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How exciting, I’m going to be a secret Santa! I’ve dropped my name in Santa’s bag for the Book Bloggers Holiday Swap. Want to join as well? Be quick: subscription ends November 12th!
Good thing the holiday swap perked me up because my attempt at the Bookcrossing Spooky Booky 24 hour readathon was an absolute #FAIL. 
I knew I was on a tight schedule last week, but I had hoped to at least beat last month’s result of 15 hours and 8 minutes. Well… I didn’t even come close! [starts whispering] I scrambled together a meagre total of 7 hours, 10 minutes :-o
So the ’spooky’ book I’m reading is still the same as last Sunday: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It’s pretty grim! It shows the real thing to fear are our fellow humans; not those Halloween ghosts, vampires or zombies. Capote absolutely has me by the throat!
A more relaxing bookish event that took place at my home yesterday was that some Boekgrrls came over to watch Revolutionary Road, the movie adaptation of Richard Yates’ novel. The overall opinion? Director Sam Mendes did a great job (even though the book is still way better). I’m just not sure whether I would have liked the film as much had I not read the book beforehand.
Another minor detail: I kept seeing Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet instead of Frank and April Wheeler… But still, I’m glad to have seen it: I enjoyed it much, much more than, in example, the adaptations of Atonement and Enduring Love (other books I really like). Although ‘enjoy’ might not be the right word for a story like Revolutionary Road…
Well, I’ve only got another 100 pages left of In Cold Blood, so coming week I hope to start in The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata for my Japanese Literature Book Group. I’m embarrassed to say I had never heard of this Nobel Prize winner before, but since I know we’re going to read his book I have heard other novelists mention him as an example for their own writings. So, I’ll talk to you next week in The Sunday Salon!
The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read ;)
Yay, it’s time for another Hello Japan! mini challenge! I had hoped for something music related because we’re going to see Kishino Yui-chi (a.k.a. La Veuve Moustachue) & Oorutaichi next Sunday — but the actual mini mission is quite as good:
This month the task is simply to eat Japanese food, take a picture if possible, and tell us about what you ate. You can go to a Japanese restaurant, or make something at home. It can be a favourite dish, or you can challenge yourself to try something new.
Ha! I can think of several ways to accomplish my mission. For one it gives me a great excuse to buy this book I have been drewling over have my eyes on: The Decorative Art of Japanese Food Carving by Hiroshi Nagashima (thanks to sherimiya of Happy Little Bento who let the Want! Want! Want! ghost out of the closet)!
But maybe I shouldn’t give away the options I’m contemplating? :\ I could do them all! And who knows… maybe on Sunday there’ll be some Japanese snacks at the concert! :)
To all participants: itadakimasu!
During Dewey’s 24 hour Read-a-Thon I read Neil Gaiman’s book Coraline as a graphic novel (adapted by P. Craig Russell). Technically it might not have been the first graphic novel I’ve read, but it certainly was the first one I bought myself, knowing it to be one!
About 15 years ago, shortly after I had met Mr Gnoe, I read the Pulitzer Prize winning work by Art Spiegelman: Maus, a Survivor’s Tale — an autobiographical story about Jews (depicted as mouses) surviving the World War II Holocaust. At that time I also got acquainted with the (just as grim) comic books of Tardi. Both I did not consider to be graphic novels at the time, because the term seems to be in in vogue only since the last few years.
So what is a graphic novel exactly? Well, there’s no real consensus about that :) Some consider it to be a posh term for all kinds of comic books provided they’re bound in a durable format like printed books, others believe there’s a distinction in artistic quality (which of course is a subjective matter).
Neil Gaiman himself — yes, I will get back to Coraline in a short while — considers it to be nothing more than a marketing term, a sales category.
[..] there’s no meaningful difference. For some reason the term “big thick collected or original comic published in book form” has never really caught on, while “Graphic Novel” did.
Myself, I am still in doubt whether or not to distinguish graphic novels from ‘ordinary’ comics. It just doesn’t feel right to call the collected Best of Mutts (Patrick McDonnell), that I bought along with Coraline, a graphic novel as well — even though it is a beautiful hardcover ‘coffee table book‘. I think I would like to hold on to the idea that a graphic novel is a story or collection of short stories in comic format (a balanced combination of narrative art and dialog or explanatory text), that holds something more than plain, popular entertainment. Like: could it be a novel without the image art? Does the story have some sustenance? I know I’m walking on thin ice here ;)
Do you have an opinion about graphic novels?
Back to Coraline now. It’s the fantasy/horror story of a girl moving with her family to a huge house that’s divided into four apartments. Exploring the house, Coraline finds a door into an ‘other world’, where her ‘other mother and father’ live. These parents tempt her with things that are all better than at her real home, because they want her to stay.
Doesn’t that immediately make you think of Alice in Wonderland? It does even more when you read about the neighbours persisting in mispronouncing Coraline’s name as Caroline in the first pages (think Lewis Caroll). It’s been too long since I read about Alice’s adventures (I must have been a child of about 9), but it would be fun to compare the stories.
Another book Coraline reminded me of is the classic Japanese novel I was reading for the read-a-thon as well: I Am a Cat, by Natsume Sōseki (from 1905). It begins as follows:
“I am a cat. As yet I have no name.” (p.5)
And here’s when Coraline meets a cat at the new property (p.41):
And it explains to us on the same page:
“Now, you people have names because you don’t know who you are. We know who we are, so we don’t need names.”
Or, when Coraline first sees the cat on ‘the other side’ (p.39):
Cats naturally being wise, it has a theory about it on the next page (p.40):
“You people are spread all over the place. Cats on the other hand, keep ourselves together. If you see what I mean.”
Back to I Am a Cat:
“Cats are truly simple. If we want to eat, we eat; if we want to sleep, we sleep;” (p.26)
Reading synchronisity!
I guess the fact that Coraline reminded me of these classics helps in making it more of a reading experience than simple entertainment. Although it was also just plain fun to read Coraline ;)
Like Maus, the graphic adaptation of Coraline by Russell has won an important prize: the 2009 Eisner Award (an ‘Oscar’ for comics) in the category of Best Publication for T(w)eens. Er.. that’s not my age group! And since I’ve grown up I don’t really like reading YA or children’s books. But it didn’t bother me now ;) At least it’s obvious that a targeted audience of adults is not a condition for being called a graphic novel (as some argue).
Russell, who’s some sort of god in the graphic novel world, says about his adaptations:
“The appeal of an adaptation is in starting a piece secure that there’s literary worth in the source material. If it fails, I can’t blame it on that. I’ve always been fascinated by the challenge , the puzzle-solving challenge of taking a piece apart line by line and reassembling it into an entirely different art form.
[..] It’s the beautiful writing. It also helps that Neil has a huge following so I know all the effort I put into the work will actually be seen. I’ve done plenty of work that left me feeling I’d thrown it down a well. Doesn’t happen with Neil’s stories.”
I bought my comics for the read-a-thon following advice from veteran participants. Next to Coraline and The Best of Mutts I ended up with Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. But during my 24 hours of reading I only got to read Coraline! Which indeed made a nice change of palate. And as you notice I’ve come to learn some things about the graphic novel world at the same time ;)
Now that I’ve crawled out of my familiar reading nook I might also try one of Gaiman’s actual fantasy books — next year. For the rest of 2009 there’s something else to consider: with my other graphic books on Mt. TBR I might join the Graphic Novels Challenge… I would only need to decide on two more before December 31st to make the minor level of six books. Why not reread Maus volumes I & II?
The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read ;)
Just a short Sunday Salon today. No new books came into the house, so that’s good news ;) And I haven’t started any new reading challenges — although I am contemplating participating in the Women Unbound Challenge :\ But I said I wouldn’t join any new challenges before I had finished one of my current, so… 
Then again, I’ll be reading The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon anyway for my personal and Classics challenge.
A book of observations and musings recorded by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Empress Teishi during the 990s and early 1000s in Heian Japan.
For the Women Unbound Challenge participants are encouraged to read nonfiction and fiction books related to the rather broad idea of women’s studies (the multidisciplinary study of the social status and societal contributions of women and the relationship between power and gender). As a philogynist I would need to read at least two books of which one non-fiction. The Pillow Book would fit in great!
I finished part 1 of I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki. I’ll need to review it before November 15th because of the Japanese Read-along. That seems early enough but I’m way behind on my book reviews and it’s getting a bit frustrating. Hopefully November will prove better! Books read in October that I want to review aside from I Am a Cat: Coraline graphic novel (Neil Gaiman), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) and Be With You (Takuji Ichikawa).
But I also have a review backlog from before October: Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates), Brideshead Revisted (Evelyn Waugh) — and many more as you can see in the challenge overview below… Sigh. And these are only book blogposts :\ Well, at least I did write a short review of ‘The Piano Man‘ (De pianoman) during the 24 hour Read-a-Thon!
My current book is In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It’s the November read for my online book group. I haven’t gotten really far yet, even though I said I would participate in this week’s Spooky Booky Readathon at Bookcrossing. I hoped to beat the result of my first attempt in the September readathon, but with only 2:30 hrs read from Friday until now, that will become pretty difficult. Oh well. I knew I was going to have a busy week ahead and my priorities lie elsewhere ;)
I guess that’s it for now. I’ll just leave you with the monthly progress update of my reading challenges.
Challenges / Bookgroups etc.
- Japanese Challenge (Aug 2009-Mar 2010): read 2/1, reviewed 1/1
(✔ finished, but intent on reading more) - Classics Challenge (2009, entree level): read 4/6, reviewed 1/6
- What’s In A Name Challenge (2009): read 6/6, reviewed 3/6
- Personal 2008-2009 Challenge: read 9/12
- SIY Challenge #10 (Oct-Dec 2009): read 1/5
Current Bookgroup reads:
- Boekgrrls November book: In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote (now reading)
- Japanese Literature Read-along for November 15th: I Am A Cat (part I), by Natsume Soseki (read, to be reviewed)
- Japanese Literature Book Group for November 30th: The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata (TBR)
Yay, I have finished my first book! De pianoman, by Bernlef. I liked it, but as I said in my previous update post I didn’t get to concentrate as much I should :( I hope that will get better with my next read: I am a cat by Natsume Soseki. I need to review it for the Japanese readalong, so I’d better know what it’s about!
The Piano Man
The Piano Man is fiction based on a true story of a man washing ashore in Sheerness in 2005. Because of his taciturnity, the authorities couldn’t identify him for quite some time. Once identified as the German Andreas Grassl, he was put on a plane home.
The fictional Piano Man is a Dutchman named Thomas Boender, who prefers to keep silent because his upbringing in the northern part of my country never taught him to speak his mind very well. Like Andreas Grassl he’s lower-class and homosexual. Not being good with words, he is rather clever at playing the piano (taught to him by his school teacher). That’s why the English call him Piano Man. The book is about him ending up in Sheerness — and getting back home. Keeping all thoughts for themselves makes people heavy, talking makes you (feel) lighter.
Bernlef is fascinated by language. Even his pseudonym has something to do with it: he named himself after a 8th century, blind lyrical poet from Friesland (in the upper part of The Netherlands).
Status report
16:30 – 19:00
Currently reading: I am a cat (starting with the first chapter at page 3)
Progress since last update
Time read: 0 hrs 54 mins
Amount of pages: 44 pages
Books finished: 1 book (De pianoman)
Mini-challenges I participated in: 1 (Bart’s Title challenge)
Blogging time: hard to keep track of… So I won’t bother you with it anymore.
Totals
Hours read: 2:05
Pages read: 88
Books read: 1
Mini-challenges: 4
I know the correct spelling of Dewey’s 24 hour read-a-thon, but from now on I’m going to write it without the negative signs: readathon — because it is so much quicker to type! I’m really exited because I’ve got less than an hour to go before the readathon starts at 14:00 Amsterdam time. Last minute preparations have started! And some last minute additions, as you can see in the picture…
And yes, that includes the side table! We’ve had our eyes on this for a long time now but today I really really need it! :) So I went by the furniture shop this morning, after I had my hair cut. I als picked up another book: Silk by Alessandro Baricco (in Dutch: Zijde). 
I already told you that I liked to add it to my pile of readathon books and I had to go to the bookshop anyway… because I had lost the bookmark I wanted to use for my current read: I Am a Cat (Natsume Soseki). I got so frustrated by it that I decided to buy the exact same bookmark again: a Japanese white-eye bird made by Hiroshige. But then I found an even better marker of a black cat in autumn! It is by Hishida Shunso — I have not heard of the artist before, have you?
I hate losing favourite bookmarks, but this proves it can be a good thing too ;) Have you heard of our adventurous bookmark from Cappadocia?
Well, I’d better stop blogging and get the rest of my preparations done… See you in a bit!
Yesterday I went on a hike on the Utrechtse Heuvelrug (‘Utrecht Hill Ridge‘). If I want to participate in the 100 Mile Fitness Challenge I’ve got to get outdoors! I walked for 9.41 km and (in this case) I am also counting my cycling to the train station, so I’m 7 miles down for the challenge – 93 more to go!
For lunch, I brought bento #81, called Herfst Hike Bento because I like alliteration and ‘herfst’ is the Dutch word for autumn.
Top tier
- Crackers
- Crispy fried seaweed snack
- Mini matcha muffin with azuki filling
- 2 yoghurt coated apricots
- Fudge candy
- Corn cob
- Watercress leaves
- Cove-ripened goat’s cheese star
- Fairtrade African pepper spices (hiding under cheese) for corn
- Lemon infused extra vierge olive oil for corn cob
Lower tier
- Falafel (chickpea patty)
- Chili-tomato sauce for falafel
- Mini carrot
- Yellow Cabbage quiche (a.k.a. pie of slobber cabbage ;)
- Garden peas with Fairtrade Basil Herb mix
- Sundried tomato spread with another goat’s cheese star
I thought I had some edamame left but when I got the bag out of the freezer it appeared to be garden peas. No matter, I like them too ;)
CSA (& organic): corn, carrot, yellow cabbage
Organic: watercress, falafel, tomato spread
My hike took me through different types of landscape: estates, sands and moorland, but mostly forest. Which is preferable for autumn ;) Especially when you can enjoy the great weather I got! I should confess I took a wrong turn somewhere, but I got back on track quite easily ;)
Along the way I also released a bookcrossing copy of Almayer’s Folly for my 2nd round of the 2009 History Challenge at Stoop Pavilion (de Koepel van Stoop): a folly itself.
You can find the pictures I took on my hike in a special set on Flickr.
It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird [..] They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.
Thanks to a bookcrossing book ring I have finally read Harper Lee’s 1960 classic To Kill a Mockingbird. It had been on my wishlist for quite a few years and became part of two challenges: the 2009 Classics Challenge and my personal 2008-2009 challenge. There has been written a lot about this book so I’m just going to add my personal view. Well.. and a little about the story for people who haven’t read it (yet).
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel in which a female attorney, Jean Louise — Scout — Finch, looks back on her childhood during the Great Depression in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama.
Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first new it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the court-house sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft tea-cakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. [p.11]
The story focusses on the events of a certain summer, that morally and socially shaped Louise into the adult she became. Because of this, the book is considered a Bildungsroman. Although Harper Lee used a lot of autobiographical elements, the novel is fiction.
I am very glad I got to read the book. I don’t think it will end up in my 2009 top 5 list, but it was a quick, entertaining read: the story immediately grabbed me and I liked the atmosphere of doom, suggesting that ’something was going to happen’. The first paragraph sets the tone:
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right -angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.
When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident.
The reader now knows that the rest of the book will tell about the events leading up to Jem’s accident. But like in a court case where seperate witnesses have different truths, the sibling’s have different points of view on where it all began.
In my online Boekgrrls book group there was some discussion whether or not the quote above contains vivid imagery. I think so ;) Some people didn’t find it evocative — worse, they thought it gawky because they had to physically try the position of the arm. I rather like it that everywhere around the world and through time, people are swinging their arms while reading ;)
Some women also didn’t find it believable that children were accepted into the courtroom. Well, it was a long time ago… And honestly, isn’t it really harder to believe that black people were treated as lesser humans? And they were! Even though you know that it’s true, it is still shocking to read about this kind of racism. To Kill a Mockingbird was published 5 years after Rosa Parks had refused to give up her bus seat for a white passenger (also in Alabama); Harper Lee had been writing on the book for a few years.
Aside from the main storyline (which I am not writing down because it is broadly known and when you’re in the dark about it you might want to keep it that way), you can feel how Scout grows into her later profession even though that was not yet common for women of that time.
“There are lots of reasons. For one thing, Miss Maudie can’t serve on a jury because she’s a woman –”
“You mean women in Alabama can’t –?” I was indignant.
“I do. I guess it’s to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s. Besides,” Atticus grinned, “I doubt if we’d ever get a complete case tried — the ladies’d be interrupting to ask questions.”
Jem and I laughed. Miss Maudie on a jury would be impressive. I thought of old Mrs. Dubose in her wheelchair — “Stop that rapping, [judge] John Taylor, I want to ask this man something.” Perhaps our fore-fathers were wise. [p.225]
After Jem and his sister have sneaked out to watch the court case, some Southern ladies tease Scout afterwards:
“Watcha going to be when you grow up, Jean Louise? A lawyer?”
“Nome, I hadn’t thought about it..” I answered, grateful that Miss Stephanie was kind enough to change the subject. Hurriedly I began choosing my vocation. Nurse? Aviator?
“Well…”
“Why shoot, I thought you wanted to be a lawyer, you’ve already commenced going to court.”
Recently To Kill a Mockingbird became #1 on the list of the best 60 books of the past 60 years. Maybe not because Harper Lee is the most skilled writer of recent history, but because her book is about the equality of Man.
“Well how do we know we ain’t Negroes?”
“Uncle Jack Finch says we really don’t know. He says as far as he can trace back the Finches we ain’t, but for all he knows we mighta come straight out of Etiopia durin’ the Old Testament.”
“Well if we came out durin’ the Old Testament it’s too long ago to matter.”
“That’s what I thought,’ said Jem, ‘but around here once you have a drop of Negro blood, that makes you all black [..]“ [p. 165]
John Sutherland remarks in his article about the list of 60 books:
“[..] as Henry James said, the house of fiction has many rooms. One important room is reserved for fiction that expresses the basic ideals of its time: such as Oliver Twist, or The Grapes of Wrath. To Kill a Mockingbird will always have a high place in that company.”
Ha! I have just finished John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which is also on my challenge list (review pending). That book is more about equal rights for ‘poor’ white people from the East of the US migrating to the West in the same period as To Kill a Mockingbird. Both books won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in the year after they were published (respectively 1940 and 1961). And both books play in the American South.
Have you ever heard of Southern Gothics, a sub genre of the gothic novel and unique to American literature? I hadn’t. But To Kill a Mockingbird is (by some) considered to belong to this genre.
“Like its parent genre, it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot. Unlike its predecessor, it uses these tools not for the sake of suspense, but to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South.
[..] the writer takes classic Gothic archetypes, such as the damsel in distress or the heroic knight, and portrays them in a more modern and realistic manner — transforming them into, for example, a spiteful and reclusive spinster, or a white-suited, fan-brandishing lawyer with ulterior motives.”
Lawyer. Heroic knight. That’s why Atticus, Scout’s father, seems a bit too good to be true sometimes! But I think it is also because most of the story is told through the eyes of a child — don’t young girls often look up to their fathers, seeing them as hero’s?
I had to think about my father a lot whilst reading this book. He was a great fan of Gregory Peck, who played Atticus in the 1962 movie adaptation. But he was also born in the same year as Harper Lee and had a huge sense of morality, of justice. He would have liked to become a lawyer. Hee hee, maybe he even looked a little bit like Gregory Peck ;)
I couldn’t help but think of another film as well: Mississippi Burning. Some marvelous actors playing in it: Gene Hackman, William Dafoe, Frances McDormand (I’ll leave it to you to look them up if you don’t know them ;) I would definitely like to see that movie again soon! I don’t feel the need to see To Kill a Mockingbird. But I liked reading this classic enough to want to have a copy of my own. I’ll be on the lookout for a nice edition! :)
Mockingbird sound recording courtesy of The Quomma.
I notice I’m recommending Strangers (Ijintachi to no natsu or 異人たちとの夏) by Taichi Yamada a LOT. Other readers’ feelings are mixed — some love it as much as I do, others find it disappointing. I read it in 2005 and immediately wrote an extremely enthusiastic email to my online bookgroup, the Boekgrrls. For now I am just going to recycle my Dutch review here on Graasland, but I hope to get around to translating it in English sometime! Maybe after I have finished my current read: Be With You by Takuji Ichikawa — which reminds me of Strangers. I don’t know why I’m thinking about Yamada’s book so much these days, I also wrote about it relating to my first ‘Hello Japan!‘ mini mission… I even feel like re-reading Sttrangers, something I really never do.
*** The following text is (mostly) in Dutch but you’ll find some English recommendations by famous authors at the end! ***
Ik heb weer een boek gelezen waarvan ik zeker weet dat hij hoog eindigt in mijn top-10 van dit jaar: Strangers, van Taichi Yamada. Een PRACHTIG boek! Het is mooi geschreven, spannend en ontroerend. Het is me lang niet gebeurd dat ik in de trein bijna zat te huilen…
Het is een slim concept: Hideo Harada, tv-scriptschrijver, verloor op 12-jarige leeftijd zijn ouders maar komt 36 jaar later een stel tegen dat sprekend op hen lijkt — even oud als zijn ouders toen ze verongelukten. Niet alleen is dat intrigerend, spannend (‘wat is hier aan de hand?’) en ontroerend, maar ook een erg aantrekkelijke gedachte voor lezers die zelf geen ouders meer hebben. Toch krijg je nooit het idee dat het een verkooptruc is: het is gewoon een mooi, integer verhaal.
Om jullie een indruk te geven hierbij een citaat over ouderschap:
They were there for me, and though by all appearances they spent the day between my visits busy with their own work and play, it seemed quite possible that all time other than the time they spent with me was for them a void in which neither of them actually existed.
Voor veel kinderen bestaan de ouders niet (meer) wanneer ze uit hun blikveld verdwenen zijn.
Ik wens te geloven dat dit de verhaal de schrijver werkelijk is overkomen :-) Niet voor niks lijkt de achternaam Harada sprekend op die van auteur Yamada en schreef hij verschillende filmscripts. Maar ik zeg ‘wens’, want werkelijk geloven doe ik het natuurlijk niet. De suggestie vind ik daarentegen geweldig. Dat Taichi Yamada verder maar weinig romans schreef draagt aan die illusie bij. Strangers is in ieder geval de enige die in het Engels vertaald is: in 2003, 26 jaar na uitkomen.
In de flaptekst wordt het boek vergeleken met Paul Auster en Haruki Murakami. De vergelijking met Paul Auster komt volgens mij door de vlotte, filmachtige stijl. Het verhaal leest als een trein — een echte pageturner. En dat hebben beide ook gemeen met Murakami; die schrijft (be)vreemde verhalen die je bij de kladden grijpen en meesleuren. Zijn hoofdpersonen zijn bovendien vaak enigszins passieve, geïsoleerde ‘einzelgangers’ die bovennatuurlijke dingen meemaken met onbekenden — strangers.
De titel van het boek, Strangers, slaat volgens mij op het idee dat het niet altijd logisch is wie vreemden en wie bekenden zijn. Het verhaal bevat verschillende aanknopingspunten. Als Hideo op bezoek is geweest bij zijn (vermeende) ouders nodigen ze hem opnieuw uit met de woorden
Don’t be a stranger, now.
En doordat deze vreemden zo op zijn ouders lijken, voelt hij zich geweldig vertrouwd bij hen — zo veilig heeft hij zich sinds zijn kindertijd niet meer gevoeld. Van zijn eigen ouders zou je kunnen zeggen dat ze vreemden zijn omdat ze op zijn twaalfde overleden – en in hoeverre ken je je ouders als kind op die leeftijd? Hideo is vervreemd geraakt van zijn eigen vrouw en zoon, terwijl een collega hem misschien het meest na staat van alle anderen. En dan de buurvrouw uit zijn flatgebouw, Kei: ook een vreemde die in enkele dagen volledig met zijn leven verweven is.
Tja, voor mezelf heb ik nog wat notities gemaakt maar die verklappen wellicht teveel of zijn juist te nietszeggend voor jullie ;-) Het moge duidelijk zijn dat ik dit boek van harte aanbeveel als spannend, lekker-weglezend kwaliteitsvoer of zoiets ;-) Dit boek is een parel! Lof dus ook voor de vertaler: Wayne P. Lammers, want zonder hem had ik er nooit kennis van genomen en het is zijn taal. Nu allemaal naar de boekhandel om Strangers te kopen, zodat Yamada’s roman uit 1992 ook vertaald zal worden! Ik denk dat ik voor het eerst van mijn leven maar eens een bedelbrief aan de uitgever moet schrijven :-)
Groet, Gnoe
PS. Voor wie mij nu nog niet gelooft typ ik hier bij hoge uitzondering nogmaals de aanbevelingen van twee gewaardeerde schrijvers over.
David Mitchell:
Highly recommended. A cerebral and haunting ghost story, which completely wrong-footed me.
Bret Easton Ellis:
An eerie ghost story written with hypnotic clarity: quickly paced, intelligent and haunting with passages of acute psychological insight into the relationship between children and their parents, which is also what makes this fascinating book so moving.
The task this month is to read or watch something scary, spooky, or suspenseful, and Japanese of course!
Immediately after I had read about this 1st Hello Japan! mini-challenge on October 2nd, I ran to to the video store and rented the dvd of Dark Water, a horror movie directed by Hideo Nakata. It has been on my wish list for a long time — I guess ever since I saw Nakata’s 4 movie cycle of Ringu (or Ring). 
Now, you need to know I am not really a scary-movie-grrl… I can manage maybe 3 of ‘em a year ;) But I was fascinated by Ringu, especially compared to the not-so-impressive The Ring, an American remake by ‘Pirate of the Caribbean’ Gore Verbinski. I found the Japanese original really chilling. I still shudder when I think back — without spoiling anything — to a certain scene in a well, or how ‘the girl’ moved… Even though many years have passed since I saw it!
The American version did absolutely nothing to me. I guess Japanese film language is much more frightening! ;)
But I am getting sidetracked… It wasn’t Ringu I watched for the mini challenge, but Dark Water, or Honogurai mizu no soko kara (I love the sound of those Japanese titles ;)
Dark Water got rehashed in the US as well, by Walter Salles. I thought the main character was played by Jodie Foster, but it appears I’m confusing her with Jennifer Connelly — what on earth made that happen? A while ago I started watching the remake on tv, until I remembered my experiences with The Ring — and decided I should wait until I had seen the Japanese original.
A woman and her young daughter move to an eerie, run-down apartment building pending the decision of guardianship after a divorce. The ceiling of their ‘new’ flat has an active, dark leak. In the upstairs apartment, which appears to be the source of the leakage, used to live another young girl that went missing more than a year before…
I enjoyed watching Dark Water. It find it an entertaining movie, even though I was never terrified during the film, just a little tensed sometimes. The story is more… gross, and above all SAD. Because of that it made me think of a book I like a lot: Strangers, by Taichi Yamada. I didn’t find that ghost story horrifying either — and it moved me to tears. I figure there’s a certain distinction between Japanese ghost movies and horror, in which tragedy plays a main part!
I really love the idea of these Japan related mini missions and plan to do all of them. When do you think our host tanabata will challenge us to go to Japan?? :))
My Bookcrossing bookshelf
