Marguerite Duras’s The Lover

Finally finished this book after having borrowed it for a very, very long time. Beginning was difficult to get into, but once I started to understand the style of Duras’ writing, the flow of reading was much better. Anyway, short book about a pretty controversial topic, but was interesting to see what times were like back then and to read about the girl’s description of her family. The poetic style might be appealing to many, but it wasn’t for me. The events described were everywhere and it became difficult to follow sometimes, but it’s part of the fun when one has to piece it all together (?). All in all, somewhat interesting, but not at all my favourite. The ending is quite good, though.

Jack London’s Martin Eden

What a book. I don’t know what to say about it at all, really. I lived a second life while I was reading it, and now that it’s over, I feel complexly empty. Through this passive “journey”, I reevaluated my own life quite a bit and also was able to relate to some beautiful and cheering parts of the book, which was a wonderful feeling. I had not known that someone could put those feelings into words so adequately, as London had done (no rhyming intended). There were also many, many parts where I discovered conflicts and ideas that were completely new to me, and seeing how unfamiliar thought processes were elaborated upon was fascinating. In fact, they were so fascinating and new to me that even after reading it, not sure if I agree or disagree. I just know that that at this moment, I’m content with knowing that it exists. It’s been a long time since I’ve read such an affecting book that I cannot even properly describe my feelings toward it.

Otsuichi’s ZOO

English translation by Terry Gallagher and released under Viz’s Haikasoru label.

Finished this a while ago, took me about 3 months because I was distracted by other things. Read most of it on the bus, about one story per two bus trips. The last 3-4 stories I read at home because school was over. Not sure if I’ll do a formal review for this, already tonnes out there I believe. And apologies for having you read such a useless paragraph just now.

All in all a satisfactory anthology of Otsuichi’s short stories. As with all anthologies, there are hits and misses, but I think there were more misses than hits in this compilation. Did a solid job of showcasing Otsuichi’s signature dark fantasy style, though. Not sure if he’s still using this signature style, but is probably a good representation of the stuff he’s best known for.

ZOO: Awesome story, started out the book with a bang and made me want to read more of Otsuichi’s stuff. Was already intrigued from reading F-sensei’s Pocket from ENG Faust Vol.1, and ZOO just reinforced that interest all the more.

In a Falling Airplane: Boring, silly, disappointing and generally light-hearted. Calmly morbid or the other way around.

The White House in the Cold Forest: Chilling and creepy. Very thoroughly enjoyed it and is probably my favourite story in the book if ZOO wasn’t included. Felt slightly guilty about being genuinely entertained by this while reading it n the bus.

Find the Blood!: Another silly and light-hearted story with a morbidish element. A mystery story this time though. Didn’t like it since I only wanted to read dark and fully unhappy fiction (emoface.jpg). Had fun guessing the culprit but was disappointed that I was right. Surprise me, dammit.

In a Park at Twilight, a Long Time Ago: Fictional story written like a true story about a dream or a true true story about a dream? Not sure, but despite being bloody short and maybe confusing it was also pretty good.

Wardrobe: Mystery story again, not memorable and was mostly boring to read through. Was neither light-hearted or morbid. Good turn of events at the very end though.

Song of the Sunny Spot: Otsuichi’s attempt at writing something touching and normal, I assume. Boring and couldn’t stop picturing the narrator as the useless Flower from Kowarekake no Orgel. I hate Flower.

Kazari and Yoko: Very slightly above average, not truly uncreative, kind of sad, kind of predictable. Great ending but would like to see more.

SO-far: Above average, enjoyed imagining the characters’ appearances even though they weren’t described. Interesting premise and ending.

Words of God: Not a mindblowingly original power, but really good development of events and uh, consequences. Revelation at the end was awesome and creative even though I expected a revelation of some sort. Another favourite.

Seven Rooms: Had fun trying to solve the pattern and reading on to get more details, but even though I wasn’t able to fully predict the mechanics of the pattern, when it was fully revealed I just went “That’s it?”. Not a good reaction, but an okay story overall. Maybe somewhat disappointed by the ending because it seemed like there could be a more satisfying alt conclusion.

The Resonator by Prentis Rollins

Randomly borrowed this from the library because it looked interesting. After reading this, I have developed an even higher capacity for respecting comic book/graphic novel artists. The Resonator is a two-sided feature that features a graphic novel (titled The Resonator) and its Making Of. Prentis Rollins is the author of both parts, and in the making of part, personally shows all the process he went through to compile the book, including preliminary design works from preproduction, thumbnails needed to lay out the orientation of panels, and the techniques and tricks he uses for actually doing the final version. Very informative and insightful, and the best part is that Rollins is the one writing everything so that all the information is straight from the horse’s mouth. My favourite part was when he showed pictures he got from an old Sears catalog and used it as inspiration for his own work. I also liked being able to compare the pencils to the final product.

The graphic novel itself is quite interesting, and pertains greatly to my interests because it’s of the sci-fi genre. It’s rendered completely in solid black and white, and everything from the lettering, inking, pencils, story, etc, are done by Rollins. No mean feat for one man with no assistants at all! The art is extremely detailed, and I can never get over the godly crosshatching skills of Rollins. The characters all have an edge of realism and seriousness to them as well, and can be pretty expressive. I personally quite like this style. To be honest, though, the story didn’t really immerse or captivate me, and I had no emotional responses to it. Nevertheless a good book to take a look at, but I recommend trying to get this at a library or borrowing from a friend before deciding to purchase. [Samples]

The 39 Clues Vol.1: The Maze of Bones

Haven’t posted here in a while, sorry.

Anyways, got to reading this book since I discovered that HACCAN did the really, really spectacular artwork+cover illustrations for the JPN version, which made me want to read it so much I settled for the English version.

Fortunately, it exceed all of my expectations and turned out to be a very entertaining and fast-paced read, even though it is actually a book aimed at elementary school kids. Having not read an easy-to-read book in about a year, this was immensely refreshing and I plan to read all the books in this series.

It’s also super awesome that all the books in the series are written by different bestselling authors, such as Gordon Korman and Rick Riordan. It’s like a collaboration of 1337 people, seriously. I love collaborations. Now if only the English version had HACCAN’s illustrations too..

As for the book, it’s about a pair of siblings, Amy and Dan Cahill, searching for the 39 clues to lead them to the Cahill family superlarge and powerful secret. There are other family members participating in this “treasure hunt” too, which makes it have all the more tension. Not to mention that the other family members are really, extremely varied characters too, and they’re all memorable and impressionable. I love them, and the characters are probably my favourite part of the books. My favourite character so far is Dan because he makes really silly and childish comments that seem exactly like a kid his age in real life would make.

The writing is colourful and simple, with some silly references to like Wham! and all that, which I immensely enjoyed. Riordan (author of Vol.1) really brought life to this treasure hunt, and I was almost addicted to the book in the process. He doesn’t waste any time describing little annoying details, and just gets right to the important parts. That’s probably why I love children’s books - They’re easy and not pretentious. I love it!!

Also worth mentioning is that each book in the whole 39 Clues series focuses on one famous historical figure and their accomplishments as an ongoing theme, which is kind of like spotlighting, and you know I like spotlighting. Top notch!

I give Volume 1 of The 39 Clues an 88/100. Points taken off because it’s really, really fictional. Kid with photographic memory? How handy is that!