Jonathan Lethem – Amnesia Moon (2)
The premise is a marvelous riff on the post-apocalypse theme. Starting out as a classic, nuclear holocaust story set in the desert, complete with mutants and vigilantes in old cars. But we soon realize something isn’t quite as it seems, and as the protagonist makes his way from the desert back to San Francisco, we slowly understand that what has happened is much more apocalyptic than the mere destruction of the physical that bombs bring about: mental coherence, the very fabric of reality itself, has somehow been damaged, and dreams, paranoia and neuroses bloom freely and infest the world of the real. In keeping with the very lost feeling that pervades the story, we never learn the truth about what people call “the break”, though several alternatives of it are offered. And this, I feel, is also the shortcoming of Amnesia Moon: the exchangeability of the different narratives robs the story of some of its impact – when everything seems possible, nothing can mean much any more.
Reading Gaiman, I frequently marvel at the way he manages to circumvent my defenses. Things I would normally consider cliche or kitsch, are all right when he does them, and a scenario that reeks of Cirque de Soleil and the fake weirdness of professional quirkers, is genuinely creepy and rings true, when he touches it. Buttons for eyes? Dead children behind a mirror? A talking cat? A blind doorway that leads to a spooky place? Bring ’em on.
A cute book about the trip to Japan of a father and son, to meet some of Anime’s legendary figures, and to be shown, time and again, to be fundamentally wrong about Japanese culture. While this book stays on the surface of the issues a lot of the time, and some of the misunderstandings and oddities seem so naive to make me suspect exaggeration for the sake of the books thread, the subject itself is fascinating to me. Having never been to Japan, but being confronted with how utterly strange and alien the culture there is to Westerners, I find myself very unwilling to buy into it. Language books fuzz endlessly about the different politeness levels of Japanese speech, and what a unique concept that is, as though all words and phrases were applicable in all social situations in English. Likewise, many of the unfathomable quirks that are described in books like these seem to be a mix of different historical backgrounds and skewed perception on the side of the visitor, with some deliberate mythbuilding thrown in on the Japanese side, possibly as a means of establishing unity of the nation against foreign influences.
About two thirds of the way through this magnificent medical thriller, I suddenly realized that the gripping storyline had made me turn the pages way too fast, glossing over much of the amazing artwork and visual detail. I then stopped for close scrutiny of one particularly rich panel – which in act had caused my realization in the first place – but soon returned to flipping the pages as fast as I could read the text. I’ll have to reread it, I suppose. Bummer.
For some bizarre reason that I find it hard to put my finger on, I still like Timothy Dalton’s Bond best. Maybe it was the discrepancy between his effeminate appearance and the supposed tough guy he portrayed. Craig certainly doesn’t have that asset, if an asset it is, but the realism the makers of this movie were striving for, is certainly rewarding. I’m not a fan of product placement, nor of movies that are longer than they should be, nor of the elaborate stunt sequence beginning, that felt like it was tailored for a computer game, but still watching this latest Bond was more fun than I recall the last few attempts to be. And I also liked the surrealist feel of going back to the roots, yet having the plot set in the present, with Dench as M.
“You have been sick, but now your well again and there is work to do.” This is one of the repetive mantras Vonnegut uses as a shield against the futility of being, and the certainty of destruction and decay. In a touching and hilarious collection of ramblings and biographical fragments, he explores the frailty of the human spirit, and it’s extraordinary strength in finding the good among the evil. “We’re here to help each other through whatever this is.” Indeed.
From Jonathan Lethem, who recently masterfully argued the fruitfulness of apropriating someone else’s intellectual property and turning it into something original of one’s own, and Carter Scholz, whom I hadn’t heard of before, comes this set of reinventions of Kafka’s themes with the frame of American culture. Witty, dark and unexpected, these stories toy with great ideas in a very delightful way. My favorite of the bunch is easily Lethem’s and Scholz’ collaboration on the story of how Kafka and Capra collaborated to make “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Great stuff.
Maybe it was because I had felt to be in a similar place to Mastroiani’s manic director recently, or maybe it’s just the fact that Fellini can make you feel things you didn’t realize you had in you, but in the final scene’s taking down of the main character’s overblown ego machine it felt like part of me was coming down with it, in oddly satisfying melancholy.
Not knowing much about the conditions in the south african townships, this beautiful movie left me with the feeling of having been there, and a deep sympathy for its deeply troubled protagonist. While the story is troubling and uplifting at the same time, the cinematography is gorgeous, and the desert townships with the downtown areas as a backdrop are weirder than anything out of dystopian scifi could have been thirty years ago.
I am not a fan of Gibson’s – or indeed any of the cyberpunk writers’ – plotlines. I find the constructions they come up with to throw the little guy into the arena of big corporations and social and economic powers of great thrust hard to swallow, and the conclusions shallow. On the other hand, the intricacies of the worlds created are meticulously worked out, and just for imagining the community of people dwelling on the abandoned structure of the west span of the Oakland Bay Bridge this is well worth reading. The characters are memorable, and the ideas have enough Gibson cool to make the ultimate shallowness of it all less of an issue.