The fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Raw.
It's a word I admittedly overuse when i find a piece of literature that is, in fact, not over processed, overly pretentious or trying too hard - as books an do. The fault in Our Stars -which I finally succumbed to reading after much hype by blogging fans for ages - is raw in a very poignant way. The fault in our stars is certainly romantic, and in it's romance dances into the idealistic forms of love - I won't spoil it for potential readers, but there's a level of convenience inherent in the way romantic love plays out within the novel - but it does generally keep itself honest and real. Hazel Grace, our 16 year old main character, is a thoughtful, interesting - odd - but very much teenager main character. While her cancer makes her whole unique from your average teen, Green does a great job of exemplifying that she is, in turn, just as teenagerly, and just as much the same as any other non cancer inflicted individual. We are all human, finite, and experience pain and loss.
But the depth and clarity with which Green address cancer - the "suckyness" of it, the agony that really isn't brave, but breaking and sad - not tragic or poetic - just sad, adds so much merit to the tale.

While there are moments where Green pulls aspects of the 'cancer story' he is careful to tell Hazel's story - and individual tale of a young girl who happens to have a fatal disease, rather than the story of Cancer, featuring Hazel Grace. The novel itself focusing around this distinction, determined to illuminate the humanity and normalcy of people while at the same time taking nothing away from the sheer unfair awfulness that is growing up with Cancer. Hazel is real, she is 'raw' and she is likeable, even in her sometimes depressing realism. The reader immediately grows to like her, is invested, and I myself found the novel an exceptionally quick read.

A well written story of friendship and love, sickness, fatality and the coming to terms with the fact that we all, one day, must die. And while we may have but a short time together, that time - those moments, can be infinite.

The Year of the Hare

An adventurous tale of a man who, in a moment of haphazard rebellion, leaves his life behind in pursuit of something real again. Vatanen, a (former) journalist hits a young hare on a trip through the countryside one evening with his photographer. In that split second, his life is flipped upside down, as the frailty, beauty and innocence of nature becomes so very evident. Leaving behind the cities and confinements, Vatanen forges ahead into the wilderness where he encounters a series of odd adventures, miscellaneous labour jobs, and astounding characters, all the while conveniently fleeing his former life. 
A story about living life to it's fullest, and getting back to nature, The Year of the Rabbit holds the true spirit of a rebel, a countrymen, and one not confined by conformity or convention. 
written in the 1970's, the pure sense of simple living, adventure and companionship still rings true. Vatanen's will power and curiosity keep the pages turning as the straightforward style of story telling paints the picture of a year more full than a whole lifetime of urban living. 

One Hundred Years of Solitude

I essentially read this book because it's on every list of Books One Should Read Before They Die, and it sounded far more interesting than many of the extremely old 'canon' pieces of yonder years that inevitably take up prominent spots on such lists.
..
well, it was certainly not in the 18th Century style, but that didn't mean it wasn't a bit drawn out, halting and muddled.
To be honest I think the main issue was the characters were flippant within the story, passing in and out at random, unfixed in time on occasion, and confusing not only chronology, but relations and generations. This was not helped by the fact that every male in the novel of the Buendía family has (essentially) on of two names, either Aureliano or (Jose) Arcadio. it's a bit confusing. Granted, I see the significance of this odd narrative, and of the repeat of names, as history was seen to be circling back on itself, patterns in generations repeating and overlapping and confusing one another. In this way, the novel was brilliantly successful in mirroring life in narrative. However, it didn't make it particularly comprehensive, and I often found myself less engaged than I would have liked to be.

At it's core, 100 years of Solitude is a recounting of the history of one family- occasionally with meaningful, heartfelt stories, sometimes in minute detail, but often illuminating love and solitude, and the partnership that these feelings often share. The novel to me became the recounting of the latest 'ursula' or 'remedies' or 'aureliano' (yes many of the daughters were named after mothers or grandmothers as well), who they slept with - often wildly inappropriately, or out of sheer solitude, any resulting children, and a spiral into quiet sad solitude. This pattern, repeated again and again, had the markers of deep life lessons, but also became somewhat tedious for the reader.

in essence, I appreciated the novel, but I did not, in the end, find it overly engaging, moving or 'entertaining'. Rather it was dirty, real, unpolished poetry, which at times lagged, and at time showed glimpses of both the purity, and dark twisted animalisms that form the basis of humanity.

The Understudy

The Understudy, by David Nicholls (One Day, Starter For Ten) is a painfully realistic tale about one Steven C McQueen, a pained divorcee, struggling actor and hopelessly unlucky understudy to the increasingly famous and dreamy Josh Harper. Steven is an endearing character. Real, flawed, and often foolish, we follow his naively optimistic dreams of making it big in the world of theatre. The reality, of course, is that Steven is floundering along, too old to still be waiting for his big break, slowly sinking beneath the shadow of the stars.

But when Steven inadvertently mistakes Josh's job offer of catering services as a personal party invitation, Steven's life is shot into the twisted glamourous and yet oh so dark world of fame. It is Nora, Josh's wife, that really does it for Steven. One chance meeting and they fall quickly into a strange and loaded friendship as Steven becomes Josh's confidant. Caught between spouses, making friendships with those he envies, Steven struggles to navigate through a life continually riddled with ever increasing disappointment.

Nicholls' dark dry humour paints the scene for Steven's self deprecation and careful optimism, countered with the brash roughness of Nora's New York style which (not so delicately) highlights the rough side that is fame and fortune. One reaching for the dream, the other a grounding sense of reality, Nicholls expertly manoeuvres his way through the busy London streets, debaucherous start studded after parties, and rundown apartments engaging the reader with a sense of hoping and looming misfortunate. A real, human story, one cannot help but invest their own aspirations, disappointments and veiled selfish desires in Steven, and thus, connect wholeheartedly with his story.

Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby, by Douglas Coupland, jumps straight into the life of middle-aged, single Vancouverite Liz Dunn in a whirling tail of loneliness, breakdown, and the Human Condition. Unsugar coated, blunt and open, Coupland never shies away from the bigger issues of life hitting the reader with cases of MS - depicting quite honestly the crippling loss of self that chips away inexplicably at those effected. It is a blunt and therefore all the more effective look at sickness, human frailty and perseverance whilst incorporating the overarching themes of life, death, life after death, and inevitability of mortality.

Between the charming Jeremy who dreams of a simple working life on a farm to the office working Liz trapped in the cage of her own loneliness, the two begin to build a life together two halves thoroughly dependant on the other for more than happiness, but in many ways, survival. Coupland depicts perfectly the relations between the two as well as other characters, building a frighteningly real life wrought with the trials and small triumphs of Liz's life at 40. While seeing glimpses of her early years, it is the slow passing of her life up until the point she meets Jeremy that builds the foundation for the novel, constructing a crippling sense of self-inflicted isolation and lonely a condition mirror in a physical sense by the symptoms and complications of Multiple Sclerosis and their effect on one's body.

Coupland so easily paints the picture with such finite believability and detail that characters immediately become real, and true, a connection forming between them and the reader as you follow through their daily and (often monotonous) lives, all the while growing to love them more and more with each stumble, mistake or moment of happiness. Raw and rule, Eleanor Rigby is a true reminder of the importance of real connections, relationships, within the context of the both limited and fragile human life.

By Request

Polly Courtney's Feral Youth dives headlong into the life of 15 year old Alesha, a young girl from South London just trying to rep her endz and keep all the right affiliations with Peckham Crew. From the start, it is made clear that Alesha is a hard edged fighter of a youth, shaped and roughened by circumstance and necessity. An absent father and a mother that's negligent at best paint a vague background of Alesha's past, engraining an idea that without true family, street fam is all she has. That's where JJ comes in - best friend, brother figure, and the closest thing Alesha has to a real family. It is her connections with JJ that drive most of her wishes and decisions as she struggles her way through street life, bouncing from dodgy flats to hostels, robbing, shoplifting and running errands for the Crew to make ends meet.

At it's heart, Feral Youth is a coming of age story which documents the struggles of an inner city youth pushed around from place to place, and her journey to gain confidence in her self and the ability to change the outcome of her life. Bouncing between legitimizing her life with the help of her once piano teacher Miss Merfield and giving in to the ease of money making through drug deals, black market sales, and general thievery, the reader watches Alesha flip flop her way through the novel, unable to gain the drive to pull herself out of her current lifestyle - one she is smart enough to be scared of, but not strong enough to want to leave: it's familiar, its immediately gratifying, and she's GOOD at it.

Courtney engulfs the reader in the world of Alesha, and gang affiliated life, painting the scene through Alesha's own thoughts and eyes - her very specific catalogue of diction and slang terms reinforcing the believability of her circumstance. We are inside her mind, and feel what she does which often times is the only way the reader would be able to understand the thought process or presumed logic of situations.

While the novel does well to depict the life of a disadvantaged young girl, and further contrast it to the (assumed) privilege born into others, there is an oversimplification which pervades the story. Alesha is motivated by survival - and on occasion, a need to ensure other's (JJ's) survival. Survival in itself is not a simple motivator, and yet the novel fixates on the living from day to day so much that greater motivations, intents, and emotions fall short. As a reader you care about Alesha because you feel sorry for her, and pity is not exactly the primary emotion you want a reader to feel for your character. Of course, there are situations and plots that need sympathy, but I wanted to properly connect with Alesha, understand her, and instead I found myself unsure when she would throw a tantrum and walk out on benefactor Miss Merfield and when she would have one of her 'the mother I never had' moments. While mood swings and angst are natural for a 15 year old girl, too much became for story convenience, and the continual back and forth bordered on the repetitive rather than enhancing Alesha's lack of self confidence. There were moments of course - times with Tisha primarily where I remembered that Alesha was still just a lost 15 year old girl, but these moments were too brief or too surface to fully grab hold of.

 Similarly, the revelation which final converts Alesha after various false starts, failed attempts and cases of giving up, is a simple reveal of a character who is successful, or at least appears to be, living in a posh world with nice clothes, despite having originally come from an estate. While this is a legitimate device to spur a character change in Alesha, the scene falls a bit flat after the months of pep talks, examples and support Alesha has been given to pull out of Crew life. I was frustrated by her because she did not seem to WANT to help herself for much of the novel - it is one thing to try and fail and get discouraged, but without full insight into her emotional side, these instances of failure felt less like tragic crippling self doubt, and more like a child too lazy to put in any hard work. I wanted to KNOW Alesha, what makes her tick, and was only offered brief glimpses of this in piano keys and her connection with JJ. Both could have been explored with more detail as they were reoccurring, though often unexplored themes throughout.

The emphasis on the riot itself, provided a window into youth and gang culture in a way which began to explore pack mentality, the contagion of rage and a need for action, the BBM messages highlighting the rapidity with which a collective can form, swell, and above all unite against a common theme. The tables were turned in order to show the deep rooted frustrations of a culture and society constantly put down and suppressed by ruling powers and the inevitable explosion that follows. Here the reader began to see more of Alesha - smashing in windows releasing pent up rage at all the people and things that have pushed her down. It is the depiction of those who destroy things out of envy - destruction of what they cannot have - and it is a powerful concept. But the truth remains that crime was crime - it was not food stolen for survival, but cell phones and technologies. While we feel for the caged bird, it can be hard from a readers perspective not to also call for justice.

This then is the dichotomy which encompassed my view of the novel. While I emphasized with the hardships of Alesha's life, I wanted more from her in terms of motivation. While I applauded Miss Merfield's benevolence, I chastised Alesha for her laziness. She had moments of gratitude, of pride, of will, yet I struggled throughout to support someone so blatantly turning to crime and drug trafficking. There may have been necessity there, but battling on through adversity is admirable - giving up is allowable - but lacking the ability to try - the DESIRE to, is frustrating.

Overall, Courtney does well to create a window into Alesha's world - the world of South, of streets, of Crew and of poverty, but I want more than a window; I want to step into that world and get lost there.

And the Mountains Echoed

Khaled Hosseini is superb, and continues to wow in this, his third novel. An expert at weaving a multitude of stories and characters into one cross-continental tale, Hosseini grabs his readers immediately and doesn't let go. Raising hopes,and leaving the reader crushed under the weight of tragic life - a reality he carefully avoids glorifying - Hosseini once again opens a window into characters lives, bit by bit, and makes you, inevitably and despite their flaws, love them. As the reader watches the slow decay of life unfurl before their eyes they are gripped by the tale of familial bonds, and deep rooted kinship that is not defined by local - be it Afghanistan, America, Paris, or Tinos. Human frailty, its capacity for love, and inevitably, fail those we love runs deep within the pages of ANd the Mountains Echoed.

The story opens upon a simple scene of storytelling, a glimpse at the relationship between the father (the speaker) and son, (the listener) while widening the ideas of family relations and obligations in the very theme of the story told. From there we are given a window into the lives of two young children - brother and sister - and the solidifying of a central them throughout the novel to come: bonds and ties of family and friendship that endure despite time or place. It is a story about finding a piece of one's self in another, and the inexplicable connections of love that tie us together.

Through heartache, trial triumph and testing, Hosseini explores relationships between parents and their children - touching on the loved, the difficult, biological families and adopted ones, in order to explore the depth of affection and loyalty inherent in such relations. There is a sense, too, for the characters of And the Mountains Echoed, that it is never too late. Whether it is Pari the young girl removed from her family at such a very young age, who - unable to remember anything but her adopted mother - lives her life with a vague, uncertain, but ever present ache; a hole undefinable of the place where something is missing from her soul, or Markos - ever running from the confines of his life, so rigid and void of tenderness, on the secluded island of Tinos, Hosseini weaves them each in turn, and the generations of family members and friends they connect with, into realistically jumbled, but ever connected tapestry.

It is a testament, also, that Hosseini is able to create such a balance - such reality. Never one to wrap everything up all nice and neat in perfect triumph or resolution, he also manages to avoid the opposite mistae of over glorifying the hardships and tragedies of poverty and circumstances. Each character is flawed, and each is redeemable, but only within the realities and confines of their lives and character. It is a masterpiece of a could-be reality. Like the works of Hosseini that came before, And the Mountains Echoed will grip your heart, and leave its resonating sound within you well after the final page has been read.

Based on the Novel By:

Taking books and transforming them into screenplays is certainly not a new idea, but it's becoming more and more apparent just how many of the major motion pictures of the last two years are adapted from books, short stories and novels.

The range, is drastic. On one end you have the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a story which would take less time to read than to watch as it was adapted into 3 hours of makeup marvel on Brad Pitt's face. On the other end of the spectrum, triologies, series and epics which attempt to pack vast twisting story lines into conventional movie length parameters (although most get around this by either splitting said series into multiple movies and/or extending run times). The point is, whether it's James Bond, Jane Eyre or Harry Potter - literary films have become the norm.

Let's take a look at the Oscars shall we?

Best picture: Les Miserables - oh, what was that? A book. Sure, it is perhaps more famously known for it brilliant and successful adaptation into broadway stage musical, but it too was a book. A very early example of the print-to-screen phenomenon that seems to be taking hold with such force these days.

Other major films in the upcoming or recently released category? Silver Linings,

Life of Pi, Anna Karenina, James Bond - Skyfall (only the latest in a long loved series of films of course), One for the Money, Children's book: The Lorax, The Hunger Games (how could we forget?) - and less recently - the infamous Twilight saga, The Lucky One, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (yes, this was a book), Alex Cross/Cross, Cloud Atlas (perhaps that one should have stayed in print form, no?), The Hobbit, Jack Reacher, Safe Haven (the latest of Nicholas Sparks' to be turned into a movie), The Host, Carrie (again), Ender's Game (upcoming)... I could go on, but I think you get the point.

While adapted screenplays are clearly not a 'new' invention, it seems these past couple years have seen an insurgence of novels becoming feature films.

There are two major things that might cause this.

One is a lack of creative writing of origianl screenplays, the other, an icrease in popularity of books.

Please, please let it be the second.

Having just watched The Great Gatsby film adaptation from the iconic story by previously mentioned F. Scott Fitzgerald, I couldn't help but be reminded of the art that is print to screen transferance. Gatsby, I have to say, made the switch flawlessly. The nature and setting of the novel - being the lavish parties of Manhattan in the 1920's, lent itself especially well to visual adaptation, and the cinematographers, costume artists, set designers and visual team did an outstanding job - but it was not just the set that pulled you in, it was the characters, the storyline, the dream-like fantasy which Gatsby himself creates. He is a master inventor continually attempting to recreate himself, and thus, his past. It is the heartbeat of the novel, and so too the film. 

this, if nothing else, was captured effortlessly.

But that of course was not all. the bookishness - in the best possible understanding of the word - came through with every expression and movement, from the emphasized visual ques, to the focus on the character of Nick and his writing to the lovely image of daisy herself, dreamlike in the clouds, waving away words of an ever remembered letter. The references back to the original work were many and expertly used - not overdone or overly relying on the fame of the novel previously, but simply drawing on not only the story, but that which it stands for. 

Straying very little if at all from the original plot, Gatsby manages to both stay true to the original work while drawing in a new level of excitement and wonder. The perfect mix, I might suggest, and as such, a huge success.

It is debatable whether or not book adaptations are such a good thing - they have given us such wonders as the Epic Lord of the Rings, and yet vastly disappointed viewers (or at least this viewer) in the case of One Day or Cloud Atlas. I'm glad to say the latest did not do so. 

It is, however, with a careful hand I praise it, lest we get carried away. Adaptations may be brilliant, but let us not forget the works from which the originate, nor forget to pay tribute not only to the writers, but the very works.

In simple terms, some movies are awesome and are so because of the books that came before - so don't ever stop reading.

-Q

Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes, the iconic detective character. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has managed to create a character that withstands the test of time, and, in recent years, seems to only be growing in popularity. From the Blockbuster starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law (an impeccable match) or the BBC modern day series simply titled 'Sherlock' starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, the Memoirs and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes live on.

Having recently read a large number of the iconic stories, I must admit, it makes sense to see so many of the plots adapted to screen - they are intriguing riddles which lend themselves far better to film than to print. Because really, being told in point-by-point factual reports of the minute details which lead to discovery is not entirely suspenseful or exciting. Sure, there is interest and intrigue and most definitely a sense of awe, but it's a report. It's not a... story.

So it seems that it is the mystery of how Sherlock can be so effortlessly observant, the question of the character himself rather than each individual storyline. We are captured by him, and his unusual character and, in turn, the humourous relation between himself and Watson, far more than we care to know 'who-done-it'. And thus, Sherlock becomes the perfectly malleable, transient character. You can move him through time and era effortlessly, changing crime and mystery to fit. Because that's not the part the matters to us. We, like Watson, simply want to watch the genius at work.