Revival!

I stumbled upon this because Facebook decided to tell me what I did on this day years ago, and apparently I posted a link to this blog!  I completely forgot that this existed, and the fact that people could have come across this when I don't have a recollection of its existence is a bit weird to say the least (and also a reminder to myself to be a bit more aware about my life). 

In any case, I always find it difficult to recollect the cool books or articles I've read, so I think that this would be a great way for me to keep tabs on that and write fun notes along the way.

:D

Book 9: The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Whooooaaa look who's backkk.

Reading The Shadow of the Wind was an experience, and in my case, a process. It took me quite a bit of time to finish this, and this included a one month break in between the first and second half as well as some travel time. But, I finished it and I was more than satisfied.

I read this book after having read The Angel's Game also written by Carlos Ruiz Zafon when I instantly fell in love. That book was amazing and I honestly believe this one was even better (didn't think that could be possible). There are a few things that come up in Zafon's books.. Barcelona, books, appreciation for the written word, love, mystery, suspense, friendship, death, satan, a touch of unrequited love, and yea, if you need more than that to keep you interested, then I don't know how to please you. Most of all - there's a ton of suspense.

The book starts with Daniel, an innocent 10 year old boy who is introduced with his father, a used books shop owner. Daniel's father takes him to this mysterious place called The Cemetery of Forgotten Books in search of a book for Daniel. In the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, the book chooses you and you must guard it, protect it forever. In this maze of lost and forgotten books, Daniel finds The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax.

It is this book and the mystery behind it that sets the book in motion. We immediately learn that someone has been burning all of Carax's novels except for Daniel's copy and a few others hidden in the cemetery of forgotten books. This intrigues Daniel and sets him on a quest to search for Carax's identity, figure out who he is, and dive head first into his history. We learn about the intricate, drama-filled story of Carax's life and see how this past parallels with Daniel's present. And, as Daniel's present experience moves forward and Carax's story unfolds... well, the suspense is incredible and the story is amazing.

I'm not giving you much. Either I have to give you everything or I have to give you nothing, and I give you nothing so you can read it yourself. The story is sooooo good! Read it.

If you want a better review check this out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/books/in-the-cemetery-of-forgotten-books.html


Sooo I'm glad that I'm back. I had to get that review in, but hopefully the next ones will be much more thought out.

I'm here

After a forever long hiatus, I'm back to reading. I promise!

Finishing up The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón:finished the 1st half over a month ago, working on the 2nd half now... yea...

Look forward to more posts by me - I have a feeling I'll be posting more frequently again. Here's to hoping. :)

Book 8: After Dark - Haruki Murakami

After Dark is a snapshot of one night in Tokyo spanning from 11:56PM to 6:43AM. It didn't feel like a full-length novel, though it was, but it acted like one because it took me long enough to get through it (if you pay close attention you'll see that there is a one month gap between my blog posts). It reminded me of a short movie I saw last week, Osvaldo's, in that you dive into a specific moment in someone's life, you experience one event, and then you leave. It's like you're visiting the novel, just like you visit a person. You get a taste of them and their experience for the brief time that you're with them, but you don't live with them, so you don't really know.

The action point that moves the story forward is: a Chinese prostitute gets beaten by a Japanese businessman in a love hotel. He takes all of her clothing and possessions leaving her bleeding naked on the floor. She can't speak a word of Japanese. Enter Mari a Japanese student who speaks Chinese reasonably well. She consoles her and with the help of the love hotel manager contacts the Chinese mob man to come pick her up. And that's the only action point in the entire novel really. Thereafter, Murakami switches scenes cycling between conversations with Mari and acquaintances, glimpses at the overworked Japanese businessman's work life that night post-'love hotel beatdown,' and Eri Asai, Mari's picture perfect sister who has been sleeping for 2 months straight.

To me, this novel can't be described by the events that happen. That's why I didn't do a good job at explaining them. This novel was about relationships, about people. I feel that Murakami uses certain circumstances to reveal personalities, to reveal the nature of existence. The events themselves don't have much depth. Not romantic relationships. Not strong relationships. Just people, every day people. How people affect each other. Sometimes these people know each other, sometimes they affect each other in passing. Regardless, people are pretty ordinary and all the same. If you're looking for a heroine or an extraordinary person, this book is not for you. This book is about regular people, and Mari who is the center of attention isn't all that special. She's a regular girl like any other. I like that.

The one thing I really appreciated about this book was the music. Murakami has been known for incorporating music into his novels and for his strong taste and love for Jazz. After reading blurbs about the book, taking advice from people I decided to play the songs Murakami mentioned as he mentioned them, as I was reading. He does have great taste in music. Playing the music as I read brought my experience more to life.

Should you read this book? I don't know what to tell you. I'm a Murakami junkie, so I should.

Update

Shit... it's been a while. Time flies.

Posting After Dark soon. I don't know about that because I've BEEN half-way done with that for a good while now. I might've forgotten the first half by now? Oh well.

Black History Month... Valentine's Day soon. Holiday of looooooove. Looking forward to it. That, and time.. time to read. Read, and then write posts.

Book 7: In Evil Hour - Gabriel García Márquez

I deserve an award for reading this crusty ass book. Literally, it was a crusty, stale book, yellow, and it smelled. I got this book from the library, and I honestly believe that they've had this copy since 1979 - not even kidding.

Reading this book was torture. I hated it. It was awful. It might be because I just read 100 Years of Solitude, and these two novels are too similar. Happenings in a Latin American town. Fantastic versus Reality. Politics. Evil. Corruption. It was the same thing. And the translation was obviously very poor.

This book revolves around a Latin American village in which someone is posting gossip and rumors about respected members of the neighborhood. The translation refers to them as 'lampoons,' but lampoons means satires, and these were just writings of sheer gossip/nasty rumors. The book tracks the effect of this gossip on the village. I'm not sure what was happening because I wanted it all to end. I remember that this woman named Trinidad is obsessed with killing all of the mice in the church - that comes up a lot. There is a controlling mayor/lieutenant, the priest, the dentist, religious folk, village folk, etc. This gossip has a tremendous effect on the village; it has everyone preoccupied and leads to murder, chaos, and evil. It even leads one of the most respected men in the neighborhood to murder another esteemed man over frivolous gossip. Don't mess with the man's honor.

I forgot to mention the humor in it all-

"It was said of him that in that same bedroom he'd murdered a man he found sleeping with his wife, that he'd buried him secretly in the courtyard. The truth was different: Adalberto Asís had, with a shotgun blast, killed a monkey he'd caught masturbating on the bedroom beam with his eyes fixed on his wife while she was changing her clothes. He'd died forty years later without having been able to rectify the legend."

What is interesting about this book is that it is based on a true story. This same, very exact, identical thing happened in Márquez's village in Columbia. Embarrassing gossip was being posted all over the village, and they never found out who the culprit was. It's kind of funny. It sounds like something a bored person would do. A simple act that has extreme consequences. I can see why villagers create a big commotion over seemingly unreliable gossip. The gossip is playing with everyone's honor and reputation, and people can't deal with that.

My shortest review yet. I usually have so much to say, but I just want this to go away.

Book 6: The Reader - Bernhard Schlink

I broke a new personal record - 2 books in 2 weeks! Sure, that's what I was supposed to be doing this whole time and was failing to accomplish, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

I saw The Reader before I read the book. It was a good year for Kate Winslet with The Reader and Revolutionary Road. Actually, Revolutionary Road was based on a book by Yates, so maybe I'll read that also.

So, anyway...

I saw The Reader on DVD, and I really enjoyed it, so I decided to read the book. It definitely was not what I expected. The content was all the same, but the style of writing was definitely surprising. The movie was so powerful, it was filled with emotion and seemed complicated. I expected a very long, lofty novel filled with windy, complicated language, images, examples, everything. This book was short and to the point. The language was terse and the tone was matter-of-fact.

Despite it's simplicity in language, it is a very deep and I'd say heavy novel as it brings forth a number of moral dilemmas. In the process it makes you think, it makes you wonder, it makes you question, and it leaves you unsure. In short, it is a very thought provoking novel. On sinning, for example, the protagonist recognizes that if the thought is just as bad as the act itself, then he might as well act on the sin. Or, on happiness, the narrator recognizes that in a happy marriage of let's say 20 years the spouse will revoke the 20 years as happy upon finding out that the partner had a lover throughout the entire 20 years, but you really were happy that whole time, weren't you?

The Reader tells the story of a 15-year-old German boy named Michael Berg who meets a woman, Hanna, who is twice his age and his lover. Michael grows deeply in love with Hanna spending every moment possible with her in her apartment making love. One day, Hanna asks Michael to read aloud to her, and that immediately becomes their ritual: Michael reads aloud to her and then they have sex. We soon realize that Hanna is illiterate, hence the beauty of the ritual, but Michael doesn't put two and two together. One day Hanna vanishes without a word leaving the naive boy depressed and destroyed. They meet again eight years later. This time Michael is a law student and Hanna is on trial for war crimes. We discover Hanna's brutal past in Nazi Germany and are faced with a moral dilemma. Really, Michael is faced with the dilemma, but it makes you wonder. Michael has information that could at the very least reduce Hanna's sentence. Is Hanna not-guilty with this information, or is she still guilty, but just not as guilty? She's brutal, yes, but maybe not as brutal as the rest. Was she just following orders? Could she have done something? Was she acting on her own free will? All of this ties in with the German war guilt in post-war Germany - I love you dad, but you were a mass murderer. I love you mom, but you exterminated Jews on a regular basis - that sort of thing.

Book 5: Cockroach - Rawi Hage

This book captured me at the first line, the first paragraph, the first page, the first chapter, and it captivated me until the very end. I wish I could recommend this book by telling you that "this is the fastest I've read any book for the Cannonball Read," "it was so good I couldn't put it down," and it was going that way for a while; I read the majority of the book, about two-thirds, within 24 hours. But then, somehow a week passed without reading a single word until last night when I finished it, and here we are. woops. It was really good though. Really good. Read the first four pages and I think you'll know if this book is for you.


Cockroach follows the escapades of an Arab immigrant in Montreal who lives on the fringes of society, relatively unnoticed, and reveals him in the context of Montreal's Middle Eastern immigrant community filled with refugees, exiles, and immigrants - yes, there is a difference. These people aren't 'mainstream' by any means. They all have issues and are psychologically effected by their pasts.

We find out right in the beginning that this Arab man - I don't like referring to people as 'narrator,' let's call him Jihad... Immediately we discover that Jihad is in love with an Iranian exile named Shohreh, he's sitting in his therapist Genevive's office due to a court order because last week he tried to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a public park. He failed obviously because a runner passing by came to his rescue. Oh, and he also thinks he's a cockroach (sometimes).

Jihad is an interesting character because even though he's not completely 'good,' he is also very charming and likable. He suffers from delirium which is usually triggered by drugs, so at times he believes that he's a cockroach. He hides from the sun, blaming it for his suicide attempt. He's a self-proclaimed thief, and he sometimes breaks into peoples' houses including that of his therapist just to snoop around or eat some food. And, he'll sometimes pick fights for absolutely no reason.

What I liked about this book was that as I was reading, Jihad seemed completely normal - just a normal guy doing his thing, living his life, but then he would do something not so normal like break into his therapist's apartment for no apparent reason. Or at other times he'd be hanging out with people, but then he would start giving physical descriptions of his cockroach self. That sounds a little crazy, fine. But the book wasn't too crazy because Jihad still had a firm grasp of society and the true nature of people including their hypocrisy. He saw through everyone and everything. He was just a little off mentally. Ultimately, if you take away the cockroach talk, this book describes a man living the struggle. He's hungry, and he's trying to eat.

The most captivating part of the book revolves around Jihad's therapy sessions. As you read, through Jihad's present actions you get a feel for what his current issues are, you see that he's a little disturbed and suicidal and that he's at the margins of society, but you don't know why. The therapy sessions are exciting because every week Jihad reveals his personal narrative; he gives the story of what led up to his current psychological condition. Jihad takes us back to the violence of his childhood in a chaotic, war-torn Arab country - I'll assume that it's based on the Lebanese Civil War because that's where the author is from. His past is chilling and at times shocking. You get a taste of Shohreh's dreadful experience in Iran as well: as a political prisoner she was the victim of torture and rape.

I recommend this book in any context. I think this might be my favorite book so far. It's pretty exciting to read regardless of your taste and background. Me, I liked it because I like stories about immigrants, and I especially liked it because the Middle East was represented, so there were certain culture specific elements that spoke to me.


I like quotes, but I didn't want to ruin the flow of my review, so if you're interested in examples of the things I mentioned keep reading -

Middle Eastern context-

For days after the party, I begged that asshole Reza to give me Shohreh's number. He refused. That selfish, shady exile would only say, in his drooling accent, You are not serious about her. You only want to sleep with her. She is not that kind of girl, she is Iranian. She is like a sister, and I have to protect her from dirty Arabs like you.

But, Reza, maestro, sisters also fuck, sisters also have needs, too.

This upset him and he cursed, Wa Allah alaazim. I will prevent you from meeting her again!

Bourgeois Hypocrisy-

I need a bus ticket, I said, and I am short a dollar and twenty cents. I will pay you right back, when I get a cheque in the mail. And without waiting for an answer, I picked dimes and quarters out of his palm. I wanted something from him. It angered me that the socialist does not want to be identified as poor, a marginal impoverished welfare recipient like me. At least I am not a hypocrite about it. Yes, i am poor, I am vermin, a bug, I am at the bottom of the scale. But I still exist. I look society in the face and say: I am here, I exist. There is existence and there is the void; you are either a one or a zero.

Cockroach's suicide attempt-

It was not deceit, depression, or a large tragedy that pushed me to go shopping for a rope that suited my neck. And it wasn't voices. I've never heard any voices in my head - unless you consider the occasional jam sessions of Mary, the neighbour above me. No, the thing that pushed me over the edge was the bright light that came in my window and landed on my bed and my face. Nothing made any sense to me anymore. It was not that I was looking for a purpose and had been deceived, it was more that i had never started looking for one. I saw the ray of light entering my window and realized how insignificant I was in its presence, how oblivious it was to my existence. My problem was not that I was negligent towards life, but that somehow I always felt neglected by it.

New Day, New Year, New Decade...

Happy New Year!

It's 2010 and cars can fly. That's what I watched on my countdown to ring in the New Year - Travis Pastrana breaking the world record for the longest rally car jump ever. And let me tell you, the anticipation was a lot more exciting than a ball dropping. It's so good that I found it for you on youtube; check it out: Jumping into the New Year

New Year Resolution: I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions and hope to be on a constant path toward self-improvement. Always. Losing weight is never one of these things. Neither is quitting things like smoking, drinking, or anything else people try to quit, because, I'm not a quitter. Completing this Cannonball Read can be one of those things, but I already resoluthisized that in November.

Did you notice that some people are wishing other people a "Happy New Year's" with an apostrophe 's.' That bothers me. I was trying to figure out where that comes from, and I think it's because we say "New Year's Day," so somehow it is correct to wish someone a "Happy New Year's." Just like the placement of the apostrophe when you try to make 2009 09. I've seen 09' which means, yet again, we've forgotten the purpose of the apostrophe. When we shorten a word/number, the apostrophe addresses the omitted part. And, I can't believe I just ranted about apostrophes...

Happy New Year!

The upside to life is that when things get shitty, they can only get better (I'm assuming that we have already hit rock bottom), so I have a feeling 2010 will be a much better year.

All joking aside, I had an excellent 2009, and I look forward with excitement as I start another year, 2010. I'm thankful to be alive to see another year... that's all that matters when you break it down anyway, right?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone enjoyed
their Christmas day.


Much love,

Me





This is from my favorite Christmas movie

Book 4: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

In this memoir, Haruki Murakami combines a series of excerpts or essays over the course of 2005-2006 regarding his life, his career as a novelist, and of course running. Through this short work, he reveals the moment that inspired him to start writing and what led him to begin long-distance running. Besides being a world renowned author, Murakami is a dedicated athlete having participated in over 25 marathons and a series of triathlons. He uses these experiences as a runner and, more specifically, his unwavering discipline to describe his personality revealing that the qualities that allow him to be a dedicated long-distance runner relate directly to his success in methodical writing.

Before I read this book, I read the NY Times Review of the book that read,

"I’m guessing that the potential readership for “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is 70 percent Murakami nuts, 10 percent running enthusiasts and an overlapping 20 percent who will be on the brink of orgasm before they’ve even sprinted to the cash register."

That made my laugh instantly because I'm part of that overlapping 20 percent. For me that is a statement, a fact, but for you that will serve as a warning because I inevitably have strong bias in favor of this book.

So I guess what I'll do is give you my impression of the book, which is what I'm here to do anyway, and then I'll give you my honest recommendation.

What immediately drew my attention to this book was that Murakami was talking about his long distance running experience in Cambridge (among other places) which included morning runs along the Charles River. I'm a long distance runner, so that works for me, and I also ran in the Boston Marathon, so I related to the marathon talk - I related to his discourse on training, the difficulties he faced, and his genuine desire to run. But, what really excited me was that he had been running in my backyard this whole time during my college career, and I didn't even know it. I thought to myself, "Imagine if I had been running along the Charles River in 2005, I might have been seeing him every morning." But I wasn't, not at that date anyway. Regardless, I understood the context of his experience, because I experienced these locations myself over the past four years. He even mentions a talk that he gave at MIT on October 6, 2005. I remember exactly what I was doing on that date because I had plans on attending said event, but I couldn't go. In these ways I felt a direct connection to the book.

If I could meet Haruki Murakami I would thank him for sharing this book with us. I use the word sharing because I felt as if I were reading pages out of the man's diary. I'm sure this was a very calculated portrayal of himself, but it didn't feel that way; it felt like a very candid, honest depiction of himself. He writes as if he's having a conversation with you; he uses a very forthright, casual language and you get a feel for what goes on through his mind.

This casual language made me realize that there is a big difference between the writing of Haruki Murakami the man and Haruki Murakami the author. I suppose I have always assumed that an author has one voice, a natural talent, and that voice comes out not only in his or her professional writing, but in all of the writing. I was wrong. This book is written in a completely different way than the novels. His style was no way nearly as refined and sophisticated as his novels. This realization helped me recognize that novel writing is his job, a painstaking task that would be like any other job that any other ordinary person has, it's not just a flow of natural talent (although I do believe that he is still extremely talented).

The most important part of the book, to me, was when he discussed what he thinks about when he is running. People who aren't distance runners just don't understand why people can run for hours - it's boring, how can you run for so long, what do you think about. I just enjoy it. My only motivation is the act of running itself and, of course, general physical fitness. I don't think about anything when I run. I usually say that "I think about nothing and everything." I'm not really successful at explaining this and since people typically don't understand me I start to feel a little crazy in the process, so it made me smile when Murakami confirmed my sentiment:

"I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue."

Overall, I was happy with reading this memoir, but I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone because it is clear that it has a very specific audience. This definitely shouldn't be your first Murakami book. You should read this if you like Haruki Murakami's books already or are interested in learning about him. You might even be interested in reading this if you are a runner or are at least mildly interested in running, but if you are neither of these things, I can't imagine you enjoying this.

I'm Craving Tomato Soup

I want Tomato Soup.

I have been craving it for the longest time... I don't want soup from a can, I don't want to eat it at Panera (which is no different from eating soup from a can), I just want to make it on my own. I have a feeling that it is super easy to make, but this is not something that exists in my culture.

Does anyone have a Tomato Soup recipe? Please pass it along.

Sincerely,

Hungry Cannonballer

Book 3: World War Z - Max Brooks

In World War Z, an Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks uses interviews with people around the world to give a hollistic account of the Zombie War that plagued the earth. Max Brooks brings together a variety of perspectives to provide interesting social commentary pertaining to many facets of human society. This book is very scary.

At first, I was convinced that Brooks single-handedly predicted swine flu and the subsequent public and governmental reaction to it - the greedy businessman who created a vaccine that didn't work to make money, the government's perspective to calm people down and maintain crowd control, people panicking due to uncertainty. In the process, through the combined efforts of the government and health department, a useless placebo drug claiming to be a vaccine gets administered to society even before anyone has an understanding of the Zombie Epidemic itself and knowing full well that it does not work. Sounds a little like swine flu and it's corresponding vaccine, doesn't it? How timely. On the cover of the November 2009 The Atlantic it reads, "SWINE FLU: DOES THE VACCINE REALLY WORK?" Scary. Then, as I kept reading, I was convinced that Brooks had a full understanding of the AIDS epidemic - prejudice and extermination for fear of the disease spreading, knowingly infecting people, and creating a vaccine to maximize profit instead of pursuing a cure, just to list a few things.

Then, it occurred to me. What makes this book so scary isn't swine flu nor is it AIDS, what makes this book so scary is that the Zombie War applies to every crisis and epidemic in modern human history. Max Brooks make you realize through these accounts that human nature is relatively constant, and while new incidents may arise, they all boil down to the same thing because we collectively react to them in the same way.
That's the only thing I got out of this book.

The book is clearly well-researched and definitely well-thought out. Max Brooks brings forth an understanding of World History, Current Events, and Global Politics. It was almost as if he was summarizing any History, Political Science, International Relations, students' college career. He doesn't go in depth into any particular world event, instead he gives you a taste of the multi-layered, interdependent global network, all while remaining arguably U.S. centric. I was also very surprised in the intricate details he used. For example, he mentioned the Revolutionary Guards, the Saw Mill Parkway, and the Ossetian ethnic minority. How many people know about the South Ossetians? I thought that was incredible random and respectable.

I thought this book was intriguing, but I didn't love it. It's sad because this book rests on an interesting premise and has the potential to be a GREAT book. Regrettably, the premise of this book is a lot stronger than its writing. The greatest weakness of this book which should have been its great strength had to do with the different perspectives. Different perspectives would normally keep me interested and entertained. However, every interview had the same exact voice, and that made this book utterly boring. Up to the first half, it grabbed my attention because through every perspective you learned a little more about the Zombie war. But once you got the full picture, it was just the same thing over and over - same voice, different event. It was a struggle to finish.

Book 2: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

This book is a gem. I absolutely loved this book, and I think you will too.

Oskar Schell is an intelligent, eccentric 9-year old who is deeply affected by his father’s death just one year ago in the World Trade Center crisis of 9/11. It is obvious that Oskar is deeply traumatized by this incident and is having difficulty coping with it as his mother gets a new boyfriend, he doesn’t get the attention he deserves, and life continues to move forward without his father. It’s not as obvious that he is 9 years old – I had to double check the back cover to make sure – he was definitely too mature for his age.

One day as Oskar rummages through his apartment he finds an envelope labeled ‘Black,’ and in it he finds a key that belonged to his father. Oskar sets himself on a mission to find the lock that matches this key in order to keep a connection with his father and to figure out his secret. The journey to find this lock sets this novel in motion. His first task is to meet every New Yorker with the last name ‘Black.’ The tasks that encompass this fact-finding mission lead Oskar to run into a wide array of people. What makes this novel so beautiful isn’t the encounters or the events themselves, but the point of view of this fascinating young boy. The way Oskar thinks, the way he frames events – well, mainly his train of thought make this book easy to read and easy to relate to.

At the same time, interspersed throughout Oskar’s journey, Foer tells the story of Oskar’s grandparents, how they met, and how they lived, and their marriage. If anything, that story is even more captivating. The characters are again eccentric, especially the Grandfather who chooses not to speak, and their journeys that led them to each other is brilliantly thought out. You discover the Grandfather’s version of the story in the form of a letter, and you get the Grandmother’s version in her personal account expressed directly to Oskar. Let’s just say that Grandfather, in his adolescence, falls in love with Grandmother’s sister Anna in Dresden, and when he meets Grandmother in America they decide to marry a loveless relationship.

“…the center of me followed her, but I was left with the shell of me, I needed to see her again, I couldn’t explain my need to myself, and that’s why it was such a beautiful need, there’s nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.”

“It’s the tragedy of loving, you can’t love anything more than something you miss.”

The structure of this novel is also something to consider.
Images. The novel is interlaced with images. (see post photo) That interesting choice of images makes you feel like you’re joining Oskar on his journey to find this lock. When Oskar finds a clue, you do too in the form of a picture. This element of the book, I believe, connects you even more to Oskar – it’s almost as if you’re going through the journey directly with him.
Format. The novel is also structured differently through its unique format. On some pages you’ll find only a word or a phrase.

I actually wrote this review when I was up to page 160, about half-way through the book, while I had my ideas fresh on my mind and thinking that I would have more to write once I finished. Surprisingly, I have nothing more to add. I’d like to reemphasize how amazing this book is… it got even better as I kept reading, and I’ll leave you with this amusing passage that really gives you a flavor of Oskar’s character:

As he walked out of the room, Jimmy said, “Hey, Oskar, who’s Buckminster?” I told him, “Richard Buckminster Fuller was a scientist, philosopher, and inventor who is most famous for designing the geodesic dome, whose most famous version is the Buckyball. He died in 1983, I think.” Jimmy said, “I mean your Buckminster.”

I didn’t know why he was asking, because I’d brought Buckminster to school for a demonstration only a couple of weeks before, and dropped him from the roof to show how cats reach terminal velocity by making themselves into little parachutes, and that cats actually have a better chance of surviving a fall from the twentieth floor than the eight floor, because it takes them about eight floors to realize what’s going on, and relax and correct themselves. I said, “Buckminster is my pussy.”

Book 1: One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

I finally did it! I have finally completed One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. It took long enough.

Apologies to my fans – all three of you. On Week 1, the week I should have completed this, I was just so distracted; my head was everywhere, and then from then on… well, you know. I tried to catch up, but this isn’t the type of book you can quickly read through.

Overall, I have to say that this was a wonderful book, and I can completely understand both why people claim it’s their favorite book and that it’s Márquez’s best work. I can’t say that I share that sentiment, but I also feel that I’ll have to go back and read it again so that I may fully enjoy it.

So, about the book.

To be perfectly honest, I was a little lost during the first 150 pages of the book. I couldn’t fully comprehend what Márquez was trying to get at. See, normally I’m used to books that portray a focal character, and then from there, the new characters are introduced in relation to that character. Márquez doesn’t do that here. So, I spent about 150 pages a little baffled, a little confused. Then, I read the back cover, and everything fell into place. I was getting it the whole time.
Here’s what it says:
“One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family.”

Yes! That’s exactly what was going on. That whole time I was trying to ‘get’ what Márquez was doing, and the truth to enlightenment was right there on the back cover. And honestly, that’s all you need to know: this book tells the very very long story of the Buendía family. Now, I’m not going to give you a plot summary – it would be a great disservice to you as I would ruin the book for you, and it would be a grave disrespect to Márquez’s masterpiece as I would ruin the book period. There is no way that I could think of up to now to truly capture the essence of this book. This book is an experience, and you need to experience it for yourself. What I will do is give you my reading of the book – parts of the book that stood out to me, elements that I thought were interesting, the like.

My first comment has to do with the characters… not the characters themselves, but their names. Márquez describes the entire Buendía family starting from the patriarchs, José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán, and tracks the entire family all the way down to the great-great-great grandchildren (I hope I didn’t put too many ‘greats’). As if it wasn’t already difficult enough to remember so many characters, Márquez repeats many of the character names with slight variation. Now, that may be realistic in some families, some people have complexes – I know I do, all of my children will carry a variation of my name- other times it’s tradition, but come on, did you really have to do that to me? Let’s just give you an example with just one repeated name. There’s Colonel Aureliano Buendía who has a child named Aureliano José and 17 other Aurelianos, let’s not forget Aureliano Segundo who has two grandchildren named Aureliano. Márquez was very kind to include a family tree… thanks, but no thanks.

As I kept reading, though, I realized that the repeated name thing actually works very well. Time isn’t a constant and clear element of the book, and it seems that events were layered and repeated. Through this process, personalities were recaptured by the newer generations, recaptured by characters with the same name. This also confused me at times, but when Márquez would return to stories and specific characters, everything seemed to fall into place. I liked that a lot about the book actually, it was very unique.

The one thing that stood out to me was Márquez’s leftism and how it was manifested in this novel. I have read two other Márquez novels before this one which inspired my curiosity for the author. Through that time I learned that Márquez has leftist leanings and more recently I came across a book at Barnes and Noble titled Gabo and Fidel: Portrait of a Friendship. Upon reading that title, I wondered why I never observed these sentiments in his novels. After all, your art is an expression of your person, so therefore I should feel these sentiments to some capacity in his novels. This book does that with two things – the war and the banana plantations.

The War. There is a very long war that takes course through part of the novel in which Colonel Aureliano Buendía plays a crucial role. Márquez provides poignant social commentary as he provides his descriptions of the conflicting Liberal and Conservative movements. Through this discourse he reveals a lot of the contradictions of the conservatives that he describes through their paradoxical perceptions of religion, conflict, etc. In his ‘factual’ descriptions of what the liberal and conservative parties each represented, he subtly and almost subconsciously channels his beliefs to the reader; he creates this good (liberal) vs. evil (conservative) partiality in the process.

The Banana Plantations. The banana plantations scream American Imperialism. Right on, Márquez. The banana plantations which are established and owned by foreigners exploit the people, destroy the neighborhood, and in the process become a dirty symbol of evil. They are also the source of conflict as they have no regard for… anything.

This book was also very entertaining - it was funny, amusing, it would make me giggle. There are so many parts -whether through strange behavior i.e. eating mud, or romantic relationships i.e. literally dropping dead due to unrequited love (I think that happened?) -that were so exaggerated, you couldn’t help but me entertained.

Good book. I’d recommend it.

One last thing I will say before we part - has to do with a very ugly sticker on the front cover of this book. This book is a member of “Oprah’s Book Club.” The biggest turnoff. Ever. Reading a book from Oprah’s Book Club is like being told by the government to read a book. That's why I hated most books in high school. You know people are going to read it just because Oprah recommended it. She got it like that. We vote for people because she says so. I can’t deny it. Now I love Oprah, and I’m actually quite sad that she will be announcing the end of her show – yes, I was raised on Oprah- but, we all know that if I were to write a book about safety pins and that somehow that lovely work of art managed to make its way onto Oprah’s Book Club list, I would turn into an instant mill-i-on-aire.


Be on the look out for Zombie books next.
Peace.

Smoking in Africa

Yesterday morning on the way to work I was listening to NPR and there was a news story discussing smoking in Africa, how it's on the rise, and how it needs to be stopped immediately. Now, my first reaction upon hearing this was, "Africa has more important problems than Cigarette smoking such as... POVERTY, the AIDS epidemic, instability, etc." Right? The list really goes on and on... so smoking should not be a priority. Smoking is the last thing Africans should worry about, let them have a cigarette if they so choose.

My initial reaction is the reason I must share this story. There were a lot of points that enlightened me, so to speak.

The most obvious and compelling argument is that we are currently in the pre-epidemic phase of smoking in Africa. You have to prevent an epidemic before it happens. Europe is the great example, and we need to use their example to learn from their situation. I'm telling you, my brain couldn't even piece that much together on it's own.

What really struck me is how Tobacco companies are manipulating people in developing countries to increase their market and increase profit. Tobacco companies? Manipulate people? No Surprise. Luckily, in the United States regulation has put a stop to this unbridled, shameful manipulation of the masses. You won't see a cartoon character smoking a cigarette or passing a pack of cigarettes to a child. That's not normal anymore. But, in Africa, it appears that tobacco companies are taking advantage of instability and lack of regulation in the government to misguide the public. For example, one advertisement went so far as to explicitly state that smoking makes you smarter. I know that statement goes against our better judgment, but there is a big difference between walking down a street in Nairobi with a billboard that says "Smoking makes you smarter" and walking through Heathrow Airport and seeing huge signs that say "SMOKING KILLS" on your pack of cigarettes. Where are you most likely to light up (even if you are already a smoker)????

I was very impressed when they spoke to pedestrians in Nairobi. They were well-informed about the damaging effects of second hand smoke, and even if they weren't they were so articulate. Which again confirms my notion that the average citizen in most countries is smarter - smartness is very subjective, I'll say more worldly and politically attuned - than the average American. Even the illiterate folk in some places know more about what's going on in the world. Is it because they're smarter? Not necessarily, this has nothing to do with aptitude. This has to do with the fact that certain people make it their business to know. There was one man who stood out from the rest with his outlandish comments - He claimed that smoking releases carbon dioxide into the air, and therefore his smoking helps the trees breathe. hahahaha Smokers are environmentalists.

Anyway, I hope this is interesting and I have a feeling that it is not. But, when I heard this story, it really angered me. The reaction is what inspired the post.

Even beyond the issue of smoking, why don't we hear about Africa? Maybe I'm in a Middle Eastern and Latin American news bubble, but I could swear that we don't get enough news coverage about Africa. Look at how we even treat the stories, we treat the entire continent as if it were one big country. In fact, I just did, but unlike Sarah Palin I at least know that Africa isn't one big country. The hypocrisy of it all just kills me. If this country was so concerned about liberating people, establishing stable governments, and pushing for democratic regimes, certain African nations would be on the critical priority list. Just as always, humanitarian issues get placed on the back burner, and we continue to kill our soldiers to support wars with unclear purposes. We criticize regimes that are unfriendly to us labeling them oppressive, and make nice with regimes that are even more oppressive than some of our enemies.

America needs to keep it real.



P.S. Doesn't the guy in the picture look kind of like Santa Clause??

Supermagic - First Week of Reading

The time has come. I have finally chosen my first book to kick off the cannonball read.

Choosing a book was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I mean, it's the first book. It has to be good. It's the first one!

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Rant/Aside: I'm still coping with the fact that The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón couldn't be my first review. I was in the middle of that book when I found out about this cannonball business. It was perfect. It felt like Harry Potter... I would stay up 2 hours more than I had planned just to keep reading. I couldn't put it down. Now you may think I'm a book nerd, and I guess you have some right to because I am participating in this cannonball nonsense after all. No, I'm not obsessed with books, and therefore, yes, you can assume the book was just that good. And, this is my way of telling you to go read it as soon as possible.
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After finally committing to a book, I have started to read said book. Already, I have encountered a big obstacle: Every time I start to read, I start falling asleep. hahaha I don't think it's a reflection of the book because I think it's good so far. I just... don't know.

I'm still working on my reading list, so if you have any good suggestions please let me know.

I don't want the suspense to kill you, or do I? I want you to get excited to read my blog, so I will give you something to look forward to - I'm reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. Bookmark my page already. "Just do it," says Nike.

While I'm here I'd like to plug Mos Def's - The Ecstatic. It's great.

Oh and shout out to my over-achievers who have already written their first reviews when I have only started reading <50 pages of my first book. I was you in high school.

Until Friday.. or maybe Saturday.. depends on when I have time to write this blog.

52 Books in 52 Weeks

I am excited to announce that I will be participating in Pajiba's Cannonball Read - 52 books in 52 weeks. It's a great opportunity for me to read all of the books that I've planned on reading over the course of the years and just haven't gotten around to reading (I have to work on remaking that list).

More importantly, for me this experience will be therapeutic in a sense. I'm a recent graduate who for the first time in my life has no set schedule, no structure to keep things in order... for the first time, I have an abundance of time... which, I can't lie, really is a beautiful thing. The retched state of the economy hasn't helped though: Morale has gotten low, there are spates of discouragement... the overall mood is a gloomy one. Many feel this story. You know it already.

I'm hopeful.

Participating in this, I feel, will give me something to look forward to every week. It's really a whole process - from choosing the right book, reading it, enjoying the work (hopefully), thinking about it and writing your thoughts down. And the people that know me know that I loooove to talk, so this channels that energy into a blog and saves their ears in the process.
So imagine.. I'll be completing this process every. single. week. On the plus side, this will move me from facebook-stalking to blog-stalking. I don't know how religiously I will be following all of the reviews - there are 100 bloggers, after all - but I really hope people comment on mine.

Sooooo about me and more or less what to expect.

Haruki Murakami is my favorite author. I read Norwegian Wood and it left such a pleasant impression on me that I immediately declared that he was my favorite author. I read his other books and haven't change my mind. I also love love love Gabriel García Márquez - I can't tell you a thing about realismo mágico - I simply have liked what I've read. More recently, Carlos Ruiz Zafón. These are my favorites and I haven't read all of their books.. so their work should be cycling through here at one point or another.

I won't go near books that will remind you of Shopaholic - sorry to the fans, you're just not going to find that here. The title He's Just Not that Into You makes me want to gag. I love the film The Devil Wears Prada, but you can be sure that I never had any intention of reading the book, and I never will.

I also don't delve into fantasy or science-fiction, but if you have any recommendations I am very open to your suggestions. Harry Potter counts as fantasy, right? I love Harry Potter, so maybe there's some potential for growth in that genre.

Basically, I like fiction that describes real people in real situations.
That isn't an accurate description, but it makes sense in my head.