, with mixed feelings. As a runner, I appreciated it. I imagine I'll even re-read the book over and over again. I enjoyed the sections where he describes his running lifestyle, his thoughts and the feelings he experiences when he runs. Some of my other favourite sections in the book include his evocative description of Charles river and his runs along its bank. I could see that he was in love with that river. His musings about the surface of the river, how it changes with the seasons, how clouds are reflected on it, how various birds float and people row their boats on it, were thoroughly enjoyable. I have been to Cambridge, MA once and I could see myself running along the river as I read his words.
But this doesn't mean that his writing is stellar. On the contrary, I was very disappointed with it.
Unless an author's writing stuns me utterly, I've always been turned off when he or she waxes poetic about inanimate objects, anthropomorphising them. Murakami is almost obsessed with anthropomorphising clouds and wind and rain and other non-living things. For instance, in page 5, he talks about how a thick cloud moved in during one of his runs, but quickly whisked itself away "as if it had remembered, 'Oh, I've got to do some errands'". A cloud remembering its errands! That was a little too forced and sentimental for my taste.
The book is an undeniable easy read. In fact, it reads like a blog, one not very coherent or thought through. The chronological order is not linear and it is hard to follow his journey as a runner without flipping back a few pages and re-reading some paragraphs every now and then. The narrative, the style and the diction all seem to be pedestrian. There are too many repeated phrases and too many filler words ("sort of", "kind of", "after a fashion" etc.).
Many unoriginal observations presume to be philosophical musings. For instance, in page 121, you'll encounter this sentence that feels wrong on so many levels: "And one of the privileges given to those who've avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old." It seems like a tautology to me, essentially saying that if you don't die young, you grow old. Isn't that obvious? (My husband pointed to me, when I discussed this with him, that indeed both of us are not right: one can avoid dying AND growing old by dying in middle age.)
Not only that, note in the same sentence: "one of the privileges...is the right". Isn't there a difference between privilege and right - the former being conditionally granted and the latter being something one is born with? How can you put those two words together like that and expect the sentence to flow well? Perhaps the author is just trying to be funny, but the sentence makes one do a double-take, at the very least, before one can move past it.
There are other similar sentences that seem to hiccup on the pages: "No matter how much I write, I never reach a conclusion. No matter how much I rewrite, I never reach the destination". I don't see why those sentences are put together like that and to what logical end their pairing tends.
Overall, the book is prosaic, but as a runner, I am sure I'll cherish it and give it a second and a third chance. If you're a non-runner or someone not into endurance activities, however, I'd not recommend this book to you.
02 January 2009
2008 In Review: Our Best (and Worst!) Reads of the Year
The calendar has turned; given that it is the time for reflection, Rob asked the BBD to do some literary reflection on the past year's reads. What did we love? What did we hate? Follow the links to find the full lists.
A selection from the love category:
Philip Roth--several of his books made our list this year, so happy 2008, Mr Roth! You were well-loved by the BBD.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins ("Sheer, rip-snorting melodrama in high Victorian style. A pleasure read of the keenest, up-all-night variety." -- from Lord Manleigh)
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson ("Magical, charming, and delightful." -- from Lady Dixie)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived by Dan Karlan, Allan Lazar, Jeremy Salter
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Of course, every now and again, you run across books that you just need to throw out the window. A sampling of our not-so-beloved list includes Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (one of my picks for the group read--sorry guys!); Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; and The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham. I actually enjoyed the Maugham, but we're a tough crowd to please!
A selection from the love category:
Philip Roth--several of his books made our list this year, so happy 2008, Mr Roth! You were well-loved by the BBD.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins ("Sheer, rip-snorting melodrama in high Victorian style. A pleasure read of the keenest, up-all-night variety." -- from Lord Manleigh)
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson ("Magical, charming, and delightful." -- from Lady Dixie)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived by Dan Karlan, Allan Lazar, Jeremy Salter
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Of course, every now and again, you run across books that you just need to throw out the window. A sampling of our not-so-beloved list includes Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (one of my picks for the group read--sorry guys!); Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; and The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham. I actually enjoyed the Maugham, but we're a tough crowd to please!
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