#precious reading time

[ernestjwiyanto]

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death.

Elizabeth Smart

[ernestjwiyanto]

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell My rating: 2 of 5 stars The premise was interesting. The plot was offbeat. The characters are, well, stranded between one and another. As much as I forced myself to love this cool book, the affection I have for it is wearing off from time to time. We started with Adam Ewing and his pacific journal. Fascinating. A lovely title that's seemingly laden with a sense of adventure and mystery. The writing style is perfect (or at least serves its purpose very well, although much to my chagrin: stumbling badly, I opened dictionary regularly as if breathing). Then we move on to the Letter From Zedelghem... a strange story, maybe a little bit too much of drama, with our most interesting character so far, Frobisher. Then on to the Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery, which might be the most cliche story of all in the novel. A happy ending, no doubt. And the next, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, a comic one, with slapstick humour and laughable dialogues, which is the part I like the most in the book. Moving on, we got An Orison of Sonmi~451, a page-turner, starting off strong with a compelling character—a heroine, set in future Korea, an unlikely choice! Bravo for the writer for that. But sadly, to me it ends off awfully. A let down. I will not go further than that. And the Sloosha's Crossin' thing... weird, but respect for trying to write like a badly dyslexic boy, I think it works. The biggest problem for me would be the connection between the stories. I don't see a strong linkage between one story to the other. They seem to be stringed together gratuitously. While my belief about reincarnation is somewhat vague, I'm trying to see the whole plot from a neutral ground, what is it trying to tell me? That we are serving one purpose at a time from age to age? I understand, but I was hoping for something more than that. Probably this is not true for everyone: to me, splitting a fairly thick work into six different stories with airy connection between each other dilutes its significance. After halfway reading the book what I really wanted to find out in the end was the elusive red thread that stringed the stories together. What I didn't know was that they are scattered all over the place. View all my reviews

[ernestjwiyanto]

Batman: Knightfall, Vol.1 by Chuck Dixon My rating: 5 of 5 stars The man who first thought that 'Batman could also tire and exhausted' is a genius. Even a golfer could get injured! 

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[ernestjwiyanto]

Araki: Tokyo Lucky Hole by Nobuyoshi Araki My rating: 5 of 5 stars Over the course of his advanced years, Araki must have often reminisced about how good the life he had in his younger days. I so admire his ability to humour and party. View all my reviews

[ernestjwiyanto]

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury My rating: 5 of 5 stars This and 1984 are like identical brothers. One of them is younger and more naively enthusiastic, while the other one is older, cleverer, and more bitter in his perspective about the world. If asked, I would probably have the younger one as my friend, not to say I like him better. View all my reviews

[ernestjwiyanto]

Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui My rating: 1 of 5 stars If there is any single reason I could finish this novel is because I have watched the movie; it brought me here. But what’s going on? Is it error in translation? Because honestly the prose… It feels like fresh coming out from a really bad hack. It’s not purple prose—it’s something else, what colours are worse than purple? Shit colour? It’s shit prose then. But in all fairness, aside from the prose (I’m trying to comment purely on the story here), the story falls like a cheap sci-fi telenovela shot by a director who can’t stop thinking about jerking off. Okay I’m going to stop here. Just watch the movie. View all my reviews

[ernestjwiyanto]

Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami My rating: 1 of 5 stars Let’s face it. It’s hard to pull off a trilogy, and even more a challenge to make it from something that has not much a story in it. Missing person. Have we been there before? Even Dolphin hotel has its limits. I have been reading Murakami’s work so much that maybe I feel a little bit fed up of the similar story patterns here, most noticeably: a jobless protagonist who somehow always gets away with difficult financial situations and keeps on getting dough from here and there. And after like 300 pages I didn’t find any good reason to appreciate the enormous time I have spent reading this book. I got depressed. What is with the successful actor who thinks his life is useless; what is with this suicidal teenager who thinks her life is a mistake; what about this photographer who can’t think of anybody else except herself? And what is the conclusion, if there’s any? The author might not have one, so I’ll draw mine: reading this book is like peering into a life of a very boring person—probably even more colourless than the life of a gerbil. We are told the stories of his imaginary friends, talking with maniacs, kids with issues, and a retard in sheep costume. I mean come on, how could you just throw away all these ingredients of chaos and let your readers appreciate it? After the long-winding story that sounds like a random blabber from an expired blog I got a very bad headache. It took me sometimes to recover from it. View all my reviews

[ernestjwiyanto]

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro My rating: 4 of 5 stars Now here's a very interesting story: a Japanese writer pens down a very English tale. Not to mention that this was the author's first published work that also won that approving seal of Man Booker Prize. What are the reasons I should not pick it off the shelf? Then it begins: In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall… yawn, that should have put you off. But dare not, I have read it all (after that synopsis? Yep), and I should say, although, true, it is a story of an old man, the story doesn’t sound like an old man story. In fact to me, it’s a delighting book, and a pick-up too—a lovely surprise. What the main protagonist, Stevens, will ever tell you in this book is a heart-moving story that serves as a study of honour and exceptional working ethic that surely is a delightful thing to have, knowing of its rareness in today’s world inhabited by hypocrite politicians, crazy mom drivers, teenage idols and sparkling vampires. And for all those who have read Ishiguro’s other work (and especially who love them) will surely enjoy that it is told with that lovely nostalgic feeling, aching sense of loss, and plot that is skillfully restrained. Although it is sold as fiction, I almost regarded the book as an essay on professionalism. Just to imagine one’s job to stick around in a mansion for the whole of his life, serve his master and have a holiday for once in every 30 years or so is downright depressing—no matter how grand that mansion is. Maybe if they could provide me an Internet connection, an iMac, a lifetime supply of barbecued ribs, and a giant trampoline I might consider it. But we’re talking about 1950s England here; you’d be lucky if they actually have Flash Gordon shows at all. And one last thing, I don’t know about the history accuracies presented in this book. Aside from all that made-up mansions, German and French names, I just think that Stevens doesn’t sound like an English to me. He might be Japanese. Only Japanese have such a crazy devotion. I will never get around that shokunin thing. View all my reviews