Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Release Date: 1985 (Japan)/September 1991 English
Publisher: Kodansha International
Pages: 416
Buy the Book: Amazon
Book Rating: 5/5
For those of you who are Murakami fans, I suppose this review won't sway you to read his books, as you already have them. But for those of you who are unfamiliar with the author of the modern surrealist novel, I would recommend checking his ouvre out and, for a more accessible text, I would suggest Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Release Date: September 1954
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Pages: 248
Buy the Book: Amazon
Book Rating: 2/5
In the end section of the edition I picked up at a thrift store Golding states that: "The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable." Now, I went into this under the base assumption that the book was essentially about the collapse of civilized behavior into barbarism; that the confines of society were traded for the savage human nature barely concealed by ethics and morals. However, I don't feel that the novel is doing as much as Golding is saying its doing and I felt that it was a long story to make a short point: when society changes, so does our idea of civilization.
Perhaps to clarify my grievances, I will try and go into more detail.........
The Scarlet Plague by Jack London
Release Date: 1912
Publisher: London Magazine / Macmillian
Audience: Everyone
Pages: 68
Buy the Book: Amazon
Download the Book: Project Gutenberg
Book Rating: 3.5/5
While technically a short story, The Scarlet Plague is still, nevertheless, a good read. A fairly straightforward story by Jack London, James Smith, one of the few survivors of a global epidemic half a century prior, sits down with his grandchildren and narrates the story as it happened to him. As he does this, he attempts to impart the wisdom of a bygone world to them.
While Smith narrates the story much like a news story, or radio broadcast (Think Welle's broadcast of War of the Worlds ) it is still a compelling story as you watch the collapse of modern civilization over the course of a few days. Written in 1912, it reads like much of the science fiction of the late 19th early 20th century in that it is, to modern readers, both futuristic and archaic in its description of civilization. It feels like the space age 1950s that brought us the Jetsons. Smith recalls the outbreak and 99.99% fatality rate of The Scarlet Plague and narrates his party's flight from the city towards the mountains. It also includes the renewal of tribal life as mankind is reduced, insofar as Smith knows, to around 200 people.
The story does recall The Last Man by Mary Shelley, but the author is less introspective, and the language is less flowery and dense. (It would kind of have to be given its page count ;) ). The thing I appreciate in this story, beyond the tale of survival, is the interaction between Smith and his grandchildren and how someone, who was a renowned scientist, deals with a world reduced to tribal rules and organization and is slowly becoming more superstitious and disbelieving of scientific discovery we take for granted today (germs being one of them for example).
A good read, and a shorter read, it is recommended. Unless your a sucker for the hard copy of books, I recommend downloading this from Gutenberg, or another service. I found mine on Kobo for my e-reader for free. I imagine it is available electronically for the Kindle, etc..
Interview with Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, probably one of the best books I've read in years. May contain spoilers. I will gush about it next week but, let me say, damn, what a good book.
Title: Contagion
Genre: Thriller/Independent
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Scott Z. Burns
Starring:
Matt Damon Laurence Fishburne
Jude Law
Gwyneth Paltrow
Release Date: September 9th, 2011
Rating: 4.5/5
Its Matt Damon running away from things!!! Whoo! Or, in the case of Contagion, Matt Damon and the rest of humanity are running from a deadly strain of flu which can kill within a matter of days. The movie interests itself by following a number of characters including workers from the WHO, bloggers, scientists, and your regular joe as they all attempt to deal with the disease, find a cure, and come to terms with its aftereffects (death, societal discord, looting, etc, etc.)
If you have seen the movie Crash, this movie also follows a number of individuals who are seemingly connected to one another despite differences in jobs, geography, and class because of this plague. At one point or another one or more of these characters interact with one another while attempting to find a cure. The movie and plot are delivered to the audience without the smarmyness of a natural disaster movie, rather, the story is told in a very plainclothes way that gives an accurate look at what would happen should large plague cover the globe without becoming a pseudo-documentary or preaching to the audience.
I suppose my two main complaints are that some of the characters storylines are not as connected to the overall story or reach any satisfying conclusion. For example, Jude Law's character, a whistleblower/blogger figure, there really isn't a clear motivation for his actions nor conclusion to his storyline. You could also say this about Matt Damon's character as well.
Also, since this story is told so plainclothes I am at a loss to tell you the -exact- plot. You got people dealing with a disease and....? It is suggested by the director that this is just another episode of many of humanity dealing with a plague. So, if that's the case, then why is this plague special? Why are these people highlighted? Why this story now? What's the significance? The movie isn't a cautionary tale nor spouting a particular political agenda, rather, it is neutrally telling this tale and, for that reason, it is hard to pinpoint exactly what this movie is communicating to the audience.
However, I found Contagion to be a very compelling movie and a movie well put together and I think it is worth a watch, even if I am unsure what you will be watching.
Its October! Here's something to get that Halloween mood going.
In 1938 Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater did a live radio broadcast of their radio adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. With only two station identifications throughout the 60+ minute broadcast, listeners tuning into the middle of the adaptation became convinced that what they were hearing was actually happening. Panic ensued as many individuals were convinced that Earth was being invaded by Martians and destroying the planet.
Granted, no one really knows exactly how widespread this panic was and numbers vary, but this broadcast and the panic it caused reached newspapers across the world and did much for Welles's fame and notoriety. This broadcast is cleverly put together not simply as an adaptation that exists merely for entertainment, but they put in news broadcasts, music, and other things to make the adaptation sound genuinely like a radio program that is interrupted by news of a martian invasion. It's not surprising that it caused a panic; listening to the broadcast gives the listener a sense of dread as innocuous reports of gas jets from mars turn into broadcasts from army soldiers that go silent as they are killed from martian heat rays.
The fall season and cooler nights are approaching and this is a nice broadcast to listen to with a cool drink and a nice autumnal breeze blowing.
