must...bookblog...must...ARGGGGGG.
Aug. 19th, 2006 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedWriting these up was no fun at all. But if not now, then when? NO DAY BUT TODAY.
I'm posting the two longest ones first, since they are somewhat related to each other.
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore
A fifteen-year-old boy runs away from home, and a man with a mysterious mental handicap can talk to cats. Eventually, their lives intersect. I liked this one better than Hard-boiled Wonderland.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tarigwaemir said something about the writing (or translation) having more punch, but I didn't think so. It took me a long time to get used to so many stock phrases. They weren't bad, but they were distracting.
I liked it better because there was more synchronicity. What I mean is that when the characters discuss books or music, the issues they bring up are the same issues present in Kafka (the book). When Oshima talks about Aristophane's three genders and split bodies, this echoes his unusual gender issues and the relationship between Ms Seita and her dead boyfriend. Kafka (the character) and Sakura talk about karma, so when Kafka is compared to Dead Boyfriend you think maybe he's a reincarnation. This ties into fate, which ties into Oshima's talk about Oedipus Rex and Cassandra, which ties into Kafka's father's prophecy (and other events). Oshima talks about the convenience of the Greek chorus and lo, Kafka gets a chorus too (the boy called Crow). The characters are always talking about how metaphor is reality is metaphor, which is Murakami in a nutshell. And so on.
I'm not sure whether there are actually more correlations in this book, or if they are only more obvious (like Genji and living spirits is obvious), or it if was only that this time I was actually familiar with the references (except Schubert -- not really a fan of classical music). Kafka, I'm pretty sure, would be enjoyable either way -- the significance of these things is explaned in-text, so it's not like you won't understand what they're talking about. But it really adds something if you are familar, because then you can read Murakami's interpretations and decide whether or not you agree with them. When you don't know what he's talking about you have no choice but to take his word for it, much less fun.
Further thoughts...I want to work in a library like that. Individual journeys of self-discovery, which you experience alone in the wilderness, don't do anything for me. I guess I don't believe that they're really anything more profound than self-indulgence. I also don't buy into music as an uplifting experience, which is sort of ironic since I've experienced it (and the wilderness thing too, actually -- still, these kinds of raised consciousnesses somehow strike me as false). I'm still working on what "enjoying imperfections" -- that thing that comes up in discussions of Schubert (BAH) and Natsume Soseki's The Miner -- ties into. Maybe the very general sense of Kafka being flawed? Or maybe it was just an observation Murakami wanted to make. (I agree 100%, btw.)
I wonder whether imagination really is divorced from intelligence. That fan-of-the-proletariat truck driver says so when he gives Nakata a ride, and Kafka discovers this when he reads Heigel (the SS officer)'s biography. (Heigel is smart but not imaginative.) Hoshino is the proof, maybe, because he claims he's not smart but he's clearly imaginative (when given a chance -- he has to go from not knowing about WWII to watching Troffaunt films first). I don't know. There are intelligent people with no imagination in the book -- you can tell that Kafka's father is one because when Nakata says he doesn’t understand something, the cat he's talking to finds a different way to say it, while the father only repeats himself -- but the father and Heigel have so many other personality problems that I don't think this proves anything. I have known people who were smart AND conventional AND sane, so maybe? A part of it definitely is exposure to different ideas, which isn't connected to intelligence (but IS connected to privilege: tricky).
I still don't know what Oshima meant when he said "unusual is not the same as different". Maybe in your head this makes sense, but those of us who don't live there need you to elaborate, jeeze!
Pamela Dean - Tam Lin
Janette goes away to college, where she gets along really well with one roomate (Molly) and learns to tolerate another (Tina). Additionally, there are all these beautiful, mysterious, somewhat unnerving students hanging around, many of them Classics majors. Jannette is involved with three (Nick, Thomas, and Robin). The book is a retelling of the Scottish ballad Tam Lin, in which the brave and headstrong Janet saves her otherworldly lover from the clutches of the Fairy Queen.
Tam Lin is full of literary references. Unlike Kafka's, they aren't explaned -- it's assumed that everyone reading already knows Milton and Shelley and Aristophanes and Keats -- and their impact is mostly confined to the mental states of sensitive persons. The characters all quote Shakespeare at each other to communicate their feelings. Whenever I didn't know enough about whatever was being quoted to know what made it such a heartbreaking, powerful thing, I shrugged and pretended the quote was a song from an FST that had just been played back to the character it describes. Who immediately grasped the significance, as did everyone else in the room (except Tina). This happened a lot, especially in the middle of the book.
I'm torn on Tam Lin. I didn't like the beginning or the end, but I did like the middle, mostly because a world where everyone immediately recognizes the significance of literary quoatations and is moved by them is, if you think about it, kind of awesome. XD and because I recognized more of the material in that section of the book, and enjoyed reading the characters' interpretations of it. My final verdict is decent, but you have to know what the author is talking about. I'd recommend this to English majors or anyone who goes or has gone to a small liberal arts college like Blackstone. I wouldn't recommend it to high school students (unless very advanced) or anyone who has ever said "English is a silly major" and meant it. (Why was this in YA, again?) Also, anyone who really hates judgemental heroinnes will probably hate this book.
Adapted from comments withmarej:
Beginning
I'm about 90 pages into Tam Lin. Jannette is very judgemental, I don't think I like her. She's nothing like the Janet in the ballad. Sometimes I wish Pamela Dean used fewer alusions -- not all of us share the exact same body of knowledge, and always having to work out what she's talking about is exhausting -- but for the most part the writing is okay. I go to a large state school famous for it's football team, but from what I know about small liberal arts colleges the tone fits perfectly. I'm getting a kick out of the college-y parts, it's all very nostalgic.
About Tina. She's sensible, she dresses well, she's smart but doesn't feel the need to prove it all the time (seriously, don't these people ever get tired of trying to make every conversation witty?), and she puts up with, by Janet's own admission, way more bad behavior than Janet ever would. And yet it seems Janet has already decided not to like her...why? It's almost like she's getting hers in first, but this is silly because Tina has shown no indication of disliking or dismissing Janet. Ugh. I keep thinking that we are supposed to identify with Janet, but I really don't want to.
On the other hand, the fact that Dean is going out of her way to mention Tina's good points gives me hope that sometime in the future Janet's prejudices will be exposed for what they are. Janet also strikes me as mildly racist; I highly doubt that this particular prejudice is going to be exposed any time soon. (Example: "Skin the color of soy sauce...beautiful skull, but something about the expression told Janette she didn't want to know what went on beneath it." And later she compares racism to sexism! I wanted to hit her.)
I don't think this is going to be addressed because I don't think Dean knows she's doing it. A lot of the really awful lines are Janette trying to prove she's not racist by purposefully playing it down [later note: or Dean trying to prove she's not racist by going out her way to play it up. I mean, I'm sure Danny Chin's hair is like black silk. And he certainly is "as calm as a buddha." But you get the impression that Dean chooses to describe minorites this way because she thinks it will proove that racism is not a problem, when actually, she'd be better served by not pretending the problem wasn't there.
SIMILARLY, mentions of lesbians and lesbianism. At first I thought I was imagining it, but no, there really are a lot of these. Since they are not important to the plot but ARE phrased fairly coyly, I can only assume Dean is trying to avoid the impression that anything is buried by dragging it out in the open (though plenty remains buried in the shape of really long descriptions of Tina's legs). Once again, this is counterproductive: going out of your way to bring up a topic isn't going to make your readers dismiss it.]
Middle:
When you meet Janet's family, you see where she gets her opinions from, which makes it harder to hold them against her. And shortly after this she settles down -- I think her earlier judgementalism was supposed to reflect the experience of living away from home for the first time. Now that's she's accepted that there are other ways to live, and she's not always comparing everything to what she knew before and finding it lacking, she's a lot more likeable.
The latest chapters have focused on Shakespeare and Tam Lin (the original ballad), two things I'm actually familiar with (as opposed to Milton and Keats and Shelley). I could read discussions of Hamlet all day, and this time Dean's quotalicious forshadowing is actually comprehensible to me! (When Thomas cringes at that "fate" line.) I really like Thomas, especially since the other Pretty People dislike him (impolite, they say). There are some really nice parts in here, like the section where Janet describes the weakness of the novel-reader (wanting to see how things will turn out if you don't interfere). The impact of Christinity on English literature is depressing, I knew exactly how Jannette felt in that chapter. On the other hand: dude, if I was that old, I would totally have learned not to flinch every time anyone says something innocuous about life being too short.
I'm glad to see that Janet is not in the Super Special Position of being the only one capable of putting the facts together. Molly notices a lot of the weirdness too. Tina doesn't, but then no one expects her to. The three roomates are all real enough to have definitely been drawn from real people. Tina reminds me of my first-year roomate (we didn't get along at all). Molly reminds me of me. Robin/Molly reminds me of Yamazaki/Chiharu from CCS, except less fluffy since it's made clear just how unnatural and trying someone like Yamazaki would really be. I'm trying not to identify Jannette with Pamela Dean too much, but it's hard.
Ending - MAJOR spoilers - highlight to read
Man, the ending was so anticlimatic. You sort of suspect that it will be like the ballad's, meaning it won't be a surprise. But even suspecting this, and BEING PREPARED FOR IT, the ending is a letdown. Suddenly Thomas is all "allow me to tell you plainly exactly what's been going on these last four years!" I wonder why, if it was that simple, no one said anything before. Some plot threads are left dangling too. Really, it just seems rushed.
I liked the implication that in seven years the Fairy Queen will return for Janet and her baby. XD not because I hate her or anything, but it's such a dark ending. Sadly Dean plays down the creepy awfulness of the ballad.
Janette HESITATED before saving Thomas's life! "No, sorry, I'm not sure I want to save from Hell if it means I have to keep your baby, too." But I am inclined to cut her some slack, because she did go through with it in the end, and her doubts are played more like a natural reaction to an unwanted pregnancy than some kind of moral stance. Sort of like, maybe you don't really plan to have an abortion, but you do seriously consider it.
Still. What a terrible fit for a feminist message. I'm all for woman's choice and not having to marry the father of your child, just because you slept with him, but in this case keeping the baby is tied up with saving Thomas from Hell. How can anyone suppot an abortion in those circumstances? Undeveloped fetuses that may or may not be people are one thing, dreamy hapless college students are another! Sometimes I forget the book's set in 1972, right after abortion was legalized. If it had been written then too, and not in 1990, this kind of feminism would have been much more radical and (perhaps) better received.
Conclusion: I bet Dean thought this would be a great ballad to turn into a feminist message, since it is about a strong-minded heroinne who is brave and doesn't let anyone tell her what to do. But the kind of feminism in the ballad and the kind in the book are working at cross-purposes, they really undermine each other. Once again: a decent book, but not a very good adaption of Tam Lin. Also, although I did end up doing it I really shouldn't have had to make THAT many excuses for Janet.
Bookblogging would be easier if I didn't feel the need to WRITE SO MUCH. -_-;; Here, have a super short movie review:
Snakes on a Plane
SURPRISINGLY GOOD. Well, not the scenes they added to up the sex/violence/ridiculousness. But the underlying movie, the one that makes no sense but is ernest anyway? That movie's pretty good. When the passengers all rally together to fight off those pheromone-crazed exotic snakes on that airplane, you really root for them. Even the dumb motocross kid.
I'm posting the two longest ones first, since they are somewhat related to each other.
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore
A fifteen-year-old boy runs away from home, and a man with a mysterious mental handicap can talk to cats. Eventually, their lives intersect. I liked this one better than Hard-boiled Wonderland.
tarigwaemir said something about the writing (or translation) having more punch, but I didn't think so. It took me a long time to get used to so many stock phrases. They weren't bad, but they were distracting. I liked it better because there was more synchronicity. What I mean is that when the characters discuss books or music, the issues they bring up are the same issues present in Kafka (the book). When Oshima talks about Aristophane's three genders and split bodies, this echoes his unusual gender issues and the relationship between Ms Seita and her dead boyfriend. Kafka (the character) and Sakura talk about karma, so when Kafka is compared to Dead Boyfriend you think maybe he's a reincarnation. This ties into fate, which ties into Oshima's talk about Oedipus Rex and Cassandra, which ties into Kafka's father's prophecy (and other events). Oshima talks about the convenience of the Greek chorus and lo, Kafka gets a chorus too (the boy called Crow). The characters are always talking about how metaphor is reality is metaphor, which is Murakami in a nutshell. And so on.
I'm not sure whether there are actually more correlations in this book, or if they are only more obvious (like Genji and living spirits is obvious), or it if was only that this time I was actually familiar with the references (except Schubert -- not really a fan of classical music). Kafka, I'm pretty sure, would be enjoyable either way -- the significance of these things is explaned in-text, so it's not like you won't understand what they're talking about. But it really adds something if you are familar, because then you can read Murakami's interpretations and decide whether or not you agree with them. When you don't know what he's talking about you have no choice but to take his word for it, much less fun.
Further thoughts...I want to work in a library like that. Individual journeys of self-discovery, which you experience alone in the wilderness, don't do anything for me. I guess I don't believe that they're really anything more profound than self-indulgence. I also don't buy into music as an uplifting experience, which is sort of ironic since I've experienced it (and the wilderness thing too, actually -- still, these kinds of raised consciousnesses somehow strike me as false). I'm still working on what "enjoying imperfections" -- that thing that comes up in discussions of Schubert (BAH) and Natsume Soseki's The Miner -- ties into. Maybe the very general sense of Kafka being flawed? Or maybe it was just an observation Murakami wanted to make. (I agree 100%, btw.)
I wonder whether imagination really is divorced from intelligence. That fan-of-the-proletariat truck driver says so when he gives Nakata a ride, and Kafka discovers this when he reads Heigel (the SS officer)'s biography. (Heigel is smart but not imaginative.) Hoshino is the proof, maybe, because he claims he's not smart but he's clearly imaginative (when given a chance -- he has to go from not knowing about WWII to watching Troffaunt films first). I don't know. There are intelligent people with no imagination in the book -- you can tell that Kafka's father is one because when Nakata says he doesn’t understand something, the cat he's talking to finds a different way to say it, while the father only repeats himself -- but the father and Heigel have so many other personality problems that I don't think this proves anything. I have known people who were smart AND conventional AND sane, so maybe? A part of it definitely is exposure to different ideas, which isn't connected to intelligence (but IS connected to privilege: tricky).
I still don't know what Oshima meant when he said "unusual is not the same as different". Maybe in your head this makes sense, but those of us who don't live there need you to elaborate, jeeze!
Pamela Dean - Tam Lin
Janette goes away to college, where she gets along really well with one roomate (Molly) and learns to tolerate another (Tina). Additionally, there are all these beautiful, mysterious, somewhat unnerving students hanging around, many of them Classics majors. Jannette is involved with three (Nick, Thomas, and Robin). The book is a retelling of the Scottish ballad Tam Lin, in which the brave and headstrong Janet saves her otherworldly lover from the clutches of the Fairy Queen.
Tam Lin is full of literary references. Unlike Kafka's, they aren't explaned -- it's assumed that everyone reading already knows Milton and Shelley and Aristophanes and Keats -- and their impact is mostly confined to the mental states of sensitive persons. The characters all quote Shakespeare at each other to communicate their feelings. Whenever I didn't know enough about whatever was being quoted to know what made it such a heartbreaking, powerful thing, I shrugged and pretended the quote was a song from an FST that had just been played back to the character it describes. Who immediately grasped the significance, as did everyone else in the room (except Tina). This happened a lot, especially in the middle of the book.
I'm torn on Tam Lin. I didn't like the beginning or the end, but I did like the middle, mostly because a world where everyone immediately recognizes the significance of literary quoatations and is moved by them is, if you think about it, kind of awesome. XD and because I recognized more of the material in that section of the book, and enjoyed reading the characters' interpretations of it. My final verdict is decent, but you have to know what the author is talking about. I'd recommend this to English majors or anyone who goes or has gone to a small liberal arts college like Blackstone. I wouldn't recommend it to high school students (unless very advanced) or anyone who has ever said "English is a silly major" and meant it. (Why was this in YA, again?) Also, anyone who really hates judgemental heroinnes will probably hate this book.
Adapted from comments with
marej: Beginning
I'm about 90 pages into Tam Lin. Jannette is very judgemental, I don't think I like her. She's nothing like the Janet in the ballad. Sometimes I wish Pamela Dean used fewer alusions -- not all of us share the exact same body of knowledge, and always having to work out what she's talking about is exhausting -- but for the most part the writing is okay. I go to a large state school famous for it's football team, but from what I know about small liberal arts colleges the tone fits perfectly. I'm getting a kick out of the college-y parts, it's all very nostalgic.
About Tina. She's sensible, she dresses well, she's smart but doesn't feel the need to prove it all the time (seriously, don't these people ever get tired of trying to make every conversation witty?), and she puts up with, by Janet's own admission, way more bad behavior than Janet ever would. And yet it seems Janet has already decided not to like her...why? It's almost like she's getting hers in first, but this is silly because Tina has shown no indication of disliking or dismissing Janet. Ugh. I keep thinking that we are supposed to identify with Janet, but I really don't want to.
On the other hand, the fact that Dean is going out of her way to mention Tina's good points gives me hope that sometime in the future Janet's prejudices will be exposed for what they are. Janet also strikes me as mildly racist; I highly doubt that this particular prejudice is going to be exposed any time soon. (Example: "Skin the color of soy sauce...beautiful skull, but something about the expression told Janette she didn't want to know what went on beneath it." And later she compares racism to sexism! I wanted to hit her.)
I don't think this is going to be addressed because I don't think Dean knows she's doing it. A lot of the really awful lines are Janette trying to prove she's not racist by purposefully playing it down [later note: or Dean trying to prove she's not racist by going out her way to play it up. I mean, I'm sure Danny Chin's hair is like black silk. And he certainly is "as calm as a buddha." But you get the impression that Dean chooses to describe minorites this way because she thinks it will proove that racism is not a problem, when actually, she'd be better served by not pretending the problem wasn't there.
SIMILARLY, mentions of lesbians and lesbianism. At first I thought I was imagining it, but no, there really are a lot of these. Since they are not important to the plot but ARE phrased fairly coyly, I can only assume Dean is trying to avoid the impression that anything is buried by dragging it out in the open (though plenty remains buried in the shape of really long descriptions of Tina's legs). Once again, this is counterproductive: going out of your way to bring up a topic isn't going to make your readers dismiss it.]
Middle:
When you meet Janet's family, you see where she gets her opinions from, which makes it harder to hold them against her. And shortly after this she settles down -- I think her earlier judgementalism was supposed to reflect the experience of living away from home for the first time. Now that's she's accepted that there are other ways to live, and she's not always comparing everything to what she knew before and finding it lacking, she's a lot more likeable.
The latest chapters have focused on Shakespeare and Tam Lin (the original ballad), two things I'm actually familiar with (as opposed to Milton and Keats and Shelley). I could read discussions of Hamlet all day, and this time Dean's quotalicious forshadowing is actually comprehensible to me! (When Thomas cringes at that "fate" line.) I really like Thomas, especially since the other Pretty People dislike him (impolite, they say). There are some really nice parts in here, like the section where Janet describes the weakness of the novel-reader (wanting to see how things will turn out if you don't interfere). The impact of Christinity on English literature is depressing, I knew exactly how Jannette felt in that chapter. On the other hand: dude, if I was that old, I would totally have learned not to flinch every time anyone says something innocuous about life being too short.
I'm glad to see that Janet is not in the Super Special Position of being the only one capable of putting the facts together. Molly notices a lot of the weirdness too. Tina doesn't, but then no one expects her to. The three roomates are all real enough to have definitely been drawn from real people. Tina reminds me of my first-year roomate (we didn't get along at all). Molly reminds me of me. Robin/Molly reminds me of Yamazaki/Chiharu from CCS, except less fluffy since it's made clear just how unnatural and trying someone like Yamazaki would really be. I'm trying not to identify Jannette with Pamela Dean too much, but it's hard.
Ending - MAJOR spoilers - highlight to read
Man, the ending was so anticlimatic. You sort of suspect that it will be like the ballad's, meaning it won't be a surprise. But even suspecting this, and BEING PREPARED FOR IT, the ending is a letdown. Suddenly Thomas is all "allow me to tell you plainly exactly what's been going on these last four years!" I wonder why, if it was that simple, no one said anything before. Some plot threads are left dangling too. Really, it just seems rushed.
I liked the implication that in seven years the Fairy Queen will return for Janet and her baby. XD not because I hate her or anything, but it's such a dark ending. Sadly Dean plays down the creepy awfulness of the ballad.
Janette HESITATED before saving Thomas's life! "No, sorry, I'm not sure I want to save from Hell if it means I have to keep your baby, too." But I am inclined to cut her some slack, because she did go through with it in the end, and her doubts are played more like a natural reaction to an unwanted pregnancy than some kind of moral stance. Sort of like, maybe you don't really plan to have an abortion, but you do seriously consider it.
Still. What a terrible fit for a feminist message. I'm all for woman's choice and not having to marry the father of your child, just because you slept with him, but in this case keeping the baby is tied up with saving Thomas from Hell. How can anyone suppot an abortion in those circumstances? Undeveloped fetuses that may or may not be people are one thing, dreamy hapless college students are another! Sometimes I forget the book's set in 1972, right after abortion was legalized. If it had been written then too, and not in 1990, this kind of feminism would have been much more radical and (perhaps) better received.
Conclusion: I bet Dean thought this would be a great ballad to turn into a feminist message, since it is about a strong-minded heroinne who is brave and doesn't let anyone tell her what to do. But the kind of feminism in the ballad and the kind in the book are working at cross-purposes, they really undermine each other. Once again: a decent book, but not a very good adaption of Tam Lin. Also, although I did end up doing it I really shouldn't have had to make THAT many excuses for Janet.
Bookblogging would be easier if I didn't feel the need to WRITE SO MUCH. -_-;; Here, have a super short movie review:
Snakes on a Plane
SURPRISINGLY GOOD. Well, not the scenes they added to up the sex/violence/ridiculousness. But the underlying movie, the one that makes no sense but is ernest anyway? That movie's pretty good. When the passengers all rally together to fight off those pheromone-crazed exotic snakes on that airplane, you really root for them. Even the dumb motocross kid.