Sunday, April 25, 2010

Bloodchild

How about a story about the horrors of parasites, inserted via a long narrow stinger, growing in the human body, feeding off blood and the flesh, and ultimately cut out in a horribly painful manner. No, I'm not talking about the shows about birth on TLC, it's a short story by Butler, (the same one who wrote Lilith and it was no surprise to me when the short story turned out to be about more disturbing tales on sex and reproduction. Oh! And horrible grotesque aliens.)

The story is very confusing at first. We get little to no explanation. But this is what makes the story work so well. I kept reading because I wanted to understand more about what I was reading and then when I found out it had some sort of reproduction plot I wanted to read it even more because let's face it, young people love that stuff. I don't know why so many horror movies focus on slashing and chasing, they should just play a women giving birth on the big screen and call it a horror movie. Teenagers everywhere would stand ten feet from the opposite sex for a couple days after that (I know I did). So, Butler is intelligent enough to figure out that the idea of birth is very scary to young people (mostly girls I would guess) and the pain that surrounds that. Let's not forget also the idea that, it can happen over and over again. Butler takes this idea and then suggests, what if men went through something similar? Also, she adds, "I wrote this to get over my fear of botflies". Right. You wrote an amazing and deep short story, that is a rather feminist view of birth to get over your fear of botflies. Genius.

The story itself was, as disturbing as it is, very well written and suspenseful. The themes represented were very deep (come on, it's Butler you guys) and intrusive thought wise. You have Tilcs and Terrans (humans). They supposedly live on a reserve (a prison)? The Tilcs have a pick at the Terran men; which ones they will "join families" with. Butler's main character is the representation of this ignorance. The "joining" of families, the sharing of the eggs, the idea that the Tilcs and the Terrans are jolly good buddies is like telling women in the 50s that having a kid was like going to sleep and then waking up with a baby. We follow the main character through the story until he realizes at one point his true purpose, thus his blind faith is questioned through events and his brothers jabs. In the end, he questions his soon to be "mate" T'Gatoi and forces her to come to an agreement with him, (the tables have turned). I really loved the line he used to win the argument as well. "You take chances in relationships." Or something like that.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Oryx and Crake

I for one love to read different writing styles, but usually I think it's only fair that if I read someone's novel they would have the decency to at least leave me with an ending instead of forcing me to question what will happen next. Other then that, this was a very interesting take on the future. (at lease, it seems like the future). This book to awhile to finish as CA got very busy. So please bear with me as I try to recall all the themes and interesting parts/ observations.

The novel starts of with a lot of questions from the reader. There are strange creators running around and the main character, who goes by the name of Snowman, seems to be the only human left. As the novel goes on we learn more about Snowman (Jimmy) and his tale, of which leads back to his current standings. Atwood has a lot of themes going in this novel. Human transplantion, (the pigoons, etc.) human value (this is questioned a number of ways throughout the book), and religion. Snowman (Jimmy) was established as a god to the Crakers by Crake, his old friend and creator of human demise. The book takes place in America, but there is no mention of government in any form. Corporations each sort of have a compound that people stive to live in. People have become so dependent on the materials these corporations sell, from vaccines to body parts, that they have become powerless consumers. The compounds seem to be united though (Jimmy's mother works for the establishment). It is important to work for a corporation for this reason alone so that the characters can stay out of the pleeblands, which are lawless. This made the book and the future feel bleak and hopeless for me. The idea that religion can be easily made up also added to the bleak feel. I thought the idea that Snowman is used in place of Jimmy's name for present tense and then Jimmy's real name is used to bring the reader to the past made the book much easier to follow at times.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Lilith's Brood

What if you had to choose for yourself and others between death or a comfortable place to live and thrive,....but at a big price?
This book seems to touch on a lot of major issues dealing with the basic human thought. I loved this book, I simply could not stop reading it once I picked it up. The only thing that got me to stop was the fact that I had CA homework and projects that needed to be completed, but you can guess what I did when I was done with all of them.

So, this book has some pretty deep set themes about sex, and reproduction, but not just about those, in fact, there are a huge range of subjects that are arguably touched on, such as reproductive rights, racism, sexual consent, disabilities, rape (sexual violence), slavery, the human difference, and what is ultimately means to be human. The Oankali introduction just makes everything even more interesting. Butler's writing is intense, she'll show you a grotesque alian and won't let you look away, she'll throw questions before you and they will be very deep questions that more people don't discuss and what politics are made of. She'll force you to think about who you are and what you would, and what makes you human in the end. What makes as all human.

Speaking of humans, the human sects in the book (the ones who want to stay away from the "aliens") are almost Butler's cruel joke. She starts you off thinking that it would be an easy answer,of course any human might not want to see the race end, but then you are given the alternative, the actual human race, of which has become a voilent animalistic life. I really found that made the choice even more intriging and difficult. You feel for the main character of course, but at the same time, the reader is left wondering, which side would I choose?

There also seems to be a good bit of biblical subjects in the book.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Blade Runner

Have you ever heard someone talk about a movie they liked and thought, "Hey, sounds like a movie I might enjoy!" and then you never see it? That's blade runner. I really like Ridley Scott films and I had kept urging myself to take a secound to watch this film since a lot of people have suggested to me, but I never had the time nor the incentive. After watching some of it in class I was hooked. I had to watch more and not because Harrison Ford was in it (swoon) but because the story was really interesting and the character's (unlike today's action packed films) weren't 1 dimensional. I'm a computer animation student. I hate that computer animation is ruining movies today. Yes, it is. I think directors are depending too much on CGI to make an "eye candy film" more then a memorable movie. I hear people say "It was a great movie! The special effects were awesome!' too much for comfort. I admit, I love older movies for the shear fact that they have to depend on the characters and the story to make money. Once in a while a movie will have CGI and a great story. But more then half of the time, that movie won't be recent.

I watched it and I loved it! When the movie ended I was so enchanted, I felt so much for the characters. The replicants left such a strange taste in my mouth. I didn't know if I should hate them or feel pity for them. In the end, the hero is at a replicants mercy. The whole story was a rude awaking to the truth. Our hero finds out his job...ok I won't ruin the movie for you, but lets just say the ending was the best part. Yes, I cried, but never have I been so moved by dialogued. I still remember the words because I thought they were so perfectly recited and so beautiful. The music, the mood, everything, as sappy as it was, worked perfectly together. The music in the film was also excellent, as 80's as it was. The music kinda moved slowly compared to most action flicks today. In fact, it wasn't really a sci-fi film, nor an action flick. I'm not sure how I would describe it. I guess it was sci-fi for the shear fact it was in the future. But it could have been any time frame and still been a great story.

Some of it I was confused by, or I didn't understand. Maybe it was because I have become too used to movies giving me all the answers that when i see any older flick that challenged my intellectual side i become a little confused. I did have to ask my friend what was going on at times, but I was happy when he told me to watch and let me figure it out, because in the end I got everything and then some and finding my own answer made the movie all the more amazing to me.

This film will really make you question life and what it is to be human.

" All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die."

Great movie, I would strongly suggest it to anyone looking for a good flick.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

When you're waiting for a class to end or for your mom to stop shoe shopping, time seems to go on forever. That said, this book seemed long. I say that because, it really did. I don't much like Sci-Fi, but in the end, after reading his book on and off, I actually liked this book (thats saying a lot of cyberpunk). As scarily realistic as it sounds at times (hehehe), the book had an engaging story and a satirical feel (the main characters name is a good indication of that for one, but the book seems to not really take anything seriously. Regardless, the Snow Crash has a lot of modern day Sci-Fi themes and models, but this one seems more original to me. The concepts are great and make for an interesting take on the present,...oh! I mean...future.....it is really scary how well thought out the book gets at times. I really thought it was interesting that the author was able to take something extremely old and make plausible stories with plausible outcomes to effect the main plot. What was even more interesting is that it almost seemed like the book was verging on "magic" themes, since a lot of fantasy relies on "old forgotten" things or "long ago in a far away land" type models. The snow crash virus was almost like a "spell" of sorts, since it revolves around language, which, lets face it, is a popular theme in fantasy novels, (Tolken anyone?). It also reminded me again about Babel 17, seems language, be it computer language, Sumerian, or whatever, itself can make for a great plot line.

The main characters were clever and likable. As a video game nerd, the idea that the internet (called the metaverse in the book)) is now sort of like a huge MMO (massive mult. player online game) where everyone has an avatar and is represented that way and that the two "worlds" are so intertwined made things exciting and...confusing. Sometimes I'd get confused , about who was talking, or how or what snow-crash was, or the back story of snow-crash, yeah, a lot of that I had to reread because for some reason I couldn't get it from the audio book, (had to find a pdf to read).

Over-all the book was very cyberpunk, it had pretty much everything any cyberpunk would want and then some. The concept that America was divided among big business and that even currency was dependent on corporations made the culture of the book very interesting for me, and was one of the many things about the book that I enjoyed learning about (aside from the metaverse). I think Stephenson made it so believable in a way, like, chaotic of course, but it just sort of, worked.
A pretty good read in my eyes, even if it's sci-fi.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Samuel R. Delany, Babel17/Empire Star

Babel 17,....I still don't know what the 17 stands for, maybe some code or something. This sounded like an interesting read, but in the end it didn't really ienchant me enough. I read through it and found the only thing enjoyable about the book for me was the characters and the culture. Rydra Wong was a great character. She was some what out of place for me though. She was empathetic and caring. She was between two wars and didn't really side with anyone. Lets not forget also that shes a hot asian chick.

One thing I thought was clever was how Delany explained what was going on through a characetr. In fact, I think theres a pretty strong argument that Rydras sidekick, knows nothing, army buddy turned lover was made a character for that soul perpouse. To learn and help us learn as well, more about the culture (which I loved) and about the other characters, whom Rydra knows pretty well already.

The concept behind the plot was very interesting. I never thought about the thought process of someone who speaks a forign language as being vastly differnt, or the concept that they may think things I would never grasp and vs. versa. The notion of language is also a huge part of the book. In the end some of the theames felt a little, under-explained, or left to our own thought. WHich, isnt such a bad thing, but lets face it, I lik being told all the answers, I dont want to have to think one up...

I don't really like Sci-Fi. But if you do, you'll most likely enjoy this book more then I did. I didn't really hate it, but I found it relly confusing and annoying to read. Why didn't I just stop and read something else you ask? Well, I was too far into it to stop, so I kept going. But so much of it was left in the dark for me, I need explainations to let me know where everyone is in the story and what is going on, but any explanations from Delany in this book are as rare as a hot girl at a Sci-Fi convention. Yes, there are hot girls at Sci-Fi conventions, but I'm talking about the ones who weren't hired to be there.
In the end Id say this book is worth reading for the sheer fact that its old school and its a the birthplace for some more modern day sci-fi. It stays on plot and reads quickly. The characters are liakable, some of the book is lengthy and hard to understand were they are at times, but otherwise, give it a read.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Let me begin by saying that this book was a "pain in the" to find a download for....er, by "downloaded" I mean I read it at the library. Anyway, where do I begin? This book was, well, it reminded me very much of "The Count of Monte Cristo". If you've never read the book or seen the movie then I strongly suggest you do so. If you have seen or read it, then you might enjoy this book.

The main character Foyle reminds me very much of the Count. The only major differences is that instead of being the master of sword fighting, Foyle has much more interesting wepons up his sleeves. He can "juant" as a way of transportation, for one (the first chapter gets you interested with this notion) and of course since it's sci-fi he has some alteration made to make him super fast, super human like, blah, blah, blah. This book, as dated as it is, was exciting and full of action. It was hard o believe it was written in the 5o's. I would think it would make for a great movie, if nothing else.

Foyle in my opinion was a very sad and twisted character. He's very, "anti-hero". I didn't know what to make of him, he was terrible and he was glorified (mostly near the end did I feel most for him). He rapes, he kills, he has lovers (some of which he abandons) and generally he makes messes for himself later on but somehow he manages. When he is left for dead by the upper-class (a ship called Vorga), his revenge and hate drives him to better himself. I thought it was interesting in that, Bester was able to pull this off so well (regardless of the Monte Cristo plot line). Maybe I should find someone to hate with a passion so I would stop being lazy and go to Harvard to better myself, then I could get the revenge I deserve! Aside from being satirical throughout this review I might add that this book was a page turner for me. I enjoyed it for the meat of the book, it was action packed and had some great twists! I would still suggest it even if you don't like Sci-Fi all that much. Some of the sci-fi did make the story confusing at times, I had trouble following and at times and didn't get the full effect because I sometimes missed things. But, the important parts were understandable and I was able to follow the main plot pretty well. As a main character, I thought his evolution was very interesting. Foyle learns to imagine and learns to dream. In the beginning he does neither, but it all changes with his first "dream" as twisted as it was. I won't give away the ending, but it was worth reading this through to the end just for the satisfaction of knowing what becomes of Foyle.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Equal Rights, er...Rites

I'd never heard of Terry Pratchett, and was embarrassed to say that I was surprised to learn that name belong to a man, not a woman as I had previously gathered. This actually caused me to take a step back and look at my own way of thinking, I mean, just because this book had some woman's rights features I automatically assumed the writer was female. Go figure.

The writing style was amusing, I mean, not in that it was poorly written amusing, but that it was very well written and that the tone was so clear, it was humorous and it was serious when it wanted to be, there was no issue at that. Maybe I'm not the best reader, but I also found this book to be an easy read. That's saying a lot as I am usually a slow reader and often enough I'll find myself going back to make sure I understood what I just read. The book also had a great effect on my emotions. I'm one for justice and when I see an injustice it makes me wanna open my mouth,...in a bad way. Yes, it makes me want to look up sexiest commercials and slogans and rip them apart to make myself feel better. The book did a good job on my feminist emotions thankfully, but the discussion in class brought those feeling back for the rest of the day! Thankfully I live in the 21st century, I'd have gotten my mouth sewn shut or my tongue cut out by now I'm sure had it been any other time frame....
The ending was.....it wasn't at at what I wanted. In fact, it was lmost like a 60's romance. Sure she was able to attand, but I still felt like the book did nothing but make the woman seem uneducated and rural. Even in the end, I felt there was no major climax for our main character, it was more about Simon....
Well, still a pretty good read, though I will point out that a guy might not get the same feelings as a girl from this book, but I think anyone can appreciate and enjoy the playful use of satirical banter Pratchett delivers every other paragraph.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Avatar Movie Review

Saw this was on the list and BOY do I wanna write a sentence or two about it.

Where should I start? The breath taking graphics? The epic music? The grade A actors? How about the horrible been-done-to-death clique ridden, stereotyping, racist, anti-military storyline? Oh? You want to hear about that? Ok, let's begin.

If you've ever seen any Indian movie (dances with wolves), or something like it (fern gully anyone?) be prepared for the same story, white men come, they want something from the land/want land, they see natives, natives see them, at first nice, then fighting, then there's a white guy who falls for the Indian T&A, and decides he is one of them/thinks he is one of them and tries to/saves girlfriend from bad redneck white guys that he used to hang with but never could get along with because he's so deep and handsome and they are ugly and violent wife beaters we all hate.

Cameron pulls the same strings as Titanic and then some, some of the oldest things in the book. Make the audience hate the villain, pull their heart strings, insert love story. After they make love, something horrible happens that puts the world chaos. Need I say more? Also, the anti-military, anti-technology, evil white guys, message is shoved down our throats throughout the whole film. Even though we have come so far in the film technology wise we are still horrible pillaging idiots that want nothing more then to take whatever we see like a small child? This is insulting, not only to modern day Americans but also to our military folk.

The whole movie was focused on one thing. Cool graphics and big explosions. They spent the whole time developing this when they should have been working harder on the plot and the 1 dimensional characters that were still at square one. Cameron did a great job making a movie that looked great and creating aliens that star war nerds everywhere would want to tap, but the story, stereotypical bad guys/ good guys and laughable dialogue made this movie the soul example of how Hollywood continues to move in the wrong direction.

Also, not awesome animation, but the idea is great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXraSkgssFk&feature=related

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

I've never read Neil Gaiman, but I sure will now! I really enjoyed his writing style, very different them what I'm used to. I've never read American Gods, but I figured that I should look at it after reading it's companion.

This was most definitely modern day fantasy at ti's best. A dysfunctional family, strange important things (a lime) and non-typical fantasy storytelling (African Gods are not Elves.)
At first I didn't know if I'd like a book revolving around African mythology, I like to revolve around the more western fantasy takes. But I was pleasantly surprised. In fact after the book I found myself looking up the Spider and his friends, er, enemies...

One thing that I was very surprised by, was the fact that, well, the characters were African American, but, you don't get told that right away, you figure it out, and boy, does it make you really think about yourself, do we assign a race to characters without even thinking? And let's face it, most fantasy books revolve around Caucasian characters, it's interesting that I would start off reading the book with this perception without even thinking about it. I'll think twice from now on. But again a clever thing you are Neil.

I found the relationships interesting, Neil focuses on the brother/son father relationships, yet, in this book, they are so alike yet so different. Charlie doesn't even know about his fathers death until he tries to invite him to his wedding (one he's not even crazy about) and thus finds out he's just died. This already shows us how the family is disconnected. Then, he finds out about an estranged "brother", this family has all readily got some interesting problems. The twists in this book made it very funny and witty at times. Spider pretty much tries to ruin Charlies life, the opposite of what we would expect from a brother, from "family". Neil really gets the reader to question relationships. The whole book in fact is like a family story, told in a humours way and mixed with a dash of fantasy to make it even more interesting. Neil does a great job playing with themes and makes this novel hard to classify. His tone is very simplistic, but somehow he gets you into the story.

Gaiman makes it easy for us to feel for Charlie. His whole life is "spun" out of control after his father's death. There's a lot of family themes here, for one, much like our ourselves, Charlie is always embarrassed by his father. We can relate because who hasn't been embarrassed by their parents before? Even when his father dies, Charlie is embarrassed by the way his father passed on. Flirting with girls in a bar. What a way to go. His father call thin Charlie, "Fat Charlie" and it sticks his whole life, a reminder of his father's embarrassing ways. We learn later of course why it stuck since his father was gifted with naming things (something he stole from Tiger) but regardless it reminds us of the pet names our parents use for us, Gaiman does a great job sneaking in things his readers can relate to and appreciate.

I really liked Anansi Boys, the writing style was so different, so "fresh" in my opinion. I'll track down some more Neil after this.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Golden Compass

It started with a wardrobe. Sound family? It should. Was it not a wardrobe that Lucy stepped into before finding herself in the land of Narnia? But instead we don't find a fantasy land, only old scholar robes, the sight of a poisoning, all by a girl named not Lucy, but Lyra. This is the beginning of a long fantasy tale with a not-so-normal fantasy feel.

Ok, I'll admit it, I really didn't like this book from the start. I love old school fantasy , kings, queens, dragons, elves, unicorns, you name it, I love to read it. Not something a lot of people like to admit to, but regardless, that's the stuff I enjoy reading. There were parts of the book that I did find refreshing, like the part with the Nun who decided she would rather enjoy sex then continue to lead a life of chastity for God, then goes on to enlighten Lyra about felling good about sex, and that "Sex is ok". Not something a lot of parents would agree with when letting 12 year olds read this. But I found it refreshing after growing up in a christen house hold, after going to church for so long and being told over and over that I'll burn in hell if I even think about letting a boy touch me before he puts a ring on my finger, so yes, this was refreshing. There was a good bit of anti-christen (more like anti-catholic) themes in this book, in fact, well, the church WAS the bad guy. This made things very interesting, so I kept reading. But the style of writing, felt, cold to me. After reading the Narnia series this was like being told everything I thought I knew about fantasy writing was dead wrong.

Aside from not really liking the writing style, I did kinda enjoy the story. It was well told and I did end up wanting to read the next of the series almost just to see what all the fuss was about. I also thought the idea of having the soul as a visible thing that one could touch and talk to was, well, really cool! The author did an awesome job with the demons, er, I mean, "deamons". With them he was able to enlighten the audience of the inner feelings, and true nature of a character, without having to actually explain what the character was thinking internally.

Another rather interesting thing that I did find in "typical fantasy" was the weak but powerful characters. The characters you would figure as powerful were weak in it's presence, or, the power was ulatmatly thier downfall, where as characters we would figure as weak, were very powerful, like Lyra. I thought this was interesting for such a backwards fantasy as the Golden Compass, that Phillip Pullman would take the Tolken route, Bilbo was no knight when we met him after all, nor was Frodo.

Friday, February 12, 2010

A Hobbits Tale

I've never read J. RR Tolken. Why? Because everyone I've ever met, who has read Tolken has told me his books were crock and extremely boring. I should have never listened. I couldn't stop once I started! The way Tolken tells a story is like he's telling it to me personally, like an old friend has stopped by and decided to have tea and talk about his adventures. I simply loved the omniscient narrator, he was funny when e needed to be, but serious when the time called for it. It made it all the more enjoyable simply for that reason!

At first I was rather annoyed by the number of characters, at first it was a pretty simple read, but I quickly figured out this was no kids book. Maybe I'm wrong, but a kid might no be able to keep up with his book. There are loads of characters, I lost track after awhile. But, regardless, I was still able to follow some how. I still can't figure it out. With so many characters, thirteen dwarves I believe? I was still able to semi figure them out and follow without getting too confused about who is where and when and what they are doing and how they are important to the story. I think this was achieved by Tolken's amazing ability to give every character a distinct attitude and personality. I was simply able to recognize characters at times by the tone of voice or how the narrator described their actions.

One thing that Tolken does that made the book a little boring to me was that the race of each creature ultamatly determined if they were "good" or "bad". This left little room for interesting character development in my opinion. There are not going to be any surprises if everyone is "good" no matter what, or "bad" regardless, no change of heart. The main characters do have a mind of their own, but Dwarfs love gold, Elves are good, trolls are bad, no matter what, that's just the way things are. Bilbo is really the only character that tests his race. The simple fact that he goes on an adventure for one thing, when all other hobbits would want nothing to do with an adventure. He also fools Gollum in a game of riddles by actually cheating, giving him a "riddle" that is not a riddle at all. Not very nice.

Bilbo's evoltuion throughout the book is evident in a number of clever ways. When we first begin, he is simply running away from "nasty adventures" but as the book progresses he becomes the Bilbo that Gandolf tells him he will find. His first encounter with trolls is clumsy and he is still in his early stages. He untimatly fails and his whole party is taken, (except him), and of course they are saved by Gandolf. They do find some weapons out of it, some of them named already (they find out in Rivendell) except Bilbo's whom he names after he kills the spider, "Sting". This was interesting to me since in a lot of heroic tales, the swords have names, like in King Arther; Excalibur. But they have names becuase they are linked with heroic deeds or epic quests, thus Bilbo does not name his sword until he feels he has done something worthy enough to name the sword.

I need to read the ring series now, but a hobbit's tale was great! Tolken was able to write something that anyone could enjoy without making it too childish or too adult. In fact, the idea of an adult in a child form is such a brilliant idea. It doesn't exclude anyone and allows a reader of any age to enjoy this story.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Wild Sheep Chase

The main character was a loser of sorts, but his dry humor and interesting internal thoughts made the read not only surreal, but interesting and unpredictable. The ending was, very, uneventful. I'll have to read "dance dance dance" after this.

I really enjoyed how clear everything was written. Descriptions were so stark, and forward, it made it easily to see what the main character saw, and to actually better understand his own feelings. I loved some of the descriptions, the the bit about fallen gingko leaves making the road golden for example. These simple descriptions were imaginative and the book was filled with them. Most of the characters are so average it made the story somewhat humorous and uneventful a times, as if the author wanted us to focus more on the little things. The main character's plain girlfriend with the "ears" that made sex amazing.

What i really loved, was the part about his ex wife. For some reason, I'm not sure why, I just really loved that chapter. The main character talks about when she leaves. Something this simple, was made into an iconic moment with just the way the words are put together. We aren't told what to think, ever. Murakami lets us think about the situation. He simply describes everything in plain simple language. The main character is retelling the day it happened, every little detail. The details, are what amazed me. Think about it, can you look back, at a time in your life when something amazing happened, or when something devastating happened, and recall that strangest details, things that, on an average day, you might never notice, but on those days, when something happens that is life changing, you remember so much. The main character just sits there, recalling all of this without even a second thought, building up to the final point, he talks about her things. he things, not her body, not her hair, not her eyes, but her things. The things in the bathroom, the things in the kitchen, those things. Her things. The main point of it all is that she takes everything. She takes even the pictures in every photo album they have. Leaving the author nothing for him to remember her by, giving him no reason to remember her, erasing herself from his life not in the way one would normally consider, she doesn't pack her things and go, no, she takes every memory the main character might have of her, every detail of her life from him. We never learn the main characters name, because Murakami doesn't really want us too, it's the details he wants us to look at. Just like the main character remembers the details on the day his wife left him, we remember the little details the author leaves for us to see using the words he writes. Amazing.

Murakami's writing style was very refreshing and simplistic. He focus us on things that really don't move the story forward. In fact, the plot moves simply because the author wanted it to, but it's not really an action story, nor a mystery, nor anything really. Just a collection of thoughts, or details, of memories, from the main character. Even the end really doesn't do much. It's not a huge deal, not really anything to get excited about. At first I was disappointed with the ending, but after thinking about it, it made sense, the whole book was like that.

I really enjoyed it for that reason alone. Those thoughts traveling in the mind of the main character makes the book what it is in my opinion. After reading, it makes me think twice about the little things. Like leaves or sunlight, or just the idea that we are simple things moving in a simple liner life line, doing human things, and not paying mind to where we stand at every moment of the day, or even paying much notice to the months that pass, the years that pass, when we are just working day to day and waiting for the next reason to move on to something new.

Ok, so the book was depressing, read it with that warning. Still a great book, but not one that will make you think about friendships and happy wonderful things. It's...Monotone.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Interview with a Vampire

Interview with a Vampire. The title is pretty self explanatory. I found it at first, as boring as it sounded, but as I read I started to get more and more involved. It could have been the interesting male on male action (no hard stuff here, just some light touches and steamy descriptions). Or maybe it was the characters? Regardless, it was a great read, my favorite in the list so far.

I never really enjoyed vampire novels or stories, but I really love the way that Rice presents them. All the cross, holy water, wooden stick in the chest stuff was getting old, and Rice did a great job making a "new" vampire. In fact, sometimes I started to wonder how similar her vampire was to the twilight vampire. Come to think of it I bet I could really make an argument that Edward is Louis from the interview series. They are both depressed enough.

There seemed to me to be a lot of "searching" in this book. In fact, I'd like to argue that the book had lots of these "searching" themes, a leit motif, if you will. Louis and Claudia search for "others" and for the knowledge they posses. In fact, the "knowledge" they seek is a mere illusion, a lie I suspect, that Lestat comes up with to keep Claudia and Louis around. Though, it still didn't save him from being "killed" numerous times. The "old world" vampires also offer no such "knowledge" and this search ultimately ends up with the destruction of Louis's last human impulse and care, when Claudia and Madeleine are killed by sun light, and Louis is kept alive by Armand.

There seemed to me to be a great deal of homosexuality in this book. Though, it was very sub-par, and not touched on a great deal. Rice's vampires have no need for sexual encounters, nor do they know the human emotion. I think this is why Louis was so fascinating to Armand, since Louis did "feel" for the humans he killed, unlike most vampires. It was also interesting to me that both Louis and Lestat never really traveled with an adult female. This also added to the small hints of homosexuality, even when Lestat and Louis do have a female companion (Claudia) she is a small child. When she and Lestat are out of the picture Louis turns to Armand, and they travel a little while together, but Louis never gets over Claudia and ends up finding out that immortality is best lived alone. Claudia was the thing that kept him "going", it kept him "attached" to his human ways and to his new immortal life, one that he slips away from when she's gone. He turns into a wanderer of sorts, no longer attached to anything.

One thing about Rice's vampires that struck me as interesting was that they were not these powerful things that ravaged the land and were known and feared by the villagers, but that they were more narcissistic new-age characters. Louis was this self-loathing thing, who brooded over the lives he took. If anything this was a coming-of-age story vampire style. A lose of "innocence". Throughout the book, we see Louis born into vampire-ism, and his growing into it. He slowly learns that he really is no longer human, he is dead. He learns to love blood, to enjoy it, and slowly loses his human innocence and guilt. He becomes an "adult" vampire as he learns throughout the book.

I really enjoyed this book and will look more into the series.

Interview with A Vampire Movie

So the movie was really pretty good. But I was very confused half the time by the huge story differences. Lestat's father gets cut out altogether, which, to me made his character different slightly. I liked that he cared about his father in the book, even though he was a vampire, he still tried hard to take care of his parent. This gave him an acceptable motif to turn Louis into a vampire, so he could take over the estate and have a place for his elderly father to reside. The movie version just made him out to be greedy, not enough of a motif for me, at least, not strong enough. Then there was Louis. His madness at his brothers death, and the thought that he was the cuase, made for again, a much better explanation of character and motif. In the movie we are quickly told he had a wife and child die? I guess it works, since Claudia could be seen as the child he so loved and adored in human life. I did like the actor choice for the characters though. Who wouldn't want to see Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise breathing hot and heavy on top of one another? Lovely.

I didn't much like Tom Crusie at first for Lestat. Though, at the end of the movie, I had changed my mind. Tom did a pretty nice job pulling off Lestats crazy mannerisms, though, then again, Tom Crusie is pretty cra.....well, reagardless he did a great job.

Now, my favorite choice by far, was Claudia. Kirstein Dunst was an excellent choice. She was much like the Claudia I imagined from the book, plus she did an amazing job acting. She was seriously creepy at parts. I also loved how well she played the part of Claudia as an older woman traped in the body of a child. She was very believable and even her pronounciation was exceptional.

The movie did a nice job of building the characters, without making it boring. I did feel at times that the bloody parts were a little, too much, almost cheesy, but that didn't hinder the ability of the books creepy factor. The part in which Armand's band of vampires feast in front of a live audience was really spot on. That part made the movie in my opinion.

Of course, I still liked the book much more then the movie, but it's hard to beat someones own interpretations. One character I was very displeased with was the "boy" or Daniel Molloy, interviewing Louis throughout the book. I had thought of him as much younger in the book for some reason, in the movie he just seemed much too old. Christian Slater, did do a nice job of making him seem like a loser at the end, power hungry and greedy for eternal life. But I could never get over the actor choice. The ending of the movie was great though, I already loved the character of Lestat, but they made him a pretty awesome bad-ass. The lines he says when he hears the tape playing of Louis were great, "Oh Louis, still whining about everything I see." Then he drives off across the bridge in a convertible with his golden hair, and his...ahem. Anyway, great movie, I strongly suggest anyone who's read the book watch the movie, not a disappointment.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Pride, Prejudice and zombies

I have to admit, I had no idea what to expect with this book, and I had never read the original "Pride and prejudice". Well, it was, how can I say this, boring and interesting at the same time. 
I hated being "one of those" people, but I admit to sometimes skimming conversations to get to
the parts with zombies. I also found the score of characters difficult to keep up with, not to mention the on going
introduction of more characters throughout the novel. Regardless, it was an interesting read. I wonder how much
of it was actually written by Seth Grahame-Smith. I'm sure most of it was altered, since crime fighting, zombie killing, machine of women were very non-existent in the 19th century. 

After reading through the book, I found the general lack of care for those rendered to the zombies laughable. In fact, I thought Seth Grahame-Smith did a marvelous job with highlighting the satirical undertones of the original, (which I'm sure much of it is due in part to the original author), only that Seth Grahame-Smith sort of, throws in zombies and huge gore-feasts to keep things interesting. I almost wonder if there is hidden meaning in the addition of zombies, or if they were simply added to give the novel a "lift" for the younger and or modern audience. 

Some highlights of the book came from both the original author and Seth Grahame-Smith. I loved the wittiness that Jane Austen brought to the table. Her satirical undertones about social views and marriage were always obvious. The idea proposed by her is that, women, everywhere, young or old, want nothing more then then to marry. She also (I'm not sure if this was her, but I doubt it was Seth) enlightens us and pokes fun of the "typical woman" stereotype of her era. In fact, when the idea of the perfect woman is brought up in the book, the men and women of high ranks and middle class both agree that she must have a laundry list of things she simply must know and do. A couple of things being playing an instrument, being good as crafts, knowing how to knit/sew, be proper at all times no matter what, have a pleasant nature at all times, and be practiced in the deadly arts (thanks Seth). Elizabeth is almost like the "normal" woman in the book. Though not normal in the way that she kills zombies. She is intelligent and lovely, but uses nether to look for a marriage partner. In fact, it shocks the other characters that she does not look for marriage and she is excused as being "abnormal" because of it. It makes me wonder if Austen created her for the sheer excuse of having a high contrast character. It makes sense that she would end up with Darcy, since he was also some what of a high contrast character due to his rude nature. 

Now that I've read the book, I think I may have to watch the movie. I always love to compare the two. It's also rather fun, seeing the characters you imagined in a way that someone else imagined them (how they sound, what they look like). I'd also like to see how gory it would be. I was somewhat sad that I never got to enjoy the illustrations in the book (got a nice free pdf. of it online since there was only ONE at the library and it was always being read). But even without the art, the book did an awesome job describing the gore factor, but it made little sense next to the more delicate words of Jane Austen. In fact it was sometimes easier to skim ahead to the zombie parts because the English used would suddenly change drastically. I thought this was an interesting juxtapose of old and new. Speaking of which, I had a hard time believing some parts, aside from the zombies (HA). For example, the girls studied in China? They were Shaolin-trained killers? At one point there are ninjas fightinElizabeth, she even wields a Katana! Oh! Let's not forget the throwing stars. Was that stuff even around back then?

 Regardless, still an enjoyable read, makes me wonder what Jane Austen would think if she could see what has become of her novel. 


Thursday, January 14, 2010

Frankenstein

I entered the book already feeling pretty sheepish and ignorant simply because Frankenstein is so immersed in modern day fiction and yet I haven't ever actually read the book nor had the interest to. What is more surprising is that I'm most likely not the only one. Kids and adults alike probably know the name Frankenstein as sharply as Mickey Mouse, but I can bet that they too have never read the book and don't actually know the real story. So, you can guess how shocked I was when it was nothing like I expected.

I'll begin by saying that the fact that Victor was around my own age was a huge eye opener. No old men or middle aged mad scientists here. Victor was a KID. At first it was a hindrance for me, it made the story seem less believable. But after I continued reading it become more clear. If Victor had been older, then the way he acted, plus the things he did, may have been less true to character. His age really spelled it out better. He was a selfish bratty kid, who like any teen, rushed into a relationship with science, decided to mess around with her without thinking, and then found himself a young father. In fact he even considers his creation an "abortion" from the start. He's a dead beat dad. Was Shelly trying to convey something here about her own life experiences? Hmm? Her husband was pretty young, selfish, and not a good father (he did run off with her leaving his pregnant wife and kids). Perhaps she even implanted herself into this story through the characters as most of them relate to her life. She is somewhat of a feminist, but her female characters don't really do all that much and generally just sit in the background most of the book. The male characters play much larger roles and often enough cause disaster to the females, whom simply take it without saying much. For example, Justine dies because of William's murder (even though it was the monster and Victor could have stood in). Then Elizabeth dies because Victor is too full of himself to realize that the monster isn't looking to kill him, but his bride. (I also thought this was funny because it is so typical of modern day horror flicks and books, the "couple" always splits apart at one point and then one of them dies, though now-a-days the "virgin" or "good girl" stays alive most of the time, the "sluts" or "bad boyfriends" are the ones that die). Also, we can even compare Elizabeth to the author, since she almost dies of scarlet fever and her mother decides to try and help, then ends up "dying in her place". Sort of like Shelly's own mother, who died a little while after she was born.

I ended this book feeling sorry for the monster and hating Victor. The monster kills people close to Victor, ok, that's a bummer, but what does Victor do about it? Nothing! In fact, it's only after the one person he vows to protect dies that he decides to grow some and act responsible. Well,.... sort of. He ends up searching for the monster in order to kill it. Way to go Victor. Where's the love? Even in the end, when the Monster is seen standing over Victors corpse, it still loves and wishes for acceptance from it's creator. Who's the real monster here? Victor could have stopped all of his woes had he just accepted what he had done. Instead he put everyone who loved him at risk KNOWINGLY in order to keep his selfish pride in check.

And that brings me back to the beginning of this all. Frankenstein is a monster everyone knows, but
it's not the creature that should be put to that name,
but the human,Victor Frankenstein, that should be the face of the
"monster" from this story.


Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Reading!

Finishing up Frankenstein! A good read. I've never read the book, so this was rather exciting! The letters at the beginning to the last chapter was quite the adventure! More posts on the book soon :)!