Popcorn

Comedian Ben Elton’s books are known for their biting social satire. Popcorn questions whether or not any of us are willing to take responsibility for our actions – or whether it is too easy to blame the media or the movie industry…

Bruce Delamitri is a Tarantino-esque shock-horror film director who “shows us the gritty realism of life on the streets” (?). That meaning, he makes money from producing blood and guts films that titillate a certain kind of audience. At the same time that he wins his first Oscar, he is at the centre of a controversy surrounding whether his films, and films like them, inspire violence in society. Mentioned especially are Scout and Wayne, the Mall murderers. While Delamitri maintains that no-one comes out of a movie and just starts shooting people, when Wayne and Scout show up at his house, this is exactly what they would like him to announce to the public.

Hollywood is entirely sent up here in a semi-gory, black humour, tongue-in-cheek kind of a way. You laugh, you shake your head in embarrassment (sometimes at yourself for laughing) but you cannot escape that Elton has seen to the heart of an issue in our society.

I have been evaluating this as a text for study – it is certainly meaty enough, but the violence concerns me….

Tim Winton's Breath

Two days after finishing Tim Winton’s Breath, I still find myself puzzling over what to write in this entry. It wasn’t awful, nor did it make me want to stay home from work just to keep reading. It was kind of interesting, but had no suspense, no pull.. in short, it was a disinterested although not entirely disappointed reading that I made.

Breath was the first title chosen for the book club I have just joined, and is probably an apt choice for our first book given Winton’s status amongst Australian authors. I can confidently say he is not really my cup of tea. Although, I did find Cloudstreet kind of brilliant and do enjoy many of his short stories. The Riders was completely over-rated and so probably, is this.

Breath is about Bruce Pike, an paramedic who encounters a case that inspires him to reflect upon the reckless years he spent as a teenager with his fearless friend Loom, his surfing guru Sando and his difficult wife Eva. Each of them were testing themselves and going beyond the boundaries of what their fear told them was enough. For a while it makes ‘Pikelet’ feel alive, although the endless experimentation of the other characters eventually becomes too much for him. It is a feeling that stays with him for the rest of his life.

The book sets itself up to be circular in structure, but never really goes back to the initial point of the narration. This has to be a flaw – and a somewhat unsatisfying one. Again like much of Winton’s work, I find his character portrayals sketchy. As if his writing reflects that lack of self-analysis so often found in Aussie Blokes. It is a great quality for a short story writing, but dissatisfying in a novel.

It takes an odd little turn at the end – not completely unexpected but still strange. Let me know if it surprises you.

Kafka on the Shore

Reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami is like getting a glimpse into a world that exists parallel to ours. It’s magical and intriguing, and so “other” – and yet we cannot understand it because we are not part of it. Some of us will still appreciate the beauty, and others will be baffled.

Kafka of the title is a fifteen-year-old runaway escaping a negligent parent and a series of disturbing prophecies. But telling you what they are will spoil the tension. He is also strongly connected to a boy named Crow. Kafka is drawn into a small library and lives of Oshima and Miss Saeki who run the library, each of whom has their own secrets.

Meanwhile, Nakata is an old man who is mentally impaired as the result of a childhood ailment. However, he does have the ability to speak to cats. The talent draws him into a world he could never imagine, and this unlikely hero goes on a quest to protect us all from an unsure fate.

This is one of those books that I simply could not put down. Murakami is an artist in terms of how much knowledge to let you have... bit by bit the mystery unravels in front of you. But like After Dark, you can never fully understand it. And somehow, I was not disappointed. It’s like something rare and wonderful. I have bought three more and will ration myself on them in the next few weeks..

The Book Brother...

Today two marvellous things happened – and happened at the same time which makes them all the more remarkable.

I was wandering around a foreign (i.e. not my local) shopping centre, killing time and avoiding peak hour traffic that I avoid like a Danielle Steel and thus never get used to. I was searching for more Haruki Murakami (nearly finished the enchanting Kafka on the Shore – just wait for my entry). A new chain store had opened in the centre, and to my delight that had two for three in the whole store. I decided right then and there that if they had even one Murakami I would buy three. They did, although not the ones I was most desperate for.

While this all sounds good, in determining the identity of the other three books, I met my book brother, my reading soul mate. We knew it from the moment I declared my undying love for H.M. – a few other authorial comparisons was all we needed.

Ironically, this was possibly the most romantic moment I have had in a long while. and all we exchanged were ideas.

The result? A bag full of books (ahem, yes, slightly more than three), a bunch of new recommendations and a deep desire to avoid more traffic some Friday soon…

I will keep you posted about how his recommendations are going.