A good number of people told me that Game of Thrones by R.R. Martin was good before I decided to check it out. I was skeptical because I lost my patience with Lord of the Rings, liked but was not a huge fan of either Star Wars or Star Trek, and lost interest after about five books of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series. However, since this book series was made into a close-fitting television series and is still going strong, I thought maybe this one was worth a better chance.
There are five books so far, and I'm only at the beginning of the second one. I've made the decision to only blog once about a story if it's a series, instead of a single blog entry for each book that I've read like I've done before. This is also because, with so many sites to monitor, I'm barely keeping up - what with my 2-10pm teaching job (with occasional Saturdays, as it turns out). Maybe I'm just having trouble managing my time.
Martin gives each character a very distinct voice while rotating them around. He's also famous for killing characters off mercilessly, so there's plenty of room for new characters all the time. His descriptions are well balanced with his dialogue and action scenes, though sometimes the humor is a bit dark and it feels like everyone is laden with angst. The choices he gives his characters are very life changing and dramatic, so sometimes they take a while thinking everything through. It's still very plot driven though.
Even though it's clearly fantasy and there's mention of dragons, they only appear at the end of the first book, and that makes me wonder if they're going to play much of a big role in the rest of the books. The psychological atmosphere of each character is usually fairly and understandably anxiety ridden, and it's rare when a person or two gets a mental break and feels serene for once. An example was when Catelyn was watching her son Robb Stark prepare for battle - she loves him, she's worried but she has huge faith in him and so was determined to stay strong for him. Arya is another character who's somewhat lighthearted, if only because she is so young. I tend to favor the direct but bitter humor that Tyrion Lannister or Jon Snow gives off.
This is not a book I can read well when I am tired, because the dynamic and intrigue between all the characters either demand nearly my full attention or I'm bound to miss something. They're somewhat subtle and very politically oriented. No one seems honest if they want to survive in such a world. Martin doesn't flinch with blood and gore, which should be evident with his merciless killing of characters. He also doesn't flinch with making them mad as hatters, and sometimes it's hard to follow someone's train of thought - like Danearys. She is fascinating because, while it's easy to be sympathetic with her, it's hard to tell what she's thinking sometimes. Because this is a fantasy series, there's a possibility that Danaerys and Bran - both characters that have a lot of dreams - are youth infused with magic, and the way nothing makes sense yet is just waiting for an exposition in a later book.
I think Martin's strongest point is that, while these are fantasy books - they are fantasy books for adults, with a variety of very strong characters who make difficult and strategic choices. This is appealing because so far there's not much out there in the fantasy genre that appeals to only adults, without having the good and evil dichotomy that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings have. While the ideas of good and evil exist in this series as well, there are many grey characters. Ned Stark was a purely good character, and he was the first to die off. The Others are pure evil, but they haven't made solid appearances yet.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Parched, by Heather King
Parched is the first book that I've read from the genre of autobiographies involving the struggle against addiction and alcohol. I'm happy that this genre exists, because people need to know that others who suffer the disease and have mostly overcome it are out there. I also thought it was rather ironic that this was one of my first books to read in South Korea, where alcohol is not only dirt cheap, but also a way for colleagues to connect with one another. The other unrelated but interesting background circumstance is that I read this book in conjunction with the Way of Korean Zen which has a drastically different voice. Comparatively, the vulnerability in this narrator seems much more human than the hardy insistence on psychological resilience in that one.
The narrative begins with the woman just waking up and already having a hangover, trying to remember what happened before she blacked out. She seems chipper enough, though she realizes that she has a problem but didn't know where to start doing something about it. I can somewhat relate to that in my past bouts of depression, but my troubles have never been mixed with substances so I can only imagine what it's like. She packs and prepares for the road quickly, because there's going to be a family reunion, and that starts off on a chapter or two where she recounts many memories from her childhood involving her family.
While I didn't have nearly as many siblings, I related to fighting with my one sibling for almost no reason other than the fact that we were supposed to coexist within the same house. Then there was the way one parent was more attentive and forgiving than the other one, but maybe that happens in all families. Her style of writing is very talkative, and it's like she's in front of you having a conversation with you - haha - over a drink. I have never met her, but I imagine that her speech would be peppered with all sorts of hand gestures and lively body language. The way she uses words reveals a kind of personal charisma that makes sure that I can't help but like her.
She also seems to really value people, because every time she mentions someone, she never has anything bad to say about them and seem truly grateful for their existence in her life. This is true even of the people who she would make fun of because they may have been somewhat unkind to her in some way at some point. She mentions everyone, even a few former lovers. She never quotes these people, though. There were also religious quotes beginning almost every chapter, but the ones I agreed with the most were the nonreligious ones - the words about fighting one's own mind, and the ones about the way it's much harder to love someone through one's actions than to entertain the idea of love. This was a foreshadowing of what Heather's salvation was going to be - part of it will have to do with Christianity.
Her sense of humor is somewhat dark, but not as dark as Kurt Vonnegut's. She didn't see millions of people die in a senseless war, but she still knows what poverty is like, what it is to consistently need a comfort object or substance, and the long unforgiving hours of retail labor. So she makes allies in that way, sometimes relying on friends to survive. I did laugh out loud several times when reading. I may have related to the sense of humor also because she spent a few years in Boston, which is where I grew up. It's true that if you're in the right neighborhood, there are plenty of bars, which would make it tough for an alcoholic to go several hundred yards without being tempted by the poison. The idea of substance abuse because a person is spiritually unfulfilled is not new, but I also thought there were other forms of salvation than religion.
The way it ended didn't seem all that interesting to me. I'm glad she found her happiness and became clean, but in terms of the story, it just felt too mundane. Of course her friends realized she had a problem, but she wouldn't listen. Of course her family had to eventually corner her and stick her into a rehabilitation program. She found that because she sometimes blacked out, she wouldn't remember appointments and bits of conversation she had said, so that upset a lot of people. It was like writing this book was her way of purging herself psychologically - to discover when it began and how it progressed, which was part of defeating it. Fortunately for the sake of the book as a whole, the way everything ended didn't really take away from any of the earlier moments in the autobiography - it was still very readable, very relatable and pleasant.
The narrative begins with the woman just waking up and already having a hangover, trying to remember what happened before she blacked out. She seems chipper enough, though she realizes that she has a problem but didn't know where to start doing something about it. I can somewhat relate to that in my past bouts of depression, but my troubles have never been mixed with substances so I can only imagine what it's like. She packs and prepares for the road quickly, because there's going to be a family reunion, and that starts off on a chapter or two where she recounts many memories from her childhood involving her family.
While I didn't have nearly as many siblings, I related to fighting with my one sibling for almost no reason other than the fact that we were supposed to coexist within the same house. Then there was the way one parent was more attentive and forgiving than the other one, but maybe that happens in all families. Her style of writing is very talkative, and it's like she's in front of you having a conversation with you - haha - over a drink. I have never met her, but I imagine that her speech would be peppered with all sorts of hand gestures and lively body language. The way she uses words reveals a kind of personal charisma that makes sure that I can't help but like her.
She also seems to really value people, because every time she mentions someone, she never has anything bad to say about them and seem truly grateful for their existence in her life. This is true even of the people who she would make fun of because they may have been somewhat unkind to her in some way at some point. She mentions everyone, even a few former lovers. She never quotes these people, though. There were also religious quotes beginning almost every chapter, but the ones I agreed with the most were the nonreligious ones - the words about fighting one's own mind, and the ones about the way it's much harder to love someone through one's actions than to entertain the idea of love. This was a foreshadowing of what Heather's salvation was going to be - part of it will have to do with Christianity.
Her sense of humor is somewhat dark, but not as dark as Kurt Vonnegut's. She didn't see millions of people die in a senseless war, but she still knows what poverty is like, what it is to consistently need a comfort object or substance, and the long unforgiving hours of retail labor. So she makes allies in that way, sometimes relying on friends to survive. I did laugh out loud several times when reading. I may have related to the sense of humor also because she spent a few years in Boston, which is where I grew up. It's true that if you're in the right neighborhood, there are plenty of bars, which would make it tough for an alcoholic to go several hundred yards without being tempted by the poison. The idea of substance abuse because a person is spiritually unfulfilled is not new, but I also thought there were other forms of salvation than religion.
The way it ended didn't seem all that interesting to me. I'm glad she found her happiness and became clean, but in terms of the story, it just felt too mundane. Of course her friends realized she had a problem, but she wouldn't listen. Of course her family had to eventually corner her and stick her into a rehabilitation program. She found that because she sometimes blacked out, she wouldn't remember appointments and bits of conversation she had said, so that upset a lot of people. It was like writing this book was her way of purging herself psychologically - to discover when it began and how it progressed, which was part of defeating it. Fortunately for the sake of the book as a whole, the way everything ended didn't really take away from any of the earlier moments in the autobiography - it was still very readable, very relatable and pleasant.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
This historical fiction novel is sweet. Vonnegut tells his tale through Billy Pilgrim, and the narrator's voice is very soothing, despite the horrendous happenings that it describes. Of course war is a terrible thing, but it feels muted through this voice. I imagine that the muted effect is from several factors: it was told in third person, Vonnegut's severely dark but very funny sense of humor, the time travel and the episodes with the Tralfamadorians. A reader can't help but like Billy Pilgrim for his perceived ineffectualness, and then pity him for his bad luck and all the memories that made up his life.
Every time someone or a group of people dies, Vonnegut writes, "So it goes." It becomes this stark deterministic acceptance of death, like it's something that just happens so it's nothing to become upset about. Even when Billy Pilgrim is put into situations where he must be angry at some point, and describes the characters around him in negative terms, it doesn't seem like he's blaming them. It's like the war removed him from any emotion except heavy depression, and it's probably mostly post traumatic stress disorder that the narrator sounds so numbed all the time, but it makes the story seem even more believable and objective.
I'm not so sure that this novel is scary enough to be antiwar. Yes, it tells about the people dying, all the sufferings and indignities that people suffered at the hands of people in power, who almost randomly decided that one group of people are unforgivable, so another group of people go to kill them for deciding the first group of people are unforgivable, but the book doesn't decry anything. Everyone in the book seems rather stupid, including all the people in power who decided all these random things, and maybe the book decries their stupidity and stupidity in general, but there's no anger in it, no outrage. Taking a step back, I'm not sure why I assume anger and outrage should be in an antiwar book - maybe that's because those two emotions are what I'm used to from people who claim to stand up for a cause.
Anyhow, the time travel and Tralfamadorians illustrate his inability to tell reality from his imagination at the end, but he doesn't even seem to mind. Reality is as unreal as any science fiction book in his mind, apparently, and not even a well written science fiction book, since the series that Krout wrote was to be found in a porn shop decorating the window and helping it pretend to be a legitimate bookstore. His juxtaposition of that scene with digging up and burning bodies is very transcendental and Buddhist, even - the idea that people are just bodies, whether they are dead or alive. That is also true of the Tralfamadorian idea that people who ever lived will always go on living in some form or another.
Other war books and movies speak of the act of war removing the humanity from a person. Maybe it's because Billy Pilgrim wasn't a real soldier - he never actually killed anybody, and that's why it doesn't seem like his humanity was ever removed. He feels very detached from everything - "unstuck in time", as he says - but his telling of this story reveals that he's still very much human despite not feeling the same as he did before, despite being completely unable to relate to anyone except for others who were in the war and not seeking glory, like O'Hare. He's broken, dead inside, but still human.
It was an easy read. Vonnegut uses such simple language. I would say the only difficulty in reading this book is that, after hearing his numbed voice in my head for hours at a time, I would lift my nose away from the book and feel his numbness for a while even after having closed the book. That's the only thing that prevented me from finishing the book in a jiffy, because it made me feel temporarily as dead inside as Vonnegut had been feeling for decades after the war, probably all the way up to his death a few years ago. So it goes.
Every time someone or a group of people dies, Vonnegut writes, "So it goes." It becomes this stark deterministic acceptance of death, like it's something that just happens so it's nothing to become upset about. Even when Billy Pilgrim is put into situations where he must be angry at some point, and describes the characters around him in negative terms, it doesn't seem like he's blaming them. It's like the war removed him from any emotion except heavy depression, and it's probably mostly post traumatic stress disorder that the narrator sounds so numbed all the time, but it makes the story seem even more believable and objective.
I'm not so sure that this novel is scary enough to be antiwar. Yes, it tells about the people dying, all the sufferings and indignities that people suffered at the hands of people in power, who almost randomly decided that one group of people are unforgivable, so another group of people go to kill them for deciding the first group of people are unforgivable, but the book doesn't decry anything. Everyone in the book seems rather stupid, including all the people in power who decided all these random things, and maybe the book decries their stupidity and stupidity in general, but there's no anger in it, no outrage. Taking a step back, I'm not sure why I assume anger and outrage should be in an antiwar book - maybe that's because those two emotions are what I'm used to from people who claim to stand up for a cause.
Anyhow, the time travel and Tralfamadorians illustrate his inability to tell reality from his imagination at the end, but he doesn't even seem to mind. Reality is as unreal as any science fiction book in his mind, apparently, and not even a well written science fiction book, since the series that Krout wrote was to be found in a porn shop decorating the window and helping it pretend to be a legitimate bookstore. His juxtaposition of that scene with digging up and burning bodies is very transcendental and Buddhist, even - the idea that people are just bodies, whether they are dead or alive. That is also true of the Tralfamadorian idea that people who ever lived will always go on living in some form or another.
Other war books and movies speak of the act of war removing the humanity from a person. Maybe it's because Billy Pilgrim wasn't a real soldier - he never actually killed anybody, and that's why it doesn't seem like his humanity was ever removed. He feels very detached from everything - "unstuck in time", as he says - but his telling of this story reveals that he's still very much human despite not feeling the same as he did before, despite being completely unable to relate to anyone except for others who were in the war and not seeking glory, like O'Hare. He's broken, dead inside, but still human.
It was an easy read. Vonnegut uses such simple language. I would say the only difficulty in reading this book is that, after hearing his numbed voice in my head for hours at a time, I would lift my nose away from the book and feel his numbness for a while even after having closed the book. That's the only thing that prevented me from finishing the book in a jiffy, because it made me feel temporarily as dead inside as Vonnegut had been feeling for decades after the war, probably all the way up to his death a few years ago. So it goes.
The Way of Korean Zen, by Kusan Sunim
This book took a very long time to finish. It's not for the casual reader, because it has a very authoritative and stark voice. The material is aimed at those who are truly interested in Zen Buddhism, and all other readers may find it a bit dry and textbook-like. The book is divided into two parts: the first illustrates the history of the ideas of Zen Buddhism, along with tales of men who have lived their lives according to these ideas, and the second part talks in detail about the ideas themselves.
I bought this book during the first part of my stay in South Korea as an ESL teacher (refer to my other blog Lily Internationally) and I have to say that these ideas really helped me to accept more ideas in the Korean culture than I could have without this book. After all, Zen Buddhism is about changing oneself to attain enlightenment. Changing oneself often involves accepting oneself, which indirectly leads to the acceptance of many situations and people in one's surroundings as well. Judging by the author's English name, I dare say that the original must have been in Korean, which explains the somewhat awkward language at times, and why it seems so dry as well.
The chapters on the history of Buddhism and the life of a monk in Korea were necessary because, whenever an aspect of culture travels some place else, it changes. That is also true of Buddhism - you would not find the same Buddhism in India as in China, nor in China as in Korea. Or even between South and North Korea. Korean Zen Buddhism relies heavily on the Buddhist community, where if you become a monk, the only people you would interact with from that day on - except to beg for alms or to lecture about Buddhism - are other Buddhist monks. They also eat only vegetables, and no meat is allowed. It is a life based upon discipline: all activities are purely utilitarian, including sleeping and waking, meditation, copying texts, cleaning and traveling.
Aside from the Spartan lifestyle, the other reason this book may be a bit dry is because it's meant to be a user manual of sorts for those interested in becoming a monk or nun, to live their lives for this religion. It doesn't lie - becoming a monk or a nun, having to give up all that a layman is used to and dedicating one's life to the study of attaining enlightenment, is not easy. There are instructions on how to meditate, and it distinguishes between focusing on hwadu (which means mental and spiritual silence) and the mind (we assume that this means one's thoughts and sometimes mental noise) as well as the Buddha (which means the deity, as well as a person's purest soul).
There are plenty of metaphors and poems to illustrate the author's points, and those can be hard to understand at times. The idea here is similar to the reason I write, where if you see a situation in a certain way - and poetic verse is kind of like portraying a situation and rearranging it as a puzzle - then it may be easier for you to understand, and therefore accept. Or even the other way around, accept and therefore understand. Most of these poems use natural scenery and events in nature to illustrate the point, which makes for beautiful pictures in people who have a versatile third eye. It also tries to say that reality is often made of circumstances that people cannot change, and therefore the only thing that a person can change is his or her mind. In that way, a person's perception becomes an adaptive tool instead of a defense mechanism.
That being said, I am nowhere near agreeing with everything that was said in this book. For example, it emphasized the soul over one's body, and I feel that a person should take care of her body first, because otherwise hunger and illness get in the way of a person taking care of one's soul. It also encourages people to give up their families and lives to become Buddhist monks or nuns, and I tend to think that a person should be able to adhere to a faith while still living their own lives. There's also the not eating meat - meat is delicious. Of course there can be substitutes for the protein like beans and tofu, but it's not the same. Anyone who's ever enjoyed barbecue can tell you that. Also, there is no discourse on how to become a nun, or actually anything about being a religious woman in this book at all - women just exist as wives who prevent believers from being faithful to Buddhism, like distractions.
I agree with cultivating a strong mind which can accept reality. However, this book would probably not convince me to go to a Buddhist nunnery and try that life, because enlightenment and being detached from the world doesn't seem to be worth it to me. However, if you are interested in Buddhism - and particularly Korean Buddhism - you should still read this book to see if this cultural viewpoint of this particular faith suits your idea of happiness and or enlightenment. It's an informative read.
I bought this book during the first part of my stay in South Korea as an ESL teacher (refer to my other blog Lily Internationally) and I have to say that these ideas really helped me to accept more ideas in the Korean culture than I could have without this book. After all, Zen Buddhism is about changing oneself to attain enlightenment. Changing oneself often involves accepting oneself, which indirectly leads to the acceptance of many situations and people in one's surroundings as well. Judging by the author's English name, I dare say that the original must have been in Korean, which explains the somewhat awkward language at times, and why it seems so dry as well.
The chapters on the history of Buddhism and the life of a monk in Korea were necessary because, whenever an aspect of culture travels some place else, it changes. That is also true of Buddhism - you would not find the same Buddhism in India as in China, nor in China as in Korea. Or even between South and North Korea. Korean Zen Buddhism relies heavily on the Buddhist community, where if you become a monk, the only people you would interact with from that day on - except to beg for alms or to lecture about Buddhism - are other Buddhist monks. They also eat only vegetables, and no meat is allowed. It is a life based upon discipline: all activities are purely utilitarian, including sleeping and waking, meditation, copying texts, cleaning and traveling.
Aside from the Spartan lifestyle, the other reason this book may be a bit dry is because it's meant to be a user manual of sorts for those interested in becoming a monk or nun, to live their lives for this religion. It doesn't lie - becoming a monk or a nun, having to give up all that a layman is used to and dedicating one's life to the study of attaining enlightenment, is not easy. There are instructions on how to meditate, and it distinguishes between focusing on hwadu (which means mental and spiritual silence) and the mind (we assume that this means one's thoughts and sometimes mental noise) as well as the Buddha (which means the deity, as well as a person's purest soul).
There are plenty of metaphors and poems to illustrate the author's points, and those can be hard to understand at times. The idea here is similar to the reason I write, where if you see a situation in a certain way - and poetic verse is kind of like portraying a situation and rearranging it as a puzzle - then it may be easier for you to understand, and therefore accept. Or even the other way around, accept and therefore understand. Most of these poems use natural scenery and events in nature to illustrate the point, which makes for beautiful pictures in people who have a versatile third eye. It also tries to say that reality is often made of circumstances that people cannot change, and therefore the only thing that a person can change is his or her mind. In that way, a person's perception becomes an adaptive tool instead of a defense mechanism.
That being said, I am nowhere near agreeing with everything that was said in this book. For example, it emphasized the soul over one's body, and I feel that a person should take care of her body first, because otherwise hunger and illness get in the way of a person taking care of one's soul. It also encourages people to give up their families and lives to become Buddhist monks or nuns, and I tend to think that a person should be able to adhere to a faith while still living their own lives. There's also the not eating meat - meat is delicious. Of course there can be substitutes for the protein like beans and tofu, but it's not the same. Anyone who's ever enjoyed barbecue can tell you that. Also, there is no discourse on how to become a nun, or actually anything about being a religious woman in this book at all - women just exist as wives who prevent believers from being faithful to Buddhism, like distractions.
I agree with cultivating a strong mind which can accept reality. However, this book would probably not convince me to go to a Buddhist nunnery and try that life, because enlightenment and being detached from the world doesn't seem to be worth it to me. However, if you are interested in Buddhism - and particularly Korean Buddhism - you should still read this book to see if this cultural viewpoint of this particular faith suits your idea of happiness and or enlightenment. It's an informative read.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Microthrills: A Life of Small Highs, by Wendy Spero
Like any good comedian, Wendy Spero uses a lot of self deprecating humor. It's both her best strength and potential biggest weakness in this very talky autobiography. The way she describes the situations that she ends up in reminds me heavily of Arrested Development, even though she is by no means similar to the hilariously incompetent characters on that show. It just seems like she likes to focus on them for the sake of the self deprecating humor - which unfortunately leads my train of thought to the one time I heard someone somewhere say that comedy is in essence humor and fun based upon someone else's suffering and awkwardness. I don't like that quote, because it makes me feel mean and implies that most human beings are. Since I'm mostly an optimist, I completely dislike that thought.
However, I will say that I'm probably just over-thinking it. Wendy only talks about people she likes in this book, and in such a loving way that you know of all people she can't possibly be a pessimist or a cynic. Her style of storytelling is very talkative and flowing, so I can just imagine her somewhere in a bar or elsewhere with a crowd around her being the life of the party. Oh, and that knife selling company that she worked for and excelled in? I had that very same interview, but after reading a few negative things about the company afterwards, I declined the position for another wage paying, hourly position. I also totally envy her relationship with her boss, who seems to fill in partially for a father figure in her life.
Because the style is so talkative and friendly, it's a very quick read. The chapters are short. She has a very strong voice, very memorable, and the narrative is very straightforward. It makes me want to recommend this to one of my friends, whose immediate family situation is similar. Anyhow, aside from making a person laugh out loud, Wendy Spero also does that other thing that good comedians do: make true, thoughtful comments in a very uplifting way. A recommended read for everyone, no matter what your station in life, as long as you understand the English language.
However, I will say that I'm probably just over-thinking it. Wendy only talks about people she likes in this book, and in such a loving way that you know of all people she can't possibly be a pessimist or a cynic. Her style of storytelling is very talkative and flowing, so I can just imagine her somewhere in a bar or elsewhere with a crowd around her being the life of the party. Oh, and that knife selling company that she worked for and excelled in? I had that very same interview, but after reading a few negative things about the company afterwards, I declined the position for another wage paying, hourly position. I also totally envy her relationship with her boss, who seems to fill in partially for a father figure in her life.
Because the style is so talkative and friendly, it's a very quick read. The chapters are short. She has a very strong voice, very memorable, and the narrative is very straightforward. It makes me want to recommend this to one of my friends, whose immediate family situation is similar. Anyhow, aside from making a person laugh out loud, Wendy Spero also does that other thing that good comedians do: make true, thoughtful comments in a very uplifting way. A recommended read for everyone, no matter what your station in life, as long as you understand the English language.
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