Book Review: Disgrace by J M Coetzee

J M Coetzee's 1999 Booker-winning novel about the often brutal life in South Africa is deservedly one of the major influences on his endowment of the Nobel prize. The story takes place in Cape Town and on the Eastern Cape and revolves around a university professor his later-life sexual encounters and the grissly side of African life. But it is also a message about the sociohistorical legacy of European settlement and it's fallout. Delicately written with many levels and intricacies, this is one of the best novels I have read for a long time. A detailed and wonderfully designed piece of work, describing the brutality of African settlement with the most brutal aspects of the European legacy. An excellent read.

Book Review: John Steinbeck: The Red Pony

The Red Pony is a novella broken down into four episodes outlining the maturing of a young adolescent boy. The stories all take place on the ranch belonging to the child's father. Each episode presents the child with a challenge, be it phyiscal or emotional. And with each challenge the child adjusts and responds in an independent manner and not just in reflection of his father. It's a delicately written story, with not much in the way of detail, rather it is a story with a moral. Within the space of a hundred pages we see the young child develop into a young man. An interesting read with some rarely examined growing pains. Beautifully written in Steinbeck's inimmitable prose and a stark outline of the hardships of growing up in a young California.

A Small Part

Six billion people inhabit earth. Or thereabouts. Solomon was only one person and average in all respects. He represented one six-billionth of the collective conscience of humanity. He was the guy who filled the inkpads with ink; all the inkpads in the world. The only guy. That was the part he played in it all.

Film Review: Vantage Point (2008)

Director: Pete Travis



I admit that I was not giving this film my full attention, but then it never demanded it. The film revolves around an assassination attempt of the US president in Salamanca, Spain. It's an interesting concept revolving around vieiwng the event from the perspective of several different people. The concept itself is nothing new, but it always makes for an interesting whodunnit. But whodonewhat? The individual stories each tell a certain part of the story, however this is never fully exploited, we rarely see alternate angles revealing something previously unknown or assumed, timelines seem staggered and the story really just unfolds in a linear fashion. This is nothing like the sublimity of Christopher Nolan's Memento. So, that's the primary selling point out of the way, what else is there? Well, unfortunately, very little. The film plays like an episode of 24, or Lost or Prison Break. It has that same feel, only you know you aren't in it for the long run and you don't really care, so tension is never built (except the car chase, which was pretty good.) And when characters are in an unfortunate situation, you don't really care. In fact I wanted it to end like The Departed, with Forest Whitaker in shoe covers instead of Marky Mark. Whilst I'm talking about characters I should really mention that this film has none. The film was so much about this vantage point concept that all (and I mean all) characters are flat, uninteresting and lacking in context, and their personalities are revealed only fleetingly. That, coupled with the simple plot, issues of believablility and cut and paste character traits, make this film one to miss.

Words: Chimerical

chimerical [ki-mer-i-kuhl, -meer-, kahy-]
–adjective

1. unreal; imaginary; visionary: a chimerical terrestrial paradise.
2. wildly fanciful; highly unrealistic: a chimerical plan.

Also, chimeric.

Origin:
1630–40; chimer(a) + -ical

Related forms:
chimerically, adverb

Synonyms:
1. illusory, fantastic.

Antonyms:
1. real.

In My Head

As a child, it was always nursery rhymes. And then it was pop music, for a short time it was rock. Then, as I moved from my teens, it was jazz, with a slow tendency toward classical, and ever so briefly opera. Now I find myself back once more with nursery rhymes in my head.

Children's First Edition Collection

Excellent collection here of collectible children's books. This is by far the best collection of children's books I have ever seen.

Words: Dilettante

[dil-i-tahnt, dil-i-tahnt, -tahn-tey, -tan-tee] noun, plural -tantes, -tanti
[-tahn-tee] adjective

–noun
1. a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.
2. a lover of an art or science, esp. of a fine art.

–adjective
3. of or pertaining to dilettantes.

Origin:
1725–35; < It, n. use of prp. of dilettare < L dēlectāre to delight

Related forms:
dilettantish, dilettanteish, adjective

Synonyms:
1. amateur.

Books: Reif Larsen: The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

This book has been receiving a fair bit of media attention at the moment. It is published next month and the hype is mounting. The book is about a 12-year-old genius with a penchant for cartography and I'm sure the story must be a good one as it sold for over $1m US at auction. From the view of a collector, this looks like an interesting item and possibly a good investment. I'm told that the book, much like Steven Hall's Raw Shark Texts is illustrated throughout, but not in the usual manner, rather it has margin illustrations and other unusual diagrammatica. There is a limited edition appearing in the UK, in one of the major chains.

Film Review: Belleville Rendez-vous

This French film (directed by Sylvain Chomet) has always roused my curiosity. The animation style reminded me of the kind of art work that was always on late night Channel Four programs in the early nineties (I seem to remember an program called Animation Now). It was different, exaggerated and comic. There were even some ventures into an entirely different style for the occasional interstice. This widely-respected film, however, didn't quite sit well with me. There were parts of it that disgusted me on some level, the buttock-like calf muscles that made me grimace each time I looked, the disgusting meal the characters ate consisting of stewed frogs, the excessively obese pet dog - all grotesque. I think it's perhaps just me looking subjectively, rather than with a critic's eye, but occasionally animation makes me feel ill (Fritz the cat did similar). It may be some deep-seated psychological issue I have with abstraction of human physiology, but it's not something I'm interested in exploring; I'd rather just turn a blind eye. So I cut this film short, partly for the above reason, or perhaps instigated by the above, but also because it was boring. I'm no expert in animation, but I'm not sure what was so great about this - the exaggeration of physical characteristics? But isn't that what most art does. In conclusion, I cannot recommend this film, however iconic the scenes of the protagonists climbing a near-vertical hill may be.