Gun Kata is a Bad Mutha-shutyomouth

The thing I don't get about "Equilibrium" is Taye Diggs. Prozium is supposed to suppress ALL feelings; happiness, anger, sadness, etc. Preston was capable of feelings, but they only started truly surfacing when he stopped taking his doses (by the way, I think Christian Bale was perfect for this role seeing as how all he had to feel was first nothing, then anger/rage. Keanu Reeves would have been perfect...but only in the first half, that robot). So everyone, including Clerics, were supposedly suppressing ALL emotion by Prozium injections.



Then why does Taye Diggs always seem either happy or angry throughout the whole movie? He's smiling because he triumphed, or when he is challenged is clearly enjoying the challenge. He's also yelling and screaming, angry and showing it when things do not go his way.

If you ask me, someone ELSE wasn't taking his Prozium.

I Was Alone, This Bird Had Flown...

Book11: "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami

“Norwegian Wood” by Haruki Murakami is a first-person narrative centering on the life and experiences of Toru Watanabe. Watanabe is an eighteen year old freshman from Kobe who lives in a boy’s dormitory while attending college in Tokyo in 1969. He lives a normal, ordinary life with few friends, but the few that he has lead him through a number of growing pains. These include Naoko, the former girlfriend of Watanabe’s best friend who committed suicide right before they graduated high school, Midori, a spunky, outgoing girl from Watanabe’s drama class, and Nagasawa, an intelligent, self-centered ladies man who shares Watanabe’s fondness for American novels.

I had never heard of Haruki Murakami before this book, which was sent to me by a friend who was a fan. Despite my ignorance of Murakami’s works, “optimistic curiosity” was my initial reaction before I even turned one page, due to the fact that the author is Japanese and the main characters are Japanese students. Having lived a number of my formative years in Japan, I have a deep fondness for the country, the people, and the culture, a fondness that reaches deep enough for me to consider Japan (Yokosuka) my hometown. Reading “Norwegian Wood” re-woke all those nostalgic feelings I have for Japan. Between the detailed descriptions of the landscape and cities (some areas I’ve been to; i.e. Shinjuku), the food (GOD, I miss the food), and little tidbits of the culture/way of life (the morning calisthenics on the radio/television, the street soda machines that sell liquor, the various rail systems), I felt as though I was living that life once again. Even the dialogue and manners of speech of the characters were dead on (duh, no surprise), which ranged from quiet politeness to exaggerated, almost cartoon-like exclamations, but all of which were always spoken in proper (non-slang) English.

Murakami’s writing style overall was very surprising to me. Granted, I’ve never read a “modern” novel by a Japanese writer, and it has been years since I’ve read any Japanese literary works (mangas not included), but I was surprised by Murakami’s writing voice. I’m not sure I can label it “Western” or “American”, but I thought it had some similarities to other writers like Vonnegut or Salinger. Every scene was described in great detail. The story telling was aggressive, but it maintained a quiet, nearly unaffected outlook that defines the protagonist/narrator, Watanabe.

Watanabe’s personality was what I enjoyed most about the novel. Lately, I had been thinking that there are so few stories (at least in my limited reading experience) that centered on ordinary, mediocre people. I find that stories are on interesting characters, those with personality flaws or who have lived through some extraordinary experience, which makes perfect sense. Who wants to read stories about typical people? But that’s exactly who Watanabe is. Throughout the book, he constantly described himself as “normal” and “ordinary”, and the way he moved through his life and reacted to others around him maintained those self-prescribed descriptions.* It was the other supporting characters who added those interesting quirks to the story. The personalities of the other characters range from quiet and depressed to outgoing and vibrant to determined and self-confident. Despite their differences, they all feel a personal connection to the ordinary and normal Watanabe, a connection that they say they do not share with others. And it’s these relationships and interactions between Watanabe and his small group of friends that provide the movement and interest in the story.

This being my first outing with Murakami, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the story. Of course I attribute some of that enjoyment to the nostalgia I felt from reading stories of Japanese life, but most of my enjoyment came from Murakami’s writing. His ability to move the story along through the normalcy and plainness of life was inspiring and captivating to the point that I could hardly put the book down and seemed to fly through pages at a time. “Norwegian Wood” just gained Murakami another devoted fan to add to the throngs he already has.

* After a few chapters in, I began thinking that Watanabe reminded me somewhat of a less abrassive Holden Caufield, which was pretty funny because a few chapters after that, Midori, when first meeting Watanabe, commented that he had an interesting way to speaking and asked if he was trying to be like that guy from “Catcher in the Rye”.

2015 Riverside, It's Time To Say Goodbye...

Book03: "Shadow of the Giant" by Orson Scott Card

"Giant" picks up where "Puppets" left off (of course): multiple powers in the world are in disarray because their leadership and heads of state decided to ignore the warnings of their Battle School military geniuses and instead play into the hands of the twisted Achilles, who received a deserving death at the hands of Bean. With Achilles no longer a threat, the most ambitious of the Battle School graduates take grasp of true positions of power, and play against each other with ruling the world being the top prize. All the graduates happily "compete" (through military strategy and war, of course), except for two. Bean and Petra have only one mission in mind: the retrieval of all their stolen children. Graff offers to help them find their offspring, if Bean will help Peter Wiggin achieve his goal of peacefully uniting all the world's people under his hegemony. Now Bean is faced of a multitude of choices, and must make his move quickly, before he dies.

Whew. Going through all those plot lines is like going through a freaking soap opera. Except that "Giant" deals with war, military strategy, and the shaping of the world at the hand of military and political geniuses. Of course, with as many players as Card has, and the world quite literally being the stage, it's completely necessary for Card to guide us through each subplot, as if we were watching an entire season of "Lost" in 367 pages. But as he's done in the past, Card weaves his story beautifully, with each subplot and each character playing it's part until the very end where all merge for the grand finale, and you finally see the big picture when all is revealed.

"Giant" plays like Act III of a Shakespearean play (..and IV, and V..), when all the players are in place, and all that's left is the climax (that's what she said). After three books of showing us how brilliant these children (now "adults" in their late teens/early twenties) are, they have finally reached the stage where they answer to no one (sort of) and it all rests upon their shoulders. And what do they do? They become human. Card shows the fears and worries and vulnerabilities of each character, exposing them as fallible despite their genius. It's a bit ironic that now that so much responsibility rests solely on Alai and Virlomi and Hot Soup and Peter's shoulders, that they suddenly fall prey to humanity, whether it be frustration with an impossible task, blind arrogance, realizing what's necessary for your people, or going facing your demons and becoming the man you need to be. Bean and Petra already showed some of their "human side" in "Puppets", but it becomes even more apparent with their parenthood, and all the emotions and difficult decisions they must now make for the sake of their family. The praised genius children of the world have now grown up, and have inherited the Earth, good and bad.

In the end, the world does what it always does: grows old, and the players with it. I know that Card is working on the final book of the his "Ender" series which is supposed to tie the "Shadow" strand and the "Ender" strand together once again, but "Giant" does the job already. Without trying to say too much, "Giant" puts a great little bow on this great futuristic epic that Card has created, as if it were the end of an era.