Seiobo There Below (Laszlo Krasznahorkai)
It's fair to say that Krasznahorkai is a difficult author to read, with
his lack of punctuation and endless, rolling sentences that go on for pages and
pages. But stick with it, and the rewards are there to be seen. 'Satantango'
and 'War and War' were challenging, and 'Seiobo There Below' perhaps tops them
in terms of trying to get your head around the extreme depth in the writing.
Essentially, 'Seiobo There Below' is a collection of short stories; not
that it's particularly framed that way. Each chapter is the story of the
relationship between an individual, or individuals, to a work of art. This
takes various forms: a Buddhist monk preserving a statue of a Buddha; a Hungarian going to the Acropolis of Athens,
only for it to be too sunny for him to see anything, thus spending his time
drinking with some young locals; a security guard for the Venus de Milo at the
Louvre in Paris; others.
Each is a painstaking look at how we appreciate art, all with a sense
of pain and suffering as the cost of the reward. Each is meticulous in its
detail, with the heavy influence of Japanese art reflective of Krasznahorkai's
time spent in Asia. And indeed, this is not without its suffering itself. The
need to immerse yourself in the minds of various individuals in Krasznahorkai's
long-winded fashion takes some effort on the part of the reader, needing to
juggle a lot of detailed text with knowledge of various artistic styles and
cultures. The chapters are even numbered to the Fibonacci Sequence!
The title comes from a story midway through the book, 'The Life and
Work of Master Inoue Kazuyuki', about a second-rate and over-worked Noh master
in Kyoto, who has to summon the goddess Seiobo from his very depths for his
performance. With 'Seiobo There Below', Krasznahorkai has performed similar
feats.
Days to Read: 22
Days per book: 15.3
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
Another one of those books that 'I should have read by now,' seeing as
it's had a lot of influence on other works in its time, and I've seen 'Blade
Runner'...in bits. With recent releases like the 'Ghost in the Shell' remake, I
thought it was perhaps time that I read it.
Overall, I'd say this was a book where the idea is stronger than the
actual book itself. I'm not particularly a big one for sci-fi, particularly in
book form, and so the writing style was not much for me, feeling a little short
on painting a picture in my mind, more telling you exactly what happened. Moments
seem to come out of nowhere and are over in a flash.
The ideas, however, are good, and one can see why they have influenced
many films, manga and comics, particularly considering it was a book written in
the Sixties, with society moving more towards artificial forms.
It's a shame that they don't come packaged a little better, however.
The characters and their relationships seem as artificial as the intelligence
on display, lacking any particular depth. As such, while the concepts are
interesting, they're ones you're quite happy to not be living with.
Days to read: 15
Days per book: 15.3
Too Much Information (Dave Gorman)
Having polished off his other books, I now turned to the latest
instalment of bearded checked-shirt wearer Dave Gorman's paper-format writing.
Each of his previous books have been about journeys; though this one less so. Though
perhaps the journeys he was taking were starting to become a little convoluted.
Here we look at the concept of the digital age and the endless stream
of consciousness it sends our way, to the point where we can no longer see what
we take in, blinded as we are by all the other distractions around us. This is
a world where we see, but don't look; hear, but don't listen; and read without
any information actually being taken in.
This is an interesting concept, particularly in this day and age of
multiple screen-viewing, endless multi-tasking, that actually sees us only do
things by halves, not giving our full attention to what is necessary. There is
an interesting social point raised here, though - naturally for a more comedy
format book - taking an in-depth sociological look at the issue is perhaps
missed. Along the way, this becomes more of a collection of rants and raves, similar
to the various anthologies of articles comedians and writers now release for
people who can't really be arsed to read the Guardian every Sunday. A lot of
the content was used in his recent 'Dave Gorman's Modern Life is Goodish'
series on Dave, though its 2014 release perhaps pre-dates the televised versions.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it would perhaps have been
nice for a more depth summary of the comedic observations and investigations he
conducts, with a little more comment at the cost of a little of the comedy.
Days to read: 13
Days per book: 15.3
The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
You should never judge a book by its cover...yeah, you should! If the
promotional cover's rubbish, what is the undoubted shit inside going to be
like, I jest! But all joking aside (the left-hand side), I should have paid
more heed to the cover for this edition of Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist'...and
then never read it.
The tagline reads 'A fable about following your dream.' But also states
'65 million copies sold,' implying you should buy it because it's popular, not
because of your personal desires. Switching to the back, we see 'Dreams are
made to be followed. Life is meant to be lived. Some books are meant to be
read, loved and passed on. 'The Alchemist' is one of those books.' It then
features celebrity endorsements, not reviews, from the likes of Madonna and
Will Smith (not the not-that-one Will Smith, but that other one). This is why
you shouldn't buy books online.
Paulo Coelho is one of those names you see a lot on book shelves: a
name I thought I should probably have read some of by now, assuming he was some
kind of Brazilian Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
But very quickly I was aware that this wasn't for me. I'm not sure where
to start with why I didn't enjoy this, but what follows are some suggestions.
Perhaps due to translation, but the writing style is far too
simplistic. This is not literature, but storytelling one would expect in a
primary school assembly. As such, this is a book that annoys rather than
engrosses, and you simply want to stop reading it. Each page feels the need to
give us a handy life tip, which are incredibly repetitive. Life is far too easy
for our young hero; everyone he comes across is simply a guide on his journey,
pointing him in the right directions, far too happy to help. Call me cynical,
but life just isn't like that. The moral here is that if you want something to
happen, you just need to really want it and life will complete the puzzle for
you.
I could go on, but I'll leave it at that. Put simply: this is a bad
book. The young hero learns 'the soul of the world,' while his English
travelling companion only reads books and so learns nothing of life. Some books
teach you nothing of the world. 'The Alchemist' is one of those books.
Days to read: 8
Days per book: 15.3
100 Anime (Philip Brophy)
Sometimes with books on a certain genre or theme, the most simply
packaged are the most effective. For the BFI, Philip Brophy's '100 Anime' is
simply that: a review of a hundred different anime films or series. Not the
best, not the most noteworthy; just a hundred of them.
Starting by looking at some consistent themes across anime and Japanese
culture, Brophy looks at each of the hundred within the context of these
themes, a lot of which are sexual. To an extent, the academic look at some of
the titles might be a little too much and reading too much into things. However,
his analysis does shed some interesting light on some of the works.
Admittedly, I haven't watched some of the hundred. In fact, I have only
seen a small percentage. For those I have seen, it adds some interesting
perspectives. For those I have not, it either makes me want see them instantly
or can be a slightly dull read for a couple of pages, reading about something I
haven't seen and am unlikely to ever be interested in doing so.
That said, this is a thorough and comprehensive look at a snapshot of
the contradiction-in-terms I've just written.
Days to read: 36
Days per book: 15.2
