Death's End
Liu Cixin
Death’s End is a spectacular conclusion to the acclaimed Chinese sci-fi trilogy, Remembrance Of Earth’s Past, by Liu Cixin.
There have been instances where finales have been disappointments after a long and compelling build-up. Not in this case. All the pieces come together and Death’s End is the appropriate culmination to an incredibly inventive and brilliantly imaginative series.
In Death’s End, the aliens from Trisolaris are living in peaceful co-existence with Earth. The Trisolarans were first introduced in the first book, The Three-Body Problem (published in English in 2014). There, the peculiarities of their world, which had three suns, were sketched out.
In the next instalment, The Dark Forest (published in English in 2015), they were charging towards Earth bent on destruction.
In Death’s End, the apparent peace both races enjoy lulls Earth into a false sense of security. But the death of a key character from book two sets in motion a chain of events that leaves humanity in crisis and facing the prospect of colonisation.
The sheer scope of this novel is astounding. In terms of timeline, it stretches from the present era to 17 billion years from the beginning of time. The story takes place on Earth and in the furthest reaches of space.
Such an expanse of time and space is daunting, but Liu gives us a single protagonist to guide us through it all.
New character Chinese aerospace engineer Cheng Xin is the heart of this epic tale as she hops from era to era, barely ageing, thanks to the wonders of hibernation technology.
A decision she makes plunges Earth into peril and the guilt almost crushes her, but she also turns out to be a pivotal figure whose choices the plot hinges on.
The twists and turns of her relationship with her long-time admirer Yun Tianming also have far-ranging consequences for the destiny of humanity.
The pacing is crisp, given the amount of ground the story covers. The reader is hooked on wanting to know the fates of Cheng and Yun, and, well, humankind.
Along the way, one is confronted with intriguing ideas about four-dimensional space and light-speed travel, abstract concepts which Liu makes relevant and urgent in the context of the story.
Impressively, Liu even works in three highly symbolic fairy tales in which clues for Earth’s survival are hidden in plain sight.
This is a rich work packed with ideas and one that continually manages to surprise the reader. On top of which, there are characters here that one grows to care for, people who are flawed and have needs and desires and yet must shoulder the burden of Earth’s survival.
It is the rare writer who can combine hardcore science, memorable characters and compelling storytelling together into such a satisfying whole.
For someone who has read sci-fi exclusively from a Western point of view, Liu’s Asia- and China-centric stories are a breath of fresh air, as is his ability to create strong and complex female characters, such as astrophysicist Ye Wenjie, who initiates contact with Trisolaris in The Three-Body Problem, and Cheng in Death’s End.
His achievement has been recognised with a prestigious Hugo Award for the first book, making him the first Asian to win that accolade. Come August, he could possibly be the first Asian to win that award twice.
(ST)
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Monday, June 06, 2011
Finishing The Hat
By Stephen Sondheim
American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim is a towering figure in the genre of musical theatre. His body of work is held in such high esteem that a 1994 New York Magazine cover story even asked, “Is Stephen Sondheim God?”
He started out as a lyricist for the hit shows West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959) and went on to pen both the music and words for influential works such as Company (1970), which explored modern-day relationships, and Sweeney Todd (1979), whose unlikely protagonist was a murderous barber.
What this volume does is to collect his lyrical output from 1954’s Saturday Night through to 1981’s Merrily We Roll Along. As the subtitle spells it out, the lyrics are presented with “attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines and anecdotes”.
Sondheim has three key principles that he constantly reiterates: God is in the details, less is more and content dictates form.
For example, he points out that in the song Losing My Mind, the line “To think about you” is more effective than “And think about you” as it takes a character deeper into her obsession.
Not that Finishing The Hat is insufferably self-congratulatory. If anything, Sondheim is his own harshest critic and often points out what he considers to be flaws in his work.
He also takes potshots at some unexpected composers and lyricists, including Oscar Hammerstein II. Not only was he one-half of Rodgers and Hammerstein, the team behind South Pacific (1949) and The Sound Of Music (1959), he was also a mentor and surrogate father to Sondheim.
While acknowledging his debt to the man, Sondheim calls him out for redundancy and sometimes getting carried away with pretty images.
There are also juicy bits of trivia and arresting anecdotes scattered throughout the volume from the fact that he has stockpiled a lifetime’s supply of Blackwings pencils and yellow legal pads to Hermione Gingold’s surprising audition for A Little Night Music (1973).
This is essential reading for fans and anyone with an interest in the process of artistic creation. Sondheim’s musicals are, of course, essential for everyone.
If you like this, read: Art Isn’t Easy: The Theater Of Stephen Sondheim by Joanne Gordon. An academic look at Stephen Sondheim’s musicals.
(ST)
Monday, December 06, 2010
Started Early, Took My Dog
Kate Atkinson
Crime can pay. It certainly has for Atkinson.
The British writer’s first book, Behind The Scenes At The Museum, which delved into the family history of a middle-class Englishwoman, won her the 1995 Whitbread Book Of The Year. But it seems that she has found her true calling with detective novels, beginning with Case Histories in 2004.
Her speciality is in charmingly flawed characters who are all too real in their foibles and yet retain a deep sense of morality.
There is ex-detective Tracy Waterhouse who indulges in food to fill the emptiness. Over the years, she has attended more funerals than weddings: “Murder victims mostly. Never been to a christening. Said something about your life, didn’t it?”
Then there is Jackson Brodie, cop-turned-private detective: “It used to be that his bark was worse than his bite, now it was the other way round.”
He is snooping around on behalf of a client trying to find her birth parents.
For Tracy and Jackson, their central core of goodness sees them taking on unexpected responsibilities one fateful day.
A third key character is Tilly, an elderly actress beginning to lose her grip on reality.
Add to the mix an old murder case which continues to cast a sinister pall over events unfolding in the present.
Atkinson has framed the novel thus: The paths of all three criss-cross at the beginning of the book and again at the end. Even though they seem set on a collision course after the first momentous meetings, it is safe to say that you would not be able to see the turns the story would need to take in order for that to happen.
In contrast to the late Stieg Larsson’s exhaustively detailed plot-boilers, Atkinson’s novels use plot as a device to get under the skin of superbly drawn characters who are at once tough and vulnerable.
The ending is a teaser which indicates that Atkinson is not quite done with Jackson or Tracy just yet. Which is great news for readers since they will not be either by the time they finish the book.
If you like this, read: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (2005, $15.27, Bookdepository.co.uk). In his first outing, investigator Jackson Brodie joins the dots among three apparently unrelated tragedies.
(ST)
Monday, March 08, 2010
Resistance, Book 1
Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis
In Quentin Tarantino’s film, Inglourious Basterds (2009), the resistance effort against the Nazis during World War II was a colourful and violent campaign which involved double-crossing agents, scalping and blowing things up.
The resistance recorded here is at the other end of the spectrum, with ordinary folks risking their lives with acts of quiet heroism.
Paul Tessier and his sister Marie are living in a village in the “free” zone in the south of France, carved out after an armistice agreement between the French and the Germans on June 22, 1940.
The shadow of the war looms large over their childhood and encroaches directly on their lives when the parents of their Jewish friend Henri Levy disappear without warning one day.
The Tessiers come up with a plan to keep Henri safe from the Germans and this leads to Paul and Marie’s eventual involvement in the underground resistance movement.
By looking at the horrors of war through a child’s point of view, writer Carla Jablonski brings added poignancy to a subject that can seem overly familiar.
The frame of reference is strengthened by a clever device, the incorporation of sketches by the fictional Paul into the narrative.
Ironically, those rough drawings end up being more evocative than the rest of the artwork by the self-taught Leland Purvis.
Faces, in particular the eyes, are not his strong suit and this distances one from the rather straightforward, if well- meaning, story.
Jablonski’s note at the end makes the point that hindsight is always perfect and terms such as resistor and collaborator were much less clear-cut then.
Instead of black and white, there were ambiguous shades of grey and it was by no means obvious what was the right thing to do.
If only the graphic novel had captured more of this moral complexity.
If you like this, read: The deeply personal and moving Alan’s War by Emmanuel Guibert, about a young American soldier’s experiences during World War II.
(ST)
Sunday, January 03, 2010
The Wild Things
Dave Eggers
Book adaptations of films are often rushed hack jobs with a shelf-life as short as that of the movie’s run. Not this one.
It all started with Maurice Sendak’s seminal 1963 children’s picture book Where The Wild Things Are, about the adventures of a young boy named Max.
That was adapted into a well-received feature film by director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, 1999), who co-wrote the script with Dave Eggers, author of the feted memoir A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (2000).
Which brings us to this book, which takes the story in the movie and develops it in different directions. Max here is “some combination of Maurice’s Max, Spike’s Max, and the Max of my own boyhood”, explains Eggers in his acknowledgements.
Happily, all that pedigree has led to a worthy work in the notoriously tricky genre of child-centric fiction. It is often all too easy for writers to be condescending or be guilty of simplifying their protagonists, thoughtlessly equating childhood and childishness.
The best books, however, tap into the rich emotional lives of youngsters and Eggers’ portrayal of seven- year-old Max has the ring of truth about it as the boy struggles with an often confusing world that leaves him feeling powerless.
Dressed down by his mother for deliberately flooding his older sister’s room and frustrated by what he feels to be the injustice of it all, Max dons a wolf costume and sails away to a strange island.
He finds a group of rambunctious giant beasts there and declares to them that he is their king. They could be seen as the id of the psyche made manifest and one of them declares: “We want what we want. We want all the things we want. Oh, and we want no more want.”
Max has to think of a way to satisfy all these desires and live up to his responsibility as king in a chaotic world that is sometimes frightening, sometimes exhilarating and often unpredictable.
It turns out that growing up can be the wildest adventure.
If you like this, read: Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. This 1993 Booker Prize winner looks at the world of Barrytown, north Dublin, through the eyes of its 10-year-old protagonist.
(ST)
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Adrian Mole The Prostrate Years
By Sue Townsend
Dear Diary,
Remember when we first met Adrian? The year was 1982 and we had inadvertently stumbled upon the secret diary of his 13¾-year-old self. How we laughed when we read about his futile attempts to paint his bedroom black as the Noddy wallpaper kept showing through.
We continued to faithfully follow his exploits as he went through his Growing Pains (1984), which charted the ups and downs of his relationship with one Pandora Braithwaite.
Alas, we drifted apart after that and all through the Wilderness Years (1993) and the Cappuccino Years (1999), our paths never crossed.
Running into him again after all these years brings both a deep sense of joy and a small jolt of shock to realise that he is now on the cusp of 40.
Some things have not changed. He still has literary aspirations and is now writing Plague!, a play set in the medieval countryside, for the local theatre group. But while illusions of grandeur were touching in a young boy, they seem a bit sad and pretentious in a grown man living in a converted pigsty.
Adrian may have his faults, including an inability to see the glaringly obvious, but he is also loyal, generous and kind-hearted. He continues to make friends with lonely pensioners and is unfailingly decent to those he knows, including the unapologetically rascally Bernard Hopkins, “the bookseller from hell”.
Meanwhile, he has to deal with his stubborn five-year-old daughter Gracie, unhappy wife Daisy and other assorted family drama, all the while still carrying a torch for Pandora, now an abrasive politician.
When he is diagnosed with prostate cancer, he faces the prospect of death with a poignantly turbulent mix of bravado, stoicism, fear, panic and petulance. Adrian Mole might be down, but we can never count him out.
P.S: If you like this, read: The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend and revisit the agony and the ecstasy of Moley’s teenage years.
(ST)
Sunday, November 01, 2009
In the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles
Nigel Barley
The loveliest surprise you get from reading this book is perhaps learning that the founder of modern Singapore was a humanist and a humanitarian.
In stark contrast to most of his Western peers, he was concerned about the well-being of the local peoples and sought to implement in South-east Asia measures – land reform, abolition of the government licence for gambling – that would benefit them.
More proof of his genuine interest in them: Raffles was fluent in Malay.
On top of his administrative work in the region, he was also a dedicated scholar. He published History Of Java in 1817, collected specimens to take back to London and gave his name to the Rafflesia parasitic flower.
Nigel Barley writes: “His pride is that of a true botanist. No one else could be as proud of being identified with such a hideous growth that stinks of rotten carrion.”
All together now: For he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny.
But as Barley finds on his travels to the places that Raffles had been to – Penang, Malacca, Jakarta, Solo, Yogyakarta, Bengkulu, Bali, Singapore – Raffles is reviled as much as he is venerated, or even largely forgotten. At times, he is simply lumped together as part of a wicked colonial past.
There is no doubt whose side the intrepid writer is on, as he draws parallels between his modern-day travels and Raffles’ 19th-century travails. His engaging and observant account is part travelogue and part detective story, tracing what remains of Raffles’ legacy at each stop.
He also makes excellent use of contemporary third-party accounts, weaving in impressions of the man by Mr Munshi Abdullah, a Malay teacher. There is also a sprinkling of passages in Raffles’ and Lady Raffles’ own words.
One wishes Barley had spent more time in Singapore and served up more of his piercing observations, which are limited to a few choice topics such as nationalistic songs and a trip to Raffles Institution.
On a separate note, more attention should have been paid to the text, which is riddled with bizarre punctuation and spelling errors.
The scholar in Raffles would not have approved.
If you like this, read: Letters And Books Of Sir Stamford Raffles And Lady Raffles by The Tang Holdings Collection and John Bastin. Learn about the man in his own words from letters he wrote to his mother, cousin and uncle from 1808 to 1826.
Nigel Barley
The loveliest surprise you get from reading this book is perhaps learning that the founder of modern Singapore was a humanist and a humanitarian.
In stark contrast to most of his Western peers, he was concerned about the well-being of the local peoples and sought to implement in South-east Asia measures – land reform, abolition of the government licence for gambling – that would benefit them.
More proof of his genuine interest in them: Raffles was fluent in Malay.
On top of his administrative work in the region, he was also a dedicated scholar. He published History Of Java in 1817, collected specimens to take back to London and gave his name to the Rafflesia parasitic flower.
Nigel Barley writes: “His pride is that of a true botanist. No one else could be as proud of being identified with such a hideous growth that stinks of rotten carrion.”
All together now: For he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny.
But as Barley finds on his travels to the places that Raffles had been to – Penang, Malacca, Jakarta, Solo, Yogyakarta, Bengkulu, Bali, Singapore – Raffles is reviled as much as he is venerated, or even largely forgotten. At times, he is simply lumped together as part of a wicked colonial past.
There is no doubt whose side the intrepid writer is on, as he draws parallels between his modern-day travels and Raffles’ 19th-century travails. His engaging and observant account is part travelogue and part detective story, tracing what remains of Raffles’ legacy at each stop.
He also makes excellent use of contemporary third-party accounts, weaving in impressions of the man by Mr Munshi Abdullah, a Malay teacher. There is also a sprinkling of passages in Raffles’ and Lady Raffles’ own words.
One wishes Barley had spent more time in Singapore and served up more of his piercing observations, which are limited to a few choice topics such as nationalistic songs and a trip to Raffles Institution.
On a separate note, more attention should have been paid to the text, which is riddled with bizarre punctuation and spelling errors.
The scholar in Raffles would not have approved.
If you like this, read: Letters And Books Of Sir Stamford Raffles And Lady Raffles by The Tang Holdings Collection and John Bastin. Learn about the man in his own words from letters he wrote to his mother, cousin and uncle from 1808 to 1826.
(ST)
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Glass Room
by Simon MawerThe Glass Room is an exercise in audacity. Instead of a conventional living room defined by walls, there is merely space and light enclosed by plates of glass.
It is the piece de resistance of a house that the German architect Rainer von Abt builds for Czech newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer.
The whole-hearted embrace of modernity and the idea that one can shape one’s future seems incredibly naive, though, as the political maelstrom in 1930s Europe begins to churn.
Viktor is Jewish and Liesel Aryan, and when the Nazis sweep into power, they are forced to leave their Czech home and go into exile.
Mawer, however, is not interested in simply recounting the story of the Landauers against the backdrop of World War II. Instead, he treats the Glass Room as a central character as it passes through the hands of the Nazis to the socialist Czechs after the war.
The “cool, calm rationality” of the space is a stark contrast to the “irrationality that human beings would impose upon it”.
The clean, crisp prose here mirrors the modernist ideals of the Landauer House.
But there is nothing sterile or cold about Mawer’s writing and he conveys the emotions roiling just beneath the surface that threaten to, and sometimes do, crack the placid facade.
By setting the final, moving scene in the titular space, he imbues it with an unexpectedly tender note of benediction and grace, perhaps the most audacious qualities ascribed to a room of glass in the novel.
If you like this, read: To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Woolf’s challenging exploration of childhood, adult relationships and the passage of time spans the period of World War I.
(ST)
Sunday, September 06, 2009
The Garden of Last Days
Andre Dubus III
Paging director Alejandro Inarritu. If you are looking to make a new movie, this story could be right up your alley.
The Garden Of Last Days weaves together several narrative threads – a device Inarritu used in 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006) – to tackles issues such as terrorism, parenthood and gender relations from the perspectives of several protagonists.
April is a protective young mother who becomes a stripper to pay the bills, Bassam an enigmatic cash-rich foreigner on a holy mission and AJ a short- tempered fellow with a large chip on his shoulder against the world.
Their paths cross in sometimes unexpected ways at the Puma Club for Men when April is forced to take her three- year-old daughter to work.
The use of short chapters and the constant shifting of viewpoints make for a compelling page-turner and suggest a ready-made cinematic sensibility.
But despite Andre Dubus III’s efforts, his characters manage to feel only slightly more sturdy than cardboard. Perhaps this is because they seem vaguely familiar, as if one has encountered them in previous books or films.
Some of the novel’s energy also dissipates towards the end and the writing starts to come across a little repetitive.
Still, this is an ambitious effort and the author’s refusal to give us neat, tidy endings and easy, comforting answers is to be lauded.
If you like this, read: House Of Sand And Fog by Andre Dubus III. The battle for ownership of a house between a young woman and an immigrant Iranian family was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film.
Andre Dubus III
Paging director Alejandro Inarritu. If you are looking to make a new movie, this story could be right up your alley.
The Garden Of Last Days weaves together several narrative threads – a device Inarritu used in 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006) – to tackles issues such as terrorism, parenthood and gender relations from the perspectives of several protagonists.
April is a protective young mother who becomes a stripper to pay the bills, Bassam an enigmatic cash-rich foreigner on a holy mission and AJ a short- tempered fellow with a large chip on his shoulder against the world.
Their paths cross in sometimes unexpected ways at the Puma Club for Men when April is forced to take her three- year-old daughter to work.
The use of short chapters and the constant shifting of viewpoints make for a compelling page-turner and suggest a ready-made cinematic sensibility.
But despite Andre Dubus III’s efforts, his characters manage to feel only slightly more sturdy than cardboard. Perhaps this is because they seem vaguely familiar, as if one has encountered them in previous books or films.
Some of the novel’s energy also dissipates towards the end and the writing starts to come across a little repetitive.
Still, this is an ambitious effort and the author’s refusal to give us neat, tidy endings and easy, comforting answers is to be lauded.
If you like this, read: House Of Sand And Fog by Andre Dubus III. The battle for ownership of a house between a young woman and an immigrant Iranian family was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film.
(ST)
Sunday, August 02, 2009
The New Silk Road
By Ben Simpfendorfer
The jade, silk and musk that used to be plied along the trading routes between East and West have been replaced by toys, office equipment and electronic Qurans.
Ben Simpfendorfer sees this as evidence that the Arab world and China are rediscovering each other after a long dormant period and that this could come at the expense of the complacent West.
His achievement is to take seemingly disparate threads and weave them together into a persuasive coherent tapestry he christens the new silk road.
For example, the terrorist attacks of Sept 11 and America’s response, China’s growth and thirst for oil, and the resulting spike in Arab wealth funds are just a few of the factors bringing about a “historic global rebalancing”.
While there is a good grasp of the big geopolitical picture, it is in the details that Simpfendorfer excels.
His credentials as an Arabic- and Mandarin-speaking banker stand him in good stead as he travels to Shenzhen and Yiwu in China, and Cairo, Damascus, Dubai and Riyadh in the Middle East to talk to traders, officials and students.
While this tract serves as a wake-up call to the West, Simpfendorfer is also careful not to draw sweeping conclusions.
Yes, there are factors drawing the Arab world to China but the area is not a monolithic whole and different countries are responding differently as some have had stronger ties to the United States recently.
The tapestry of the future geopolitical economy of the world is still being woven.
If you like this, check out: www.silkroadeconomy.com. Simpfendorfer’s blog includes a posting dated April this year on Singapore’s Lesson For Dubai.
By Ben Simpfendorfer
The jade, silk and musk that used to be plied along the trading routes between East and West have been replaced by toys, office equipment and electronic Qurans.
Ben Simpfendorfer sees this as evidence that the Arab world and China are rediscovering each other after a long dormant period and that this could come at the expense of the complacent West.
His achievement is to take seemingly disparate threads and weave them together into a persuasive coherent tapestry he christens the new silk road.
For example, the terrorist attacks of Sept 11 and America’s response, China’s growth and thirst for oil, and the resulting spike in Arab wealth funds are just a few of the factors bringing about a “historic global rebalancing”.
While there is a good grasp of the big geopolitical picture, it is in the details that Simpfendorfer excels.
His credentials as an Arabic- and Mandarin-speaking banker stand him in good stead as he travels to Shenzhen and Yiwu in China, and Cairo, Damascus, Dubai and Riyadh in the Middle East to talk to traders, officials and students.
While this tract serves as a wake-up call to the West, Simpfendorfer is also careful not to draw sweeping conclusions.
Yes, there are factors drawing the Arab world to China but the area is not a monolithic whole and different countries are responding differently as some have had stronger ties to the United States recently.
The tapestry of the future geopolitical economy of the world is still being woven.
If you like this, check out: www.silkroadeconomy.com. Simpfendorfer’s blog includes a posting dated April this year on Singapore’s Lesson For Dubai.
(ST)
Sunday, July 05, 2009
The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet
Reif Larsen
Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a master mapmaker and he has just won the Smithsonian Institution’s prestigious Baird Award for the popular advancement of science. Based in North Dakota, he decides to undertake the long journey to Washington DC for the ceremony.
Oh, T.S. is also only 12 and he is sneaking off without his parents’ knowledge.
Thus begins a good, old-fashioned adventure yarn as T.S. embarks on an epic journey by train that has close shaves, musings on genealogy, geography and Newton’s laws of motion and a helpful hobo hotline.
Reif Larsen’s debut novel is distinguished by its unusual presentation. Almost every page has a lengthy aside with an explanatory drawing illustrated by T.S. The titles alone – Father Drinks Whiskey With A Sensational Degree of Regularity, When Did A Short Become A Pant? (And Other Modern Dilemmas) – give a sense of their entertaining quirkiness.
While they inevitably break the rhythm of the main narrative, they also offer insight into how T.S. thinks and how he deals with the world at large and with the death of his younger brother through his maps.
There is one grouse though. T.S. does not quite sound like a 12 year old, even if he is a precocious pre-teen. Lines such as “Even now I occasionally wet the bed, and I still maintained an irrational fear of porridge” sound jarring instead.
Larsen adds another voice to the novel by having T.S. read from his mother’s journal in which she imagines the life story of her great-grandmother-in-law. While the tale is compelling in its own right, the voices of T.S. and his mother are not distinct from each other.
The flaws, however, are not enough to derail this unusual, absorbing tale of a young man’s literal and figurative journey.
If you like this, read: Lost In A Good Book by Jasper Fforde. Fforde’s hilarious Thursday Next literary detective series uses footnotes as a communication device (the footnoterphone) between the main character’s universe and the fictional bookworld.
(ST)
Reif Larsen
Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a master mapmaker and he has just won the Smithsonian Institution’s prestigious Baird Award for the popular advancement of science. Based in North Dakota, he decides to undertake the long journey to Washington DC for the ceremony.
Oh, T.S. is also only 12 and he is sneaking off without his parents’ knowledge.
Thus begins a good, old-fashioned adventure yarn as T.S. embarks on an epic journey by train that has close shaves, musings on genealogy, geography and Newton’s laws of motion and a helpful hobo hotline.
Reif Larsen’s debut novel is distinguished by its unusual presentation. Almost every page has a lengthy aside with an explanatory drawing illustrated by T.S. The titles alone – Father Drinks Whiskey With A Sensational Degree of Regularity, When Did A Short Become A Pant? (And Other Modern Dilemmas) – give a sense of their entertaining quirkiness.
While they inevitably break the rhythm of the main narrative, they also offer insight into how T.S. thinks and how he deals with the world at large and with the death of his younger brother through his maps.
There is one grouse though. T.S. does not quite sound like a 12 year old, even if he is a precocious pre-teen. Lines such as “Even now I occasionally wet the bed, and I still maintained an irrational fear of porridge” sound jarring instead.
Larsen adds another voice to the novel by having T.S. read from his mother’s journal in which she imagines the life story of her great-grandmother-in-law. While the tale is compelling in its own right, the voices of T.S. and his mother are not distinct from each other.
The flaws, however, are not enough to derail this unusual, absorbing tale of a young man’s literal and figurative journey.
If you like this, read: Lost In A Good Book by Jasper Fforde. Fforde’s hilarious Thursday Next literary detective series uses footnotes as a communication device (the footnoterphone) between the main character’s universe and the fictional bookworld.
(ST)
The Vanishing Face Of Gaia
James Lovelock
Mother Nature knows best, but what is best for her is not necessarily what is best for humanity. This is the alarm bell sounded by the 90-year-old scientist James Lovelock in his latest book on Gaia.
He first proposed the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960s. It posited that the life forms and physical components of Earth form a complex interacting system that maintains conditions on the planet in a preferred equilibrium, one as favourable for life as possible.
In other words, Earth functions as a single organism.
Met with derision then, the theory has gained greater currency over the years. The Briton has been awarded various prestigious prizes, including being made a Companion of Honour in 2003 by the Queen for outstanding achievement in science. This is not some crackpot doomsday prophet.
Lovelock is now seized by the topic of global warming and takes issue with the straight-line projections of models which he says have failed to accurately predict current climate conditions, much less make useful forecasts for 50 years down the road. This includes the model used by the United Nations panel on climate change.
He argues that all these models are flawed because they do not take into account the fact that the Earth is a living thing with complex interacting systems that respond to changes.
At the current rate of global heating, he warns: “The Earth, in its but not our interests, may be forced to move to a hotter epoch, one where it can survive, although in a diminished and less habitable state. If, as is likely, this happens, we will have been the cause.”
He adds that the idea that we can reverse the impact of global heating and go back to our way of urbanised, industrialised living is erroneous. Modern life is not sustainable given the current global population, he proclaims.
Some of the writing can be a bit dense and technical at times but Lovelock’s arguments about climate change, nuclear energy and the green movement are worth reading and thinking about.
If he is right, we will soon have to make some very tough decisions about our survival.
If you like this, read: Gaia: A New Look At Life On Earth by James Lovelock. Lovelock introduces his radical idea that Earth functions as a single organism in this classic tract which was first published in 1979.
(ST)
James Lovelock
Mother Nature knows best, but what is best for her is not necessarily what is best for humanity. This is the alarm bell sounded by the 90-year-old scientist James Lovelock in his latest book on Gaia.
He first proposed the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960s. It posited that the life forms and physical components of Earth form a complex interacting system that maintains conditions on the planet in a preferred equilibrium, one as favourable for life as possible.
In other words, Earth functions as a single organism.
Met with derision then, the theory has gained greater currency over the years. The Briton has been awarded various prestigious prizes, including being made a Companion of Honour in 2003 by the Queen for outstanding achievement in science. This is not some crackpot doomsday prophet.
Lovelock is now seized by the topic of global warming and takes issue with the straight-line projections of models which he says have failed to accurately predict current climate conditions, much less make useful forecasts for 50 years down the road. This includes the model used by the United Nations panel on climate change.
He argues that all these models are flawed because they do not take into account the fact that the Earth is a living thing with complex interacting systems that respond to changes.
At the current rate of global heating, he warns: “The Earth, in its but not our interests, may be forced to move to a hotter epoch, one where it can survive, although in a diminished and less habitable state. If, as is likely, this happens, we will have been the cause.”
He adds that the idea that we can reverse the impact of global heating and go back to our way of urbanised, industrialised living is erroneous. Modern life is not sustainable given the current global population, he proclaims.
Some of the writing can be a bit dense and technical at times but Lovelock’s arguments about climate change, nuclear energy and the green movement are worth reading and thinking about.
If he is right, we will soon have to make some very tough decisions about our survival.
If you like this, read: Gaia: A New Look At Life On Earth by James Lovelock. Lovelock introduces his radical idea that Earth functions as a single organism in this classic tract which was first published in 1979.
(ST)
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story
Ari Folman and David Polonsky
Waltz With Bashir is the record of Israeli film-maker Ari Folman’s journey to shed light on a dark chapter of his life.
As a 19-year-old soldier, he was present at the killing of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, a revenge exacted by Christian militia for the killing of Lebanese president Bashir Jumayel, a Christian.
But for more than 20 years after that, he had no memory of that night in September 1982 and the role he played.
One’s instinct for survival and self- preservation is so strong that when faced with something unbearable, one either detaches himself from what is happening or blocks it out altogether.
As Folman speaks to fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to piece together the past, he recalls the ugly truth of the killing.
He also wrote and directed the animated feature film of the same name which has won more than 20 awards.
Here, the unflinching chronicle is accompanied by beautiful drawings by David Polonsky, who was the art director and chief illustrator for the movie.
He depicts grey and yellow nightmare scenarios, sepia-hued memories of war and full-colour contemporary life with equal aplomb.
While the sketches might distance one from the horror of what took place, the final two pages of photographs – of dead Palestinians sprawled in the streets and of a woman devastated by grief – close that gap.
If you like this, read: We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch (1999, US$10.20 or S$15.30, amazon. com). A harrowing portrayal of genocide which asks the piercing question: Why was nothing done to stop the killings in Rwanda?
(ST)
Ari Folman and David Polonsky
Waltz With Bashir is the record of Israeli film-maker Ari Folman’s journey to shed light on a dark chapter of his life.
As a 19-year-old soldier, he was present at the killing of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, a revenge exacted by Christian militia for the killing of Lebanese president Bashir Jumayel, a Christian.
But for more than 20 years after that, he had no memory of that night in September 1982 and the role he played.
One’s instinct for survival and self- preservation is so strong that when faced with something unbearable, one either detaches himself from what is happening or blocks it out altogether.
As Folman speaks to fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to piece together the past, he recalls the ugly truth of the killing.
He also wrote and directed the animated feature film of the same name which has won more than 20 awards.
Here, the unflinching chronicle is accompanied by beautiful drawings by David Polonsky, who was the art director and chief illustrator for the movie.
He depicts grey and yellow nightmare scenarios, sepia-hued memories of war and full-colour contemporary life with equal aplomb.
While the sketches might distance one from the horror of what took place, the final two pages of photographs – of dead Palestinians sprawled in the streets and of a woman devastated by grief – close that gap.
If you like this, read: We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch (1999, US$10.20 or S$15.30, amazon. com). A harrowing portrayal of genocide which asks the piercing question: Why was nothing done to stop the killings in Rwanda?
(ST)
Monster, 1959
David Maine
The humble B-grade monster movie has been transformed into a modern fable about America.
David Maine’s ambitious sci-fi novel tackles diverse themes such as the hubris of man, myth-making and identity, and the callousness of the entertainment industry. Yet, it never feels overstretched.
It is structured like a film, with the book divided into reels and the chapters given knowing titles such as Seen This Movie Before and Close-up. A genuine affection for 1950s flicks is mixed with a pointed commentary on the state of the world.
The mutant in question, K., is the unexpected and unlikely by-product of American tests on the effects of high- level radiation in the South Pacific.
“To the human eye, K. is an evolutionary absurdity. Nature couldn’t make up her mind what to do with him,” and so he has claws, residual butterfly wings, crimson feathers on his chest, and stands 40ft from crown to his seven- toed feet.
Maine’s audacity is to re-imagine the creature feature from the creature’s perspective and that has made all the difference in the world.
One of the most touching things about the book is how K.’s mind is dimly stirred into consciousness by the events around him.
Caught by humans and paraded as a travelling attraction, K. is portrayed as a fearsome monstrosity. In fact, he is a vegetarian and his innocence is contrasted with the tangled web of human affairs.
There is an irreverent tone to Monster, 1959, that meshes well with the monster-movie inspiration but anger and sarcasm are also never far from the surface.
This is an entertaining romp that leaves you with plenty to chew on.
If you like this, read: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (2003, US$8 or S$12, amazon.com). The classic tale of a monster created by a medical student is about man’s arrogance and a warning against playing god.
(ST)
David Maine
The humble B-grade monster movie has been transformed into a modern fable about America.
David Maine’s ambitious sci-fi novel tackles diverse themes such as the hubris of man, myth-making and identity, and the callousness of the entertainment industry. Yet, it never feels overstretched.
It is structured like a film, with the book divided into reels and the chapters given knowing titles such as Seen This Movie Before and Close-up. A genuine affection for 1950s flicks is mixed with a pointed commentary on the state of the world.
The mutant in question, K., is the unexpected and unlikely by-product of American tests on the effects of high- level radiation in the South Pacific.
“To the human eye, K. is an evolutionary absurdity. Nature couldn’t make up her mind what to do with him,” and so he has claws, residual butterfly wings, crimson feathers on his chest, and stands 40ft from crown to his seven- toed feet.
Maine’s audacity is to re-imagine the creature feature from the creature’s perspective and that has made all the difference in the world.
One of the most touching things about the book is how K.’s mind is dimly stirred into consciousness by the events around him.
Caught by humans and paraded as a travelling attraction, K. is portrayed as a fearsome monstrosity. In fact, he is a vegetarian and his innocence is contrasted with the tangled web of human affairs.
There is an irreverent tone to Monster, 1959, that meshes well with the monster-movie inspiration but anger and sarcasm are also never far from the surface.
This is an entertaining romp that leaves you with plenty to chew on.
If you like this, read: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (2003, US$8 or S$12, amazon.com). The classic tale of a monster created by a medical student is about man’s arrogance and a warning against playing god.
(ST)
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Up A Tree In The Park At Night With A Hedgehog
By P. Robert Smith
It is an art really. Coming up with snappy titles and attractive cover graphics to entice the unsuspecting consumer into parting with his cash.
So we have Up A Tree In The Park At Night With A Hedgehog, which seems to promise madcap humour, or at the very least, an interesting account of how things lead to the titular situation. No such luck.
A more accurate title would be Up The Creek With A Self-absorbed Two-timing Scumbag, but that is probably the wrong approach to landing a book on the bestseller charts.
Benton Kirby is dating Cassie and is having an affair with Cherry, his Korean student. Somewhere in his past is a fiancee, Georgia, who dies in a freak accident after losing her keys on her hen night.
Up A Tree is P. Robert Smith’s debut work and he seems to think that stringing together what he imagines are hilarious scenarios add up to a novel.
At least Georgia’s death is edged with black humour. Elsewhere, Smith is content to recycle not very funny anecdotes for no apparent purpose other than to recount them.
Things get really dire when he attempts the comedy of humiliation popularised in movies such as There’s Something About Mary (1998) by the Farrelly brothers.
When a piece of “souvlaki-sized turd” stubbornly refuses to be flushed away, Benton feels the urge to cover up by squirrelling the offensive evidence away in his pocket. Right. Sure.
How someone like him is able to attract a succession of women is an absolute mystery. This is something that Benton himself questions, marvelling at his ability to land “the kind of catch that you want to both eat and mount”.
And Smith’s description is the kind of writing that is both crass and repulsive. Give this artless offering a wide berth.
Try this instead: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (2007, $18.95, major bookstores). For a portrait of people behaving badly that illuminates rather than infuriates, turn to this seminal tale about youthful excesses.
(ST)
By P. Robert Smith
It is an art really. Coming up with snappy titles and attractive cover graphics to entice the unsuspecting consumer into parting with his cash.
So we have Up A Tree In The Park At Night With A Hedgehog, which seems to promise madcap humour, or at the very least, an interesting account of how things lead to the titular situation. No such luck.
A more accurate title would be Up The Creek With A Self-absorbed Two-timing Scumbag, but that is probably the wrong approach to landing a book on the bestseller charts.
Benton Kirby is dating Cassie and is having an affair with Cherry, his Korean student. Somewhere in his past is a fiancee, Georgia, who dies in a freak accident after losing her keys on her hen night.
Up A Tree is P. Robert Smith’s debut work and he seems to think that stringing together what he imagines are hilarious scenarios add up to a novel.
At least Georgia’s death is edged with black humour. Elsewhere, Smith is content to recycle not very funny anecdotes for no apparent purpose other than to recount them.
Things get really dire when he attempts the comedy of humiliation popularised in movies such as There’s Something About Mary (1998) by the Farrelly brothers.
When a piece of “souvlaki-sized turd” stubbornly refuses to be flushed away, Benton feels the urge to cover up by squirrelling the offensive evidence away in his pocket. Right. Sure.
How someone like him is able to attract a succession of women is an absolute mystery. This is something that Benton himself questions, marvelling at his ability to land “the kind of catch that you want to both eat and mount”.
And Smith’s description is the kind of writing that is both crass and repulsive. Give this artless offering a wide berth.
Try this instead: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (2007, $18.95, major bookstores). For a portrait of people behaving badly that illuminates rather than infuriates, turn to this seminal tale about youthful excesses.
(ST)
Monday, March 02, 2009
Audition
By Ryu Murakami
Those who watched Takashi Miike’s hair- raising, nightmare inducing film adaptation (1999) would have had the experience seared into their brains.
The book is less showily creepy. Instead, it creates a sense of niggling unease, slowly letting the tension tighten and grow taut until it snaps in the horrific ending.
Since the death of his wife seven years ago, documentary film-maker Aoyama has not dated. A remark by his teenage son gets him thinking about remarriage.
His best friend Yoshikawa hits upon the idea of holding fake film auditions as the best way to meet prospective brides. He has reservations about taking advantage of a system where “the commodity an actor or model offered for sale was nothing less than her own being” but goes along with the idea.
When he meets the beautiful ballet- trained Yamasaki Asami, he falls head over heels in love. There are hints that there is more to her than meets the eye but he is too obsessed to see or care.
Without giving anything away, let’s just say that things end badly.
Early on, Murakami makes a point about modern malaise: “People were infected with the concept that happiness was something outside themselves, and a new and powerful form of loneliness was born. Mix loneliness with stress and enervation, and all sorts of madness can occur. Anxiety increases, and in order to obliterate the anxiety, people turn to extreme sex, violence and even murder.”
One could also read Audition as a feminist fantasy about wreaking vengeance on men who abuse their power. But Aoyama, while flawed, does not strike one as a bad or evil person. Does he deserve to be punished? Or was he culpable the moment he agreed to the auditions?
Whichever way you slice it, Audition has been executed with bone-chilling flair.
If you like this, read: Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami. His debut novel about a group of young people who dive headlong into sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll won the country’s top literary accolade, the Akutagawa Prize, and established his reputation as the bad boy of Japanese fiction.
(ST)
By Ryu Murakami
Those who watched Takashi Miike’s hair- raising, nightmare inducing film adaptation (1999) would have had the experience seared into their brains.
The book is less showily creepy. Instead, it creates a sense of niggling unease, slowly letting the tension tighten and grow taut until it snaps in the horrific ending.
Since the death of his wife seven years ago, documentary film-maker Aoyama has not dated. A remark by his teenage son gets him thinking about remarriage.
His best friend Yoshikawa hits upon the idea of holding fake film auditions as the best way to meet prospective brides. He has reservations about taking advantage of a system where “the commodity an actor or model offered for sale was nothing less than her own being” but goes along with the idea.
When he meets the beautiful ballet- trained Yamasaki Asami, he falls head over heels in love. There are hints that there is more to her than meets the eye but he is too obsessed to see or care.
Without giving anything away, let’s just say that things end badly.
Early on, Murakami makes a point about modern malaise: “People were infected with the concept that happiness was something outside themselves, and a new and powerful form of loneliness was born. Mix loneliness with stress and enervation, and all sorts of madness can occur. Anxiety increases, and in order to obliterate the anxiety, people turn to extreme sex, violence and even murder.”
One could also read Audition as a feminist fantasy about wreaking vengeance on men who abuse their power. But Aoyama, while flawed, does not strike one as a bad or evil person. Does he deserve to be punished? Or was he culpable the moment he agreed to the auditions?
Whichever way you slice it, Audition has been executed with bone-chilling flair.
If you like this, read: Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami. His debut novel about a group of young people who dive headlong into sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll won the country’s top literary accolade, the Akutagawa Prize, and established his reputation as the bad boy of Japanese fiction.
(ST)
Slumberland
By Paul Beatty
It's official. Berlin is hip.
It is not just that this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, that symbol of the Cold War. It is also the fact that the city has been steadily making its way into the cultural zeitgeist.
The New York Times picked it as one of the 44 places to visit this year, it was one of the key settings in the critically acclaimed 2008 Broadway musical Passing Strange, and here it plays a central role in the story of a man on a quest while navigating the cultural burdens of being black.
Ferguson Sowell, or DJ Darky, has come up with the perfect beat. After listening to it, one of his mates declares that “anything I have heard on pop radio in the last five years feels like a violation of my civil rights”.
All he needs now is the kiss of approval from a credible and influential source. This leads him to seek out the mysterious Schwa, a little-known avant- garde jazz musician, so nicknamed because “his sound, like the indeterminate vowel, is unstressed, upside-down and backward”.
The only clue to his whereabouts is a videotape of a man having sex with a chicken featuring the elusive one’s music, mailed to DJ Darky from a German address. Which is how the DJ ends up at the Slumberland bar in Berlin as a jukebox sommelier.
More than just a setting, the city is a character. And the pivotal moment of the fall of the Wall is beautifully described from an outsider’s point of view.
The themes of identity and the weight of history culminate in the erecting of a new Berlin Wall, a wall of sound that is “inspiration, encouragement, and hope” heard from the western side, and a “wailing wall” when heard from the east.
Beatty’s razzle-dazzle prose-poetry is energetic and rhythmic, and it approximates a free-form jazz piece transcribed to the page. The writing can be dense with obscure name-dropping and slang but just hang on for the ride. It's an exhilarating one.
If you like this, read: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. A funny novel about heartbreak, growing up and music – listening to it, arguing about it and obsessing about it.
(ST)
By Paul Beatty
It's official. Berlin is hip.
It is not just that this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, that symbol of the Cold War. It is also the fact that the city has been steadily making its way into the cultural zeitgeist.
The New York Times picked it as one of the 44 places to visit this year, it was one of the key settings in the critically acclaimed 2008 Broadway musical Passing Strange, and here it plays a central role in the story of a man on a quest while navigating the cultural burdens of being black.
Ferguson Sowell, or DJ Darky, has come up with the perfect beat. After listening to it, one of his mates declares that “anything I have heard on pop radio in the last five years feels like a violation of my civil rights”.
All he needs now is the kiss of approval from a credible and influential source. This leads him to seek out the mysterious Schwa, a little-known avant- garde jazz musician, so nicknamed because “his sound, like the indeterminate vowel, is unstressed, upside-down and backward”.
The only clue to his whereabouts is a videotape of a man having sex with a chicken featuring the elusive one’s music, mailed to DJ Darky from a German address. Which is how the DJ ends up at the Slumberland bar in Berlin as a jukebox sommelier.
More than just a setting, the city is a character. And the pivotal moment of the fall of the Wall is beautifully described from an outsider’s point of view.
The themes of identity and the weight of history culminate in the erecting of a new Berlin Wall, a wall of sound that is “inspiration, encouragement, and hope” heard from the western side, and a “wailing wall” when heard from the east.
Beatty’s razzle-dazzle prose-poetry is energetic and rhythmic, and it approximates a free-form jazz piece transcribed to the page. The writing can be dense with obscure name-dropping and slang but just hang on for the ride. It's an exhilarating one.
If you like this, read: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. A funny novel about heartbreak, growing up and music – listening to it, arguing about it and obsessing about it.
(ST)
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Traffic
Tom Vanderbilt
Driving is “probably the most complex everyday thing we do”, and yet we barely pause to think about it.
So it is a good thing that we have someone like Tom Vanderbilt who decides to examine this phenomenon in great detail, unearthing nuggets of interesting information and fascinating insights into this quotidian activity.
He unpacks certain basic questions and assumptions including what it means to pay attention on the road. He points out that if we were to process every single piece of information out there, we would be overwhelmed.
After all, when driving, we are travelling at speeds for which we are not evolutionarily adapted to.
Some of his conclusions seem counter-intuitive at first. For example, that more seemingly dangerous roads might actually have lower rates of accidents. On such roads, drivers take greater care while so-called safer roads with a multitude of signs and safeguards could actually encourage drivers to drive more dangerously.
The paradox is that when drivers feel more at risk, they behave more cautiously, making the roads safer.
Vanderbilt backs up his assertions with lots of studies and research material. But he handles it with a light and humorous touch so you do not feel like you are stuck in a morass of information.
Apart from academic studies, he also dives headlong into the infamous road snarls of cities such as Beijing and Mumbai and draws upon historical situations from ancient Rome to mediaeval England to give a sense of perspective to this thing called traffic.
There is certainly plenty to mull over here. One question: If we are not evolutionarily equipped to move at driving speeds, what does this say about flying?
If you like this, read: Stiff by Mary Roach. Another topic we do not think about much, human cadavers, is explored in an unexpectedly funny and illuminating manner.
(ST)
Tom Vanderbilt
Driving is “probably the most complex everyday thing we do”, and yet we barely pause to think about it.
So it is a good thing that we have someone like Tom Vanderbilt who decides to examine this phenomenon in great detail, unearthing nuggets of interesting information and fascinating insights into this quotidian activity.
He unpacks certain basic questions and assumptions including what it means to pay attention on the road. He points out that if we were to process every single piece of information out there, we would be overwhelmed.
After all, when driving, we are travelling at speeds for which we are not evolutionarily adapted to.
Some of his conclusions seem counter-intuitive at first. For example, that more seemingly dangerous roads might actually have lower rates of accidents. On such roads, drivers take greater care while so-called safer roads with a multitude of signs and safeguards could actually encourage drivers to drive more dangerously.
The paradox is that when drivers feel more at risk, they behave more cautiously, making the roads safer.
Vanderbilt backs up his assertions with lots of studies and research material. But he handles it with a light and humorous touch so you do not feel like you are stuck in a morass of information.
Apart from academic studies, he also dives headlong into the infamous road snarls of cities such as Beijing and Mumbai and draws upon historical situations from ancient Rome to mediaeval England to give a sense of perspective to this thing called traffic.
There is certainly plenty to mull over here. One question: If we are not evolutionarily equipped to move at driving speeds, what does this say about flying?
If you like this, read: Stiff by Mary Roach. Another topic we do not think about much, human cadavers, is explored in an unexpectedly funny and illuminating manner.
(ST)
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Alan's War
By Emmanuel Guibert
You never know what can happen when you ask a stranger for directions.
In the case of illustrator Emmanuel Guibert, then 30, it led to a firm friendship with the 69-year-old Alan Cope, an American who married and settled down in France. And their conversations led to this vividly written and drawn biography.
In 1943, during World War II, an 18-year-old Cope is drafted by the United States army. The most dangerous things, though, happen outside combat. He almost gets killed by a falling tree during training and just misses being crushed under a tank.
When he is eventually sent to France on a mission in February 1945, the war is ending and he does not see much combat action.
As a soldier, he is not perfect as he sometimes breaks rules. As a person, he can be stubborn as well. But he is also open-minded and generous, striking up friendships with some Germans, even though fraternising is forbidden.
The last part of the book takes a rather sharp turn when Cope has an epiphany at 55, realising he has never lived his life fully.
He sees in society “overcrowding by too many dogmas, false values, and wrong thinking; a kind of psychic illness that afflicts the human race and prevents people from knowing what to do with their lives”.
It prompts him to reconnect with the people in his life as a way of seeking closure.
While Guibert’s black-and-white ink washes are beautiful and bring Cope’s story to life by evoking landscapes, personalities and situations, they are never intrusive.
The tale is fully Cope’s, warts and all, and it is his voice we hear. This is an easy, intimate conversation between friends and you feel privileged to be able to sit in.
If you like this, read: The Professor’s Daughter by Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert
See Guibert’s deft touch in a different light with this comic romance between a mummy and an Egyptologist’s daughter set in Victorian London.
(ST)
By Emmanuel Guibert
You never know what can happen when you ask a stranger for directions.
In the case of illustrator Emmanuel Guibert, then 30, it led to a firm friendship with the 69-year-old Alan Cope, an American who married and settled down in France. And their conversations led to this vividly written and drawn biography.
In 1943, during World War II, an 18-year-old Cope is drafted by the United States army. The most dangerous things, though, happen outside combat. He almost gets killed by a falling tree during training and just misses being crushed under a tank.
When he is eventually sent to France on a mission in February 1945, the war is ending and he does not see much combat action.
As a soldier, he is not perfect as he sometimes breaks rules. As a person, he can be stubborn as well. But he is also open-minded and generous, striking up friendships with some Germans, even though fraternising is forbidden.
The last part of the book takes a rather sharp turn when Cope has an epiphany at 55, realising he has never lived his life fully.
He sees in society “overcrowding by too many dogmas, false values, and wrong thinking; a kind of psychic illness that afflicts the human race and prevents people from knowing what to do with their lives”.
It prompts him to reconnect with the people in his life as a way of seeking closure.
While Guibert’s black-and-white ink washes are beautiful and bring Cope’s story to life by evoking landscapes, personalities and situations, they are never intrusive.
The tale is fully Cope’s, warts and all, and it is his voice we hear. This is an easy, intimate conversation between friends and you feel privileged to be able to sit in.
If you like this, read: The Professor’s Daughter by Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert
See Guibert’s deft touch in a different light with this comic romance between a mummy and an Egyptologist’s daughter set in Victorian London.
(ST)
Sunday, December 07, 2008
All Our Worldly Goods
Irene Nemirovsky
This could well be a Gallic take on a Jane Austen study on manners and courtship, sense and sensibility.
Pierre Hardelot and Agnes Florent are in love at a time when one’s class dictates one’s match. His grandfather is an iron-fisted industrialist while her family are brewers. When he defies social norms to marry Agnes, Pierre is cut off from the family business.
The outbreak of World War I soon dwarfs every other concern. In an economical 30 pages, Nemirovsky parses the psyche of a nation at war – despair, fear, numbness, hope, relief – with a few incisive episodes.
The couple get on with their lives after the war ends, only to face the outbreak of World War II decades later.
Nemirovsky marks the fragility of achingly casual happiness in the interim with a family outing to the woods.“They brushed aside the day, relegating it to the past, to obscurity, without a single regret. It had been one of the sweetest and most peaceful days of their lives. But they had no way of knowing that.”
The novel covers an extraordinary period in history when a generation lived through two world wars in the span of about 30 years. When World War II erupts, Pierre has to watch his son take up arms, knowing that even the illusion of the glory of war was gone as “they know that all our sacrifices were useless, that victory conquered no one”.
What is remarkable is the note of hope the novel ends on, all the more heartbreaking when you consider that Nemirovsky died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of 39.
If you like this, read: All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. A searing indictment of the horrors of war as seen through the eyes of a young soldier from the trenches of World War I.
(ST)
Irene Nemirovsky
This could well be a Gallic take on a Jane Austen study on manners and courtship, sense and sensibility.
Pierre Hardelot and Agnes Florent are in love at a time when one’s class dictates one’s match. His grandfather is an iron-fisted industrialist while her family are brewers. When he defies social norms to marry Agnes, Pierre is cut off from the family business.
The outbreak of World War I soon dwarfs every other concern. In an economical 30 pages, Nemirovsky parses the psyche of a nation at war – despair, fear, numbness, hope, relief – with a few incisive episodes.
The couple get on with their lives after the war ends, only to face the outbreak of World War II decades later.
Nemirovsky marks the fragility of achingly casual happiness in the interim with a family outing to the woods.“They brushed aside the day, relegating it to the past, to obscurity, without a single regret. It had been one of the sweetest and most peaceful days of their lives. But they had no way of knowing that.”
The novel covers an extraordinary period in history when a generation lived through two world wars in the span of about 30 years. When World War II erupts, Pierre has to watch his son take up arms, knowing that even the illusion of the glory of war was gone as “they know that all our sacrifices were useless, that victory conquered no one”.
What is remarkable is the note of hope the novel ends on, all the more heartbreaking when you consider that Nemirovsky died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of 39.
If you like this, read: All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. A searing indictment of the horrors of war as seen through the eyes of a young soldier from the trenches of World War I.
(ST)
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