Kazuo Ishiguro

It seems Ishiguro's most famous book is Remains of the Day, mostly because Merchant Ivory made a movie out of it—starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. You can't go wrong with those two. And actually, the cast was a lovely list of the finest actors and actresses England has. It was a good enough film that I wanted to read the book, which I did, several years ago. It was a brilliant portrayal of a stuffy English butler. English? I thought this author was Japanese. Well, he is. He seems to have this thing for World War II England, though.

I just finished reading When We Were Orphans. It was a trip. I really do enjoy the whole unreliable narrator thing, especially when said narrator isn't too far off base. I've experienced the Roger Ackroyd effect, as well as The Sound and the Fury, and it's unsettling to be put inside the mind of murderers and the mentally handicapped. I think it just might be more unsettling to be put inside the mind of someone who is sometimes insane and sometimes not; someone who is so haunted by his past that he mixes things up to the point that you really think he's dangerous.

The narrative centers around the investigation Christopher Banks, a young English gentleman, is putting together to find his parents, who mysteriously disappeared when they all lived in Shanghai, when he was nine or ten years old. When it became clear that his parents were not coming back, officials sent Christopher to England, but he grew up believing that if he could become a brilliant enough detective, he could figure out what happened and save his parents from captivity, and at the same time fix the mess China was in at the time (the fight between Chiang Kai-shek and the communists, and the invasion from Japan). At the same time, he mixes up his memories of the events surrounding his parents' disappearance with some confusing things going on with his best friend. His half-hearted love affair with a London friend, Sarah Cummings, and his adoption of an orphan named Jennifer deepen the theme of the lost, confused child who can never manage to pick up the pieces of the past.

The most striking thing about the story is the obvious portrayal of the incompleteness of a child's comprehension. Our perceptions of the world are shaped during childhood, and misconceptions become hard-wired. I find myself remembering very small things that happened when I was little, that have had a deep and lasting impact on my life. It only makes sense that something as big as having one's parents disappear, and subsequently being sent to a boarding school on the other side of the world, could be unsettling enough to send one very near the edge of insanity, where all it takes is a little trip into a war zone to tip the scales.

It wasn't as depressing as I make it sound. There is some resolution, though not the sort to make for a happy ending. And I would never, ever attempt to make it into a movie. Certain scenes would be too gruesome. The book is finely written, and I would recommend it (not for everyone, of course) but I will never read it again.

I Am Legend

For some really strange reason, when they started advertising the movie, I was all about it. I watched all the trailers, I talked to my students about it, and I tried to find friends to go see it with me. No one wanted to.

What's not to like about a zombie apocalypse movie starring Will Smith, a German Shepherd, and lots of badly-designed CG monsters? Not to mention all those weird mannequins.

When I was a child, I happened across the old version of the story, which was called The Last Man on Earth and starred Vincent Price. Of course. It scared my socks off—but not any more than the Will Smith version scared me when I finally did watch the dvd with the siblings, several months after all the hype was gone. I was lying on the floor in the dark, trembling. Gingey can call me a pansy all she likes, but that doesn't change much, I guess.

I think it's because, almost like my annual cravings for hot dogs, sometimes I have an uncharacteristic desire to be frightened, but only in a way of my own choosing. There's a big difference between the tension you feel when Will Smith is driving around singing Bob Marley to his dog and the tension you feel when Vincent Price is wandering around plunging stakes into the undead.

And what brought all this on? The book. I went to a friend's house last weekend and we spent the better part of the day watching episodes of The Twilight Zone. He was convinced that I would love it, and he wasn't far wrong. In one of the stories, a man passed a display rack of the 1950s version of the story—re-titled, apparently, to the Vincent version. Before I judge, I should probably make sure that wasn't the original title, but it appears to me that the original title is actually I Am Legend. After all, it is the last line of the book.

I got ahold of the book last night and decided to read it. For variety. Too many princess books is bad for the intellect, and everything else on my immediate reading list is massively long. That, and I'm sort of on a sci-fi kick right now. We read A Wrinkle in Time for my book club, and I recently watched In Time (an okay movie if you can get past Amanda Seyfried's fringe ... well, actually, I liked it a lot. Not in a "that's such a mind-blowing concept and a great movie!" way, but an "it was mildly interesting and even a little bit sweet, and I guess Justin Timberlake isn't so bad" way).

The book, though, was rather a surprise. It wasn't anything like the Will Smith version, which makes Robert Neville much more noble and ends much more happily. Must be the difference between 1950s and turn-of-the-century media. We tend to like happy endings more these days. Aside from the depressing ending, however, it was a really great book. It's hard to describe the style, but it was somewhat like these more modern writers such as Cormac McCarthy and Norman Maclean. A lot of it reminded me of The Road. The movement by movement detail created a beautiful tension, rather than boredom. It referenced Shakespeare, great Classical music, and other great stuff. I especially liked the parts where he made fun of Dracula (a really dumb book).

I could quote a lot of impressive passages, but I will leave with one of my favorites: "Was there a logical answer, something he could accept without slipping on banana skins of mysticism?"

A Short List of Awesome Things

1. When Adobe suddenly decides, for no specific reason, that your document needs to be in Cyrillic instead of English

2. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes

3. The hot cocoa dispenser at work

4. Attending my third meeting of a book club, several members of which actually seem to have read more books than I have

5. We're going to Boston ... and so is Heather!

6. Being outside at night means almost always seeing frogs, rabbits, and deer

7. Admitting to myself that 5 am is not a sustainable start time for the day

8. Never feeling professionally obligated to read another paranormal romance, ever again

9. Blisters turned into calluses

10. My three-minute commute

If I wore bright red lipstick like Peggy Carter, maybe I could date Captain America.

I went to see The Avengers this evening with some friends. Movie ticket prices are outrageous, but I'd still say it was $10 well spent.

Oh, and on a side note, I fell in love with Captain America on Monday night while making a pie. I have got to get me one of those. The 'ceps are nice, but I turned all mushy when Tommy Lee Jones threw the grenade and Steve ran, curled around it, and shouted at everyone to run away. It seems to me I always get a crush on the little guy--because he's always the bravest and the smartest. But then to take him and turn him into a Buffster without losing the brave and the smart. Wow. Do they make 'em like they used to?

I don't usually care for super hero movies. I only saw Captain America because a friend told me I should see it before seeing The Avengers. And I only wanted to see The Avengers because Joss Whedon was in charge. Well, I must confess that the hype had something to do with it as well. I don't conscientiously avoid trendy stuff, but I do make sure it's trendy because it's good and not just because people are lemmings.

Everything about The Avengers was good, except maybe the last line. It was so bad it might have spoiled an otherwise good film, but this film was, fortunately, enough to fight it ... and the extras in the credits helped. Well, there were a few other things that made it less than perfect, such as a few unexplained holes in the plot. But one expects that and doesn't mind when everything else is so well executed.

Just as I had decided that every movie has to sacrifice something major, that it can't be a balance of good in all its elements, I am proven wrong. It actually is possible to have a good cast of characters who work as individuals and as a team, with a good story (and an excellent script, not always the same thing); expensive, showy special effects; and beautiful set design and camerawork.

On that note, I will end, because I don't like spouting spoilers, and I've run out of intelligent things to say. Thus, I will end with a quote.

"You're walking on tiptoes, big man. You need to strut."