Top 100 Review #4 - Book 6 - 1984

SPOILERS AHEAD

I can't say I enjoyed reading 1984, not after the first quarter or so of the book anyway. It started off with such promise, an interesting concept, and while a little slow, after about page 60 I thought it was starting to go somewhere. 

But then it didn't. 

To me it just seemed like an excuse for philosophical musings rather than a properly-realised narrative. Problems I had with this book include:

1) a sexy young woman falling in love with an overweight middle aged man she'd never spoken to before seems more male fantasy than realistic;

Why does Hollywood always slim down tragic characters? First Winston, then Quoyle...

2) the sexualised violence fantasy didn't endear the main character to me either;

3) also didn't buy that said young woman would laugh off Winston's 'I wanted to sexually assault and murder you' comment. Talk about psychotic;

4) having two long chapters of a textbook was a lazy mechanism to provide backstory. I found it so difficult to get through these very dry sections;

5) Winston doesn't really DO anything about rebelling against society. All he really does is talk to a man in a pub. Both O'Brien and Julia approach him. Things happen to him rather than him actively trying to bring about change instead of just thinking about it;

The disappointing narrative angered me for more than two minutes.

6) the narrative seems like it's going somewhere then suddenly loses steam and descends into torture porn. It's a very unsatisfying narrative arc;

7) I didn't buy that the old shopkeeper was a spy the whole time, nor that he wasn't really old either. Was he really just waiting for Winston to randomly come into his shop? Seems so farfetched;

8) as if you wouldn't check the room for a mic or telescreen?! And the realisation that it was behind the painting just seems to spontaneously come out of nowhere. It's like Orwell ran out of ideas and just decided ok they're captured now because reasons. No daring infiltration or subterfuge like has been foreshadowed by the meeting with O'Brien. No, just in their usual tryst spot they get arrested SWAT-style; and

9) I didn't like the ending. I didn't believe that Winston had changed his mind about big brother and the scene where he follows Julia is awkward and weird.

Yes, I know, predicting the future, North Korea, blah blah blah. But Orwell should have written a bunch of essays rather than trying to build a narrative around it. Too bad this wasn't as well-developed as Animal Farm.

The Space Between

 The space between what I want my next book to be, and what it currently is, seems as vast as a canyon.

"Colorado River, Marble Canyon" by Gonzo fan2007 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Top 100 Review #3 - Book 63 - The Road

(From 24 December 2017)

It surprises me that I enjoyed this book, because in the past I have had an aversion to books and movies that don't have a traditional plot structure or happy ending. I'll unpack that in a moment, I just want to reiterate that this review is not based in research or anything other than my personal opinions and thoughts. I'd imagine there's a lot of academia out there about this book but that is not my aim here.

Coming into this, I had almost no knowledge of the book or story. I knew that there was a movie with Viggo Mortensen, but I haven't seen it (I am keen now though to see how they interpreted the book and what scenes and elements they chose to translate into a film version). As I started reading, it did remind me of some other books and stories (or probably those other ones were influenced by The Road), but other than that, I feel that I was able to approach this one with a rather clean slate.

The language of the book is one of its strongest points. The introduction described it as "at once brutal and beautiful", which is such an apt description. It is strange to think that McCarthy could summon such poetry from a wasteland setting, but perhaps it is that contrast that makes it work so well.

One thing that bothered me more than it probably should have was the fact that the characters weren't named. It was annoying to read 'the boy' over and again. Not sure why the author did this (yep I haven't researched anything yet). For universality? Very cute. For me, not giving someone a name is somewhat demeaning, and personally I felt less connected to the characters because they were nameless.

Despite being the protagonists, the main characters are never named. Neither are any of the other characters in the book or movie version.

I, of course, felt sorry for The Boy, but I'm not sure that I bought him as a believable character. This is my main criticism of the book. If I recall correctly, the unnamed apocalyptic event happened when he was still in the womb. Therefore we're talking about a kid that's grown up on the other side of civilisation. This post-apocalyptic world is all he's known. It's demonstrated by the kinds of questions he asks his father, by the lack of knowledge he has of the world, such as what a 'state' is. With this in mind, I just didn't believe that he would be so vulnerable, so frightened, weak and sad all the time. For him, the world is what it is. Why would he be sad comparing life to a world he never knew? Why would he be constantly frightened when he'd grown up with danger all around him? Kids can be pretty resilient. Take for example Clementine and AJ from the Walking Dead universe. They are some tough cookies, and AJ, who was born after the zombocalypse, in many ways simply accepts the way the world is. I think this potrayal of AJ in contrast to 'The Boy' is much more realistic.

Because of the world he lives in, AJ from The Walking Dead (TellTale) is mature beyond his years and doesn't constantly pine for the world that existed before.

[ENDING SPOILERS]
The ending was sad and not very conclusive, but I had kind of anticipated that. The writer in me was thinking about how the book would finish and the most likely scenarios were death or coming across a community. Surprisingly though, I didn't feel like throwing the book at the wall once I had finished it in frustration over the unhappy ending, and I think this goes to the general sombre mood of the book as a whole. Life is hard and full of death. It makes the father's death in the end more palatable as it makes sense in the context of the world. Death is a frequent part of life, it's all around the characters, they are constantly being reminded of it. So while it is sad, I think having the unhappy ending (but with a dash of hope) was appropriate.

EDIT: I have, since originally writing this review back in 2017, seen the Viggo Mortensen movie and was surprised at how closely it followed the book. Given the themes and general story of the book it could have been translated in quite different ways, but I suppose the director/producer decided to stay close to the book in narrative and atmosphere. I really enjoyed both the movie and the book.

Top 100 Review #2 - Book 20 - Frankenstein

For the next Top 100 Challenge book, I chose Frankenstein. I read Frankenstein in High School as part of English and most of my memories were of feeling sorry for the monster.

Well I've done an about-face. On finding life is difficult, the monster becomes an absolute twat and uses 'the world has been cruel to me' as an excuse to go on a murderous rampage. Buck up, buddy. Yeah life is hard, and it freaking sucks sometimes, but that doesn’t mean we go around killing whoever we want. I can definitely picture the monster moving amongst society, wearing some kind of mask, long sleeves and pants. He’s extremely intelligent and might have contributed to society in many ways. This is evidenced by his relationship with the blind man. Instead he decides to throw a tantrum like a child.

 Rembrandt once babysat Frankenstein's monster.

Frankenstein’s selective amnesia over the existence of his creation was also a little hard to swallow. There’s no way an editor would let a writer get away with something like that these days. For months and months he barely even casts a thought on the monster, and he is all but forgotten. While I understand that’s a large part of why the monster hates the creator, it doesn’t feel sufficiently justified how he so easily forgets the whole ordeal. It is also quite a miracle that Frankenstein’s first attempt at the creation of alchemical life is not only successful, it is also superhero-like. One would assume the first attempt would end in some Alien Resurrection-like deformity gyrating in a corner murmuring ‘Please, kill me…’

In its context as speculative fiction, there is something lost on the modern day audience in terms of terror through believability. In 1818, the year of Frankenstein’s publication, the FIRST successful blood transfusion was performed. There was no vaccine for cholera, tuberculosis or the flu. The understanding we have of the workings of the human body, and that of the deceased body, is far greater today, such that the believability of digging up a corpse for reanimation is less science-fiction and more fantasy.

I have however always admired the gothic narrative-through-documentation device. I’ve been mulling over how I could achieve some kind of modern day equivalent, perhaps through multimedia or ARG.

In short, I actually found Frankenstein to be quite a frustrating read. I do think Shelley truly achieves horror, if not through the actual creation of the monster, then certainly through the callous serial-killer behaviour of the monster.

Westerly Publication

A belated reminder to check out my latest publication in the fantastic literary magazine, Westerly, Volume 61, Issue 1.

My work in westerly, Past Tense, is very close to my heart, and concerns my experience of dealing with the decline and death of a loved one.

You can order a copy from the Westerly website westerlymag.com.au and some bookstores and libraries also stock copies.

My Childhood Trees

Edith Sodergran

My childhood trees stand tall in the grass
And shake their heads: what has become of you?
Rows of pillars stand like reproaches: you’re unworthy to walk beneath us!
You’re a child and should know everything,
So why are you fettered by your illness?
You have become a human, alien and hateful.
As a child, you talked with us for hours,
Your eyes were wise.
Now we would like to tell you the secret of your life:
The key to all secrets lies in the grass by the raspberry patch.
We want to shake you up, you sleeper,
We want to wake you, dead one, from your sleep.

Image (c) Jon Bunting 2013 CC by 2.0

Publishing Success!

After what has been a truly horrible and soul crushing week (it has been depressing, I've been crying, curled up in a ball, wanting to throw my studies in and myself in front of a lawn mower), BUT I have received some good news to help pick me up off the bloodied grass.

WARNING: Don't watch if you can't handle gore or B movies

One of my poems (not the crappy blackout poetry) has been picked up for publication! I won't give details just yet as it's a few months until it comes out, but this has been very timely good news, when I need it most.

The poem is short but very close to my heart.  Writing it was a reflection on a really difficult time in my family's life and my denial about what was happening, in the end, to my detriment.  In any event, I'll post the link when it gets published.