Category — Reviews

Guest post by Mr KS Augustin, in which another reader in the house puts forth his take on the novel in question.

This mysterious ingredient (the frozen leg of mutton in the title*) appears in quite a few examples of the “How not to write a novel” by Sandra Newman & Howard Mittelmark, my recent big favorite for reading on public transport. I would not presume to advise China Miéville (CM from now on) on how to write, or re-write, his The City & the City. This would be pretty arrogant of me, specially considering that I’m not a writer and do not aspire to become one. I do, however, admit surprise by CM’s opening references and credits to Franz Kafka’s and Bruno Schultz’s writing.

Subsequent to her finishing it, Kaz left the book on her desk to share, mentioning the supposed book’s style and atmosphere. I picked it up and began reading.

So, if you ever took the walk with Bruno Schulz down the street of his Cinnamon Shops, it may bring back childhood memories of the first time you were sent to do grocery shopping by your grandma, the first time when you were on an important mission of buying a bag of sugar, loaf of bread and perhaps a slab of butter. The shop was always small, which could be classified in Western terms as a deli-store. Perhaps, in these modern times, an Indian spice market could do the same trick of immersing yourself in a strange place where time slows down and you’re being surrounded by aromas of food and spices, and worn down counters. This was where old people slowly entered the scene, checking on the quality of cheese, pâté, or just making sure that they are buying the right stuff when carefully counting small change. To me it’s a feeling, and a smell, of a holiday. There’s nothing much to do and lots of time to reflect upon life in its details.

Moving to the next reference, if we try to enter Kafka’s world, then it probably would need to be done during a sleepless night, and lived through a nightmare of uncertainty of what is going to happen to us the next day. There is the possibility of failing or being afraid of failing in trivial things. Will my application for something really important pass or fail? What if there is a change in management or, better yet, we have to face some capricious persona who has absolute power over our future. If you want to have Kafka in a pill, take a trip through the Singapore-Johor Causeway and smile at the grumpy Singaporean immigration officers. You will know that they will stop you only if they could find a reason, just to show you who is in charge of that particular minute of your life. Well, Kafka takes it further, thus creating chilly feelings of impending, irreparable loss. Who knows, maybe that’s why not that many people like reading his novels, especially knowing that a lot of his fears turned into reality during WW2.

But guess what? There are no spice-markets in The City & The City, no absurd fear injected into our own reality, just clean CSI-in-a-book. Borrowing lettering from Slavic languages might have some small potential of creating any type of strangeness, but it does not invoke any images and, to a Polish-born person, might be actually quite funny at the beginning, then annoying, then tiresome.

I have to confess that I have not finished reading the novel. I was not even interested in the canonical question of who did it. The “why” became to me even less important. I was left pondering upon one question though: how far have we fallen as ethical beings if we derive pleasure and entertainment from an act of a murder? Is it really necessary to have a character killed in the novel so we can enjoy or appreciate the story? I do not really recall anybody being murdered along the streets with cinnamon shops. Then again I may need to get back to the B. Schulz stories to be sure.

So, where was this frozen leg of mutton being cooked, I wonder.

ADDITIONAL: I told J that people like to read ratings. Why, he asked? Because they do, I replied; they like a little sound-bite to take away. In all honesty, the discussion made me realise just how Americanised my thinking has become, but that’s a dirge for another day. In the end, because he didn’t finish the book, he was happy to let me tag a “DNF” to this post. Sorry, China Miéville but, as far as my husband is concerned, you’re going to have to do a lot better, especially when making specific literary references (all emphases mine):

Among the countless writers to whom I’m indebted, those I’m particularly aware of an grateful to with regard to this book include Raymond Chandler, Franz Kafka, Alred Kubin, Jan Morris, and Bruno Schulz.

at the beginning of your book.

* For those who haven’t read the wonderful and highly-recommended book by Newman & Mittelmark (I’d put a link to The Book Depository here, but they’re down for maintenance at the moment), the frozen leg of mutton is a metaphor for something that’s mentioned in a novel but turns out to be completely irrelevant.

I was delighted to purchase a signed hardcopy edition of China Miéville’s “The City and The City” from Shawn Speakman’s The Signed Page. (Free plug: if you’re after autographed copies of sf&f books, you could do worse than hop along to Shawn’s site. Miéville’s book made it, without a hitch and with perfect packing, to Malaysia! Thanks Shawn!)

I’ll be honest. The reason I first got into Miéville was because he’s an avowed socialist and we members of an endangered species have to stick together. So, The City and The City (hereafter, TC&TC). What’s it about? The inner flap says:

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel [can't find a way to do a "z" with an acute accent ... sorry -- ksa], somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Okay! Science fiction, crime, and conspiracy theories, all rolled into one. Oh frabjous day! Kaz is delighted, and opens the book with unbridled enthusiasm.

The “gimmick” of TC&TC is that the city of Beszel is interwined with the city of Ul Qoma, and the citizens of both cities have to train themselves to “see” what is happening in their own city, and “unsee” what is happening in the other city, even though there are patches of intense “crosshatching”, where the boundaries between the cities shift from one to the other quickly, even from one house to another, and it takes a deep, visceral understanding not to step across from your own familiar territory into the Other. For those that ignore the rules, and acknowledge in some way the Other, without adhering to the proper protocols (a situation known as Breach), punishment is swift and unremitting via a corps of shadowy figures, also called Breach, that shift in and out of each city, spiriting the trespasser away for immediate retribution.

The novel is told in first person by Tyador and there is a definite European twist to the way the English language is used, a certain economy that’s descriptive and refreshing:

I got off by the statue of King Val. Downtown was busy: I stop-started, excusing myself to citizens and local tourists, unseeing others with care, till I reached the blocky concrete of ECS Centre. Two groups of tourists were being shepherded by Besz guides. I stood on the steps and looked down UropaStrasz. It took me several tries to get a signal. (p 14)

I know I’m generalising wildly here but an American writer would probably emphasise the groups of tourists whereas, with Miéville, you’re caught by the frustration of not getting a clear phone signal instead. It’s these little mundane and completely relatable deviations that make the book such a pleasure to read. Ever since Böll, I miss reading such wry sparseness in a novel.

The rest of the novel charts Borlú’s pursuit of the murder of a woman who was killed in one city and dumped in another. But, even with the intricacies of co-habitating cities, it isn’t as easy as that. There are repeated allusions to Orciny, a city that’s believed to exist between Beszel and Ul Qoma … a city of fable. Or is it?

First, what I liked about the novel. The first-person take. I like the unreliable narrator angle. It makes me work, wondering if Borlú is correct in his suppositions, or not. I liked the use of language and the way Miéville jams two words together to give an indication of tempo (like “stop-started” above). I liked the fact that the two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, were totally different and yet had existed side-by-side for decades. I liked the fact that the novel wasn’t based in the United States. In general, I liked the novel.

Now, onto the tougher bit, which is what I didn’t much care for.

Tyador Borlú. A very likeable protagonist, yet so divorced from his own reality right from the start. There was nothing anchoring Borlú to his home city of Beszel and I thought that made the ending less poignant than it could’ve been. He was already a rootless piece of flotsam, tugged this way and that by forces that — for most of the novel — were beyond him. When all is revealed, it’s a bit ho-hum.

The last fifth of the novel. This ties in with the above point. I found the last twenty percent of the novel to be too predictable, sacrificing — I thought — the speculative side of the theme for something that, more and more, resembled a Hollywood action-film climax. If I had managed to read so far into the novel, chances were I was enjoying it thoroughly. To have the tone change to something more mundane was … disappointing. And smacked of pandering.

The next point could well be my own private bugbear, and I’ll cop to that charge, however…. If your novel is compared to Kafka and Dick, then I’m expecting something that will shake the foundations of the structure that the writer has put together. Throw in the surreal reality of Beszel and Ul Qoma, and I’m expecting something momentous — a towering denouement, a scathing indictment, a vitriolic unmasking. Instead, I get … Establishment. The novel begins and ends with nothing resolved, much the same way as a mix of oil and water may produce some entertaining turbulence for a few minutes before settling back into predictable equilibrium. What has been achieved? Essentially nothing beyond some interesting, and temporary, distraction.

And, lastly, I thought TC&TC lacked atmosphere. From living in many different places, can I tell you that they all smell different? Australia smells different to the United States, which smells different to South-East Asia, which smells different to Ireland. Each place has its own unique combination of colours, scents and impressions that form the whole. Miéville touches on the colours and architecture, but I felt he could have done a lot, lot more with the layers of difference between the two cities. What happens when a sizzling kebab at an outdoor stall in Ul Qoma sends exotic spice-laden aromas across to the more utilitarian Beszel side? One can unsee, but can one unsmell? Totally unhear that which evokes a visceral response? There are so many layers to different cities and I thought that Miéville only hit a couple of them, while ignoring others that would have made his prose a lot richer, and the differences between the two cities more stark and compelling.

And he poses certain questions, but leaves them unanswered. The true nature of Breach. The rationale behind the splitting of the cities in the first place. Some sense of the historic chaos that must have occurred when the cities were split asunder. These are little niggles, but niggles nonetheless.

So those are my impressions of TC&TC. Having said all that, China Miéville is definitely on my to-buy list. I still have three more novels of his that I’m itching to get to, but will have to wait until I’ve discharged my current obligations. So, you may think that I’m flaying TC&TC, but that’s not true.

I give it 7.5 out of 10.

POSTSCRIPT: For a different reader’s impressions, stay tuned for J’s take on the novel on Monday.

ADDITIONAL: And I’m blogging @ Novel Spaces. Why not drop by and say hi?

We had one of our occasional (Girls’ Night In)s on the weekend. This little diversion originally began with just J and I but has now expanded to include The Wast and Little Dinosaur. At a minimum, the following is required:

* a good movie

* a bottle of wine

* snacks

* beauty products

Since we’re war movie buffs, we decided on “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and a bottle of Italian Lambrusco. For snacks, we had a big container of jackfruit. And, for beauty products, we had orange-scented body lotion and a choice of cucumber or clay face masks. The kids took it in turn to lie down while I rubbed body lotion into their arms and legs, giving them a slight massage while I did it. Little Dinosaur declared it “very relaxing, Mama”, thus confirming that she’s going to be a spa junkie when she gets older. The Wast, being all boyish and stoic, only giggled slightly but couldn’t wait for his turn with the cucumber peel-off face mask.

Then we sat back and watched Admiral Yamamoto ( Soh Yamamura) struggle with orders that conflicted with his own superior strategic sense. Twentieth Century Fox must have remastered the movie because the picture is crystal sharp. And I didn’t have to worry too much about the white subtitles appearing on the white uniforms of the Japanese Navy, as I have in the past. There were only two spots when the first word or so was washed out. Other than that, reading the subtitles — for once — was a pleasure. As I’ve always been a James Whitmore fan, I was delighted with his portrayal of Admiral Halsey. The screenplay (written separately by Larry Forrester for the US bits, and Hideo Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima for the Japanese bits) was quick, interesting and seamless. Although J disagrees, I thought Yamamoto’s final remark about wakening a sleeping giant (meaning the United States) was the perfect point to end the movie.

Although it’s almost two and a half hours long, I felt the time just sped by and I remain more impressed with the movie now than when I did when I first saw it.

The only problems I had with Tora! Tora! Tora! are purely of a personal nature. While I recognise the obvious intelligence of Yamamoto, the humanity of Fuchida and the brilliant quirkiness of “Ghandi” (one of the major stategists), I can’t help but think of the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the fact that, to this day, Japan has never apologised for the blood it shed across China and south-east Asia.

However, in all honesty, I have to say that if I was a Japanese strategist, I wouldn’t have attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbour. So what if the Japanese rampaged up and down the east Asian coastline? Nobody would’ve cared. Not the British, the French, the Dutch or the Americans. If the Allies were willing to sell out their fellow pale-skinned European allies to Joseph Stalin, why should they have cared about millions of brown-skinned natives being beheaded by a superficially sophisticated and supposedly honour-bound race? In fact, considering history, I think the Allies would have preferred to deal with one strongman in the region, rather than have to reconcile the contrary bickering of several smaller nations.

And, for Japan, I think if they had even tried to live up to the rhetoric of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, we might all still be part of the Japanese Union now. But, of course, with Japan’s idiotic view of themselves of the Master Race — and the sadistic mindset that goes along with such craziness — the idea of a cooperative union spanning a huge fraction of the Asian continent was doomed to failure. I’m reminded of Pramoedya Toer’s slim volume, The Fugitive, in this regard. (You can read my 2008 review of the book here.) So, opportunities lost, and I can’t say I’m unhappy about that, but it still bears some reflection.

Girls Night In: 10/10

Tora! Tora! Tora!: 9/10

I originally started by calling this a review, and I’ll still classify this under Reviews, but it isn’t really. As we all know, reviewers always bring their baggage to everything they’re reviewing, so rather than just let you guess where I’m coming from, I’m stripping off all that crap and letting you know straight off.

There is so much already written about the movie, both the original and the re-make with Keanu Reeves, that I won’t belabour the issues here. Essentially, it boils down to Original – Good, Remake – Bad. And that’s fine with me.

(However, as a parent, can I just say that both characters — Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, and Jaden Smith as Jacob — riled the hell out of me? A supposed parent casually handing over a child to someone else when the government come for her? Leaving a child alone in a car while she goes looking for the alien in a crowded public transport hub? Letting the child leave the car to go to the toilet in McDonalds by himself? It was as if there was Some Big Point to be made regarding human relationships but, until we got to that part of the script, it was really irrelevant how the step-mother and step-son interacted, or even where they were. All in all, this part of the movie was very badly handled.)

But, moving right along, it occurs to me that this movie could only have been made by a First World power. Think about it. We have a less-developed civilisation. A more advanced civilisation comes along and says that the primitives have trashed the place. They’re going to instill their version of justice, but the primitives are not to know how. It’s enough just to know that the advanced civilisation is, um, advanced. The advanced civilisation starts a “surge” of metal locusts. Then they seem to change their mind and leave, removing the only way that the primitives have of, say, sustaining their health care system and general infrastructure. You’re on your own. Go on, impress us. And if anything else happens, it’s Your Fault. Even though we didn’t tell you how to do it better. (And what was with the James Hong character? How did a so-called “assignment” like that make any kind of sense?) Even though we didn’t exactly explain what we were doing to you in the first place. Even though we’re supposedly sooooo advanced. We’ll just do what we want to do, leave when we want to leave, deliberately leave you in a state of abject poverty, and then expect you to develop a fully functioning Western democracy oops, I mean fully functioning environmentally sensitive civilisation for your entire planet.

Yeah right. The movie was made in 2008, which means it was thought up in the middle of Bush’s neocon regime. And it got me thinking. You’d think that there are no two populations further apart than a military neocon think-tank, and a bunch of liberal film-makers in Hollywood, right? And yet the movie seems to exemplify every hare-brained scheme the United States has indulged in in recent years, from Somalia to Iraq to Afghanistan, to (now) Pakistan. Why is that? Was the director/screenwriter a mate of Wolfowitz? Were there military advisors involved? Or is there some common thread in the American psyche? I’m open to suggestions here.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE: Maria Zannini has a gift voucher for “A Pirate’s Passion” up for grabs at her site. All you have to do is comment here sometime before Saturday (9 May) noon, US Central time. (Thanks Maria!) I’ll have something up for Pirate myself next week. Ah, it’s nice to have friends.

Considering it’s Chinese New Year, I thought it would be appropriate to do a review of a Chinese movie this time around.

Everyone’s heard of Bruce Lee. Some have heard of the martial art he created, called Jeet Kune Do. Fewer still know he trained Wing Chun before he became a star and developed JKD. The movie Ip Man is about the man who taught Bruce Lee Wing Chun. And that man’s name was Ip Man (pronounced Eeep Mun).

Being a biographical movie, Ip Man doesn’t contain a lot of the characteristics that define your usual historical Chinese movie. For a start, not everybody dies. It starts just before the (Second) Sino-Japanese War of 1937. (Now, I’ll just digress a bit and say that this moment, in my opinion, is the start of World War Two. But, of course, you only have the largest war ever conducted in Asia that only ended with Japan’s capitulation in 1945 to the Allied Forces, so it’s not like it’s important historically or anything.)

A lot of care was taken with the sets, and it shows. They are evocative and sumptuous, and give a wonderful atmosphere of the time in Fo Shan (Fushan), a city in Guandong province situated on the Pearl River Delta. Ip Man is a Chinese aristocrat living in the prosperous trade-based city and so has much time to devote to the training of Wing Chun. He has a wife and a young son and, despite being an aristocrat, is a polite and humble man. In Fo Shan is a Martial Arts Street, where instructors set up their kwoons. But, before they can open their establishment, it is tradition that each new instructor “exchange views” with Ip Man behind closed doors, and we see part of the action when a new instructor approaches him and, later, when a Wushu grand master from northern China also challenges him, sneering at Ip Man that he can’t know much because Wing Chun is a woman’s martial art. (The challenger is correct. Wing Chun was supposedly created by a Buddhist nun called Ng Mui, but this may be apocryphal.) Of course, Ip Man beats the crap out of him. Great stuff.

Everything continues swimmingly, until the Japanese invade. Driven from their home, Ip Man and his family are reduced to paupers, and Ip Man makes a small living by acting as a coolie for a nearby mine. The Japanese leading officer of the region, General Miura, trains in Wushu (another branch of Chinese martial arts) and makes it a point to pit Chinese sifu (teachers) against his men and watch them fail. Inevitably, he and Ip Man meet.

There are plots and sub-plots in this movie that would take too long to explain, so let’s deconstruct it in a way that’s less narrative.

The fight scenes. Oh. My. God. Some of the best I have ever seen, thanks to Action Director and veteran martial arts actor Sammo Hung, choreographer Leung Siu-Hung and with input from Ip Man’s son, Ip Chun. The differences between the Wushu and Wing Chun styles are shown beautifully and there’s only a little use of the wires that enable the actors to fly through the air. (I find their use a bit tiresome, to be honest.) The fly in the ointment was the Japanese, who used the standard karate “greeting”, then went on to fight Chinese boxing rather than karate. (J was totally confused, having come from a karate/judo background.) Even I was reduced to objecting, “Hey, no Japanese would execute a move like that!”.

The characters. I’ve never seen Donnie Yen in a movie before, but I sure am impressed now. As Ip Man, he played the character with a calmness and humanity that fitted perfectly with the character of Wing Chun itself. I’ll be watching out for him again. His wife, Xiong Dai Lin (played by who-knows-who), on the other hand, was a real nuisance — miserable when they were successful and only happy when they were starving to death. Their son never seemed to age. The other characters, from the Wushu grandmaster “thug”, Fan Sui-Wong, industrialist Quan, fellow instructor and friend, Lam, a policeman turned collaborator (played very well by actor Lam Ka Tung), play their roles extremely well, turning this into a well-rounded drama, as well as being a kick-ass martial arts movie.

The Japanese. Treated too kindly, in my opinion. I know there were human Japanese officers (I’m only alive now because one ignored the presence of a radio in my grandfather’s house during a random search, rather than putting the entire family — including my father — to death, as he should have done), but the vast majority of them were brutal, petty and ruthless, hellbent on killing every Chinese they could find and, to this day, unrepentant for what they inflicted on Asia (from China to Indonesia) in the name of the “East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”. I was surprised they were portrayed with a shred of sympathy. It’s more than they deserve.

The plot. This is much, much more than a “mere” martial arts movie and provides enough meat for people who don’t even consider themselves action fans. Director Wilson Yip does a fine job with a complex story, wringing humanity from the unlikeliest of places. The range of characters involved, their interpersonal dynamics, the contrast of settings as time marches on in the movie, are all handled beautifully and will reward the viewer who hangs in there. What’s that, you say? “Hang in there”? I thought you liked the movie, Kaz? Yeah, I did. Until the next point.

The subtitles. To say they suck would be to give them a degree of utility they do not deserve. Do not expect to understand much of the movie, not even the all-important info-dumps that carry no translation whatsoever. You will get the gross plot movements, but everything else is opaque. I am only able to explain what little I can because I read half a dozen other reviews of Ip Man from English-speaking Chinese reviewers before I wrote this. I’m not sure whether the subtitles were so bad because the production company just didn’t care or because they were complete idiots but, either way, they’ve taken a treasure — an absolute classic — and essentially trashed it for non-Chinese speakers. My advice to you would be to go to the Ip Man website which is informative, if unfortunately Flash-heavy. Once you’ve read the information there, get the movie and watch it. You’ll be much more appreciative.

RATING: 7.5 / 10. A few niggles with the Japanese fighting techniques and the fact Ip Man’s son never seems to age, but slashed to buggery due to the woeful, shameful, atrocious, contemptible standard of subtitles. Considering the high calibre of the movie, the English so-called “translations” were nothing short of a travesty.

::Big breath :: And a Gong Xi Fa Cai to all Chinese readers of this blog!

My first disclosure is that I luuuurve spaghetti westerns, and have done ever since I was a kid. But what about kimchi westerns? I ask this because I recently had the opportunity to view a Korean spaghetti western on a plane flight. Now, as you know, watching movies on a plane is a lose-lose proposition. The film has no doubt been edited for size and content and, with the constant humming from the engines, combined with the sardine-like ambience in Economy class, a good time is not guaranteed. Nonetheless, I persisted.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is film-maker Kim Jee Woon’s homage to spaghetti westerns, and it’s a treat. An obvious allusion to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, it is a filmfest of bullets, explosions and laconic coolness from the hero.

Some Western viewers have commented that the politics is confusing, so let’s get that out of the way first. The movie is set in the 1930s. The Japanese have installed a puppet regime in Manchuria, which has taken control of Korea. Of course, Korea wants independence. That’s it. Now, onto the movie.

Petty robber Tae-Goo (Song Kang-ho aka The Weird) unwittingly comes into possession of a treasure map while robbing a train. Unfortunately for him, Chang-Yi (Lee Byung-hun aka The Bad), the leader of a band of bandits, has been paid money by the map’s original owner to retrieve the map and thus double-cross the Japanese official to whom the map had been sold. Do-Won (Jung Woo-sung aka the Good) is a bounty hunter who’s chasing down Chang-Yi and gets embroiled in the whole treasure map business. When the three discover that the map is genuine, tensions ratchet up. With the Japanese Army, and assorted other thugs, on their trail, will they have time to even escape with their lives, much less find the treasure?

Oh, I haven’t had this much fun in ages. This movie is a treat from start to finish, from the writing (by Kim Ji Woon and Kim Min-suk, that even English subtitles couldn’t subdue) to the breathtaking landscape of Manchuria where the film was shot. Jung Woo-sung is terrific as The Good, a smooth, suave, sharpshooter of few words who’s totally focused on bringing Chang-Yi to justice. Unfortunately, being The Good, there isn’t much scope for Jung Woo-sung to give a totally over-the-top performance, but I’ve seen him on the covers of many other Korean movies, so may have to get some of those as well.

The Bad, played by Lee Byung-hun, is brilliantly psychotic. As his character is completely off the wall, Lee Byung-hun is given ample opportunity to stretch the character as far as he could, and the result is intense and enjoyable. In fact, his portrayal of the teteeringly insane Chang-Yi reminded me of director Jerzy Hoffman’s treatment of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s With Fire and Sword. The character Jurko Bohun is portrayed as slightly deranged in the movie and is played with the same kind of unbalanced brilliance by Aleksandr Domogarov. I remain impressed with both actors.

But the prize must go to The Weird, as portrayed by Song Kang-ho, a well-known, “self-taught” actor. His bumbling character, with its startling mix of rough compassion and ruthless brutality, is a classic, and the movie is worth seeing for this role alone. And the landscape of Manchuria, with those gorgeous sweeping shots, is a fitting fourth character to the action.

Mighty Peking Man produces the best single-sentence review of The Good, The Bad, The Weird:

“Above anything this film is trying to showcase, the action is what shines the most — it’s crisp, fast, inventive and brutal.”

Being an veteran Asian film-watcher, he doesn’t think this is Kim Ji Woon’s best film, citing A Bittersweet Life as superior, but even he admits the film is damned stylish. You can read his full review here.

But I’m not a veteran of Korean film-making. In fact, I believe this is the first Korean film I’ve ever seen. But it’s so good that I’m nominating it as my Film of the Year.

RATING: 10 / 10. Brilliant! Even on a plane.

I’ve classified this as a review, but it isn’t really. There are acres of reviews on HP around, and I don’t mean for this to be one more. But I just finished the last Potter book and thought I’d share my biased thoughts with you on it. Biased, because every reader comes to a book with her own baggage. And that baggage may even change from one reading of the same novel to another, but it’s still there. So here are my own clouded thoughts.

Firstly, as I told J, reading Harry Potter for me is a lot like watching a trainwreck — painful but fascinating.

It’s not the sentence structure that gets me (Rowling has nothing on Dostoevsky for convoluted phrase-crafting); it’s not the child characters (I like Harry and Hermione, although I think Ron is a putz, and Lucius is exactly as he should be); it’s more the adults.

• I don’t like the concept of a little gang like Malfoy’s being allowed to run riot around the school with nothing beyond bland reprimands from the Hogwarts’ teachers.
• I don’t like the idea of a teacher, any teacher, being allowed to terrorise a class with impunity.
• The idea that Trelawney also is allowed to keep her position when she’s obviously completely incompetent just because she had one prophetic vision in the past is beyond pathetic.
• I detest completely and utterly the whole power hierarchy and artificial house loyalty actions that rampage through the books.
• And, last but almost at the top of my list, I abhor the way Dumbledore treats/treated Harry, pulling him out of scrape after scrape and treating him with such obvious indulgence it sets my teeth on edge.

Yes, you can tell me it’s only a story, but there are social undercurrents are there that I Really Don’t Like. The idea that power will win over everything (whether it’s Snape over his class, or Dumbeldore over the whole school), regardless of whether it’s right or wrong; that egalitarianism is dead (not that it was ever alive in Britain, tbh); that anything is excused if you think you’re on the side of Good.

Of course I’m painting in broad strokes — I’m blogging, not writing a thesis on the thing — but I find the series, as a whole, deeply disturbing. If I had a child attending Hogwarts who was neither Malfoy nor one of his cronies, or Potter or one of his cronies, the first thing I’d do would be to yank my child outta there and put her someplace else that doesn’t play its favourites so damned obviously and maliciously.

At the foundation of the reason for this dislike is also the fact that I belonged to school houses through most of my childhood education. While it may be a delicious novelty for N. American children, it was a given for anyone growing up in a British system (our son is in one now (Blue house), though thankfully only for Sports).

And it sucked.

Just as in the HP books, points were awarded and subtracted for good/bad behaviour, sports results, anything else of merit, and the banners were arranged on their little tree (first place to fourth place) in front of the entire school at the end of each week so you knew exactly where you stood. It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy that I consider to be petty, hateful, and cynically manipulative.

So that’s what I don’t like about Harry Potter. What I do like about it is one thing.

Even subtracting everything else, the one redeeming quality that permeates the books is love. Love of parents for their children; love of mentors for their young charges. Up till this point, I didn’t think English people held any great affection for their children, to be honest. At least, it was never evident through their books. Whether Enid Blyton or Philip Pullman, Tolkien to Kipling to Ballard to Willans & Searle, there’s always been a distance between the children and adults I used to read about, an apparent aloofness bordering sometimes on active dislike that — quite frankly — puzzles those not brought up in that society.

So it’s refreshing to read someone who’s not afraid to write characters who love, yearn, lose, gain, and grieve (okay, sometimes ad nauseam, but still …), and get support and strength from people quite alien in the average English children’s novel collection. Their parents. Or surrogate parents. Even the Malfoys are willing to defy Voldemort, in the face of worry for their son. I find that one solid thread through the series to be the saving grace of the books. The English have feelings. Who knew?

(Even though I loathe and detest the school system in the HP books (can you tell?), I would not stop my children from watching the movies or reading the books. My personal dislike is, imo, not good enough reason to stop their acquisition of knowledge.)

I’m not sure how a copy of Peters’ book made in into our library. Maybe it was the picture of Sir Derek Jacobi on the front. (Man, what an actor!) But I do dabble in mysteries from time to time and was happy enough to read this slim volume.

It is the time of the civil war between opposing forces for the throne of England during the twelfth century. And Shrewsbury, where the novels are set, seem to be a nexus for the conflict. While tending to those who were executed for being on the wrong side of a particular battle, Cadfael the monk discovers that there are ninety-five corpses waiting to be blessed and buried, rather than ninety-four. He decides to investigate the death of the unaccounted body, certain the young man was killed by foul means.

There’s something about the language used in these historical novels that appeals to me. Cotte, hose, trencher, tincture, cordial … the syllables themselves evoke a particular atmosphere that’s half the fun of reading a novel such as this. Cadfael is as secular as a monk can be without being a civilian. Ex-crusader, ex-sailor, sexually knowledgeable, open-minded, tolerant, he protects Godrick, a youth in his charge, Tolund, the dashing Saxon sympathiser of Empress Maud, and skips prayer times as appropriate, all without much of a qualm. It’s also obvious that Cadfael has a lot of respect for women and I appreciated how the female characters were cast in this novel.

The one thorn in the novel for me was the “pricking of the thumbs” phrase which, I felt, turned up too many times. Already, the first time I encountered it, I was thrown into Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (and none of that is Peters’ fault, I hasten to add), but the repetition of the phrase compounded that flip.

Having said all that, my last thought was that all the good bits together–the evocative language, atmosphere, portrayal of women–was not really enough to have me actively seek out any Brother Cadfael mystery (although I wouldn’t say no to one if it dropped in my lap) until I discovered that my favourite character, Hugh of Beringar, becomes a regular after One Corpse Too Many, the second Cadfael book.

Well, that changes everything! Hugh is bested in this book, but his good humour and sardonic wit overcomes his obvious sense of ambition, and he quickly became one of my favourites. Knowing that he’s in other books as well gives me the motivation to move Peters’ name a little further up the list of authors I look for when I walk into the bookstore.

Summary: a good book to read when you’re already feeling relaxed. I might try searching out the videos as well. I do like Jacobi!

J and I went to see The Dark Knight last night and got a big dose of Kids Behaving Badly. Despite that, I rather enjoyed the movie. J said he didn’t “enjoy” it, but it was well-made. I think we all know the plot by now, so let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.

THE GOOD: It was like watching a graphic novel up on the screen. No talking down to the audience, no melodramatic little vignettes designed to appeal to a particular movie-going demographic (well, except at the end). I found the movie surprisingly intellectual and a worthy — if not better — successor to Batman Begins. Heath Ledger was very good as the Joker, as streets ahead of Nicholson’s Joker as that movie was ahead of the old Adam West series. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing him again in future Batman movies. I also appreciated William Fichtner as the Bank Manager; I thought he rocked.

THE BAD: Did the director only just discover the circle-around-all-actors-and-make-the-moviegoer-dizzy camera technique? ‘Cos they overused that one, in my opinion. And then a scene where the Batman, yet again, launched himself off the top of the skyscraper and I thought to myself, “Kerr-ist, couldn’t he have just used the freakin’ elevator?”

Alfred. At one point, I kept thinking to myself, is this movie about the Batman, or is it “Batman & Alfred”? There is a fine line between being a support to the hero and driving his agenda and I really think Alfred crossed that line in this movie.

Harvey Dent. He was a “meh” character for me, until he turned into Two-Face. Until then, the “chiselled, American hero” character (as Wikipedia described him), with his trite reasoning for the Batman’s existence in the fight for good-versus-evil (maybe because of his reasoning?), did absolutely nothing for me. It could be that I was subconsciously influenced by an article I read that The Dark Knight was a metaphor for explaining/celebrating Bush and his War on Terror. While I disagree with that assessment (it’s about a terror world, but not about glorifying Bush, imo) after seeing the movie (as with all good fiction, the movie itself is much more subtle than our news outlets would make the world out to be), I can’t be sure it didn’t taint my reading of Dent.

Christian Bale. There’s something about the way he talks that I find interferes with my empathy for Bruce Wayne. (The same way I get fixated on Tom Cruise’s nose, Goldie Hawn’s hands and Andie McDowell’s upper lip. What can I say, I’m shallow like that.) I remain impressed by Michael Keaton’s portrayal above all others, even though I was — I’ll admit it — initially aghast at the casting choice.

The ending. There was really no need to use Batman as the fall guy instead of Harvey. It was a cop-out, both of Harvey and of the Batman. Why not say that the Joker drove Harvey mad and he was temporarily insane when he killed those people? Why not blame one of Joker’s minions, if you must lie? And the Batman will give up his entire reputation — past, present, and future — to safeguard someone else’s dead reputation? Considering the people of Gotham (both average and criminal) had already demonstrated what spine they had on the ferries, I found the reasoning patronising. And those dogs chasing after the Batman in the end, with the voiceover … what a dreadful and unnecessary end to an otherwise good and solid movie.

THE UGLY: The kids in the movie theatre with us. Believe it or not, The Dark Knight was classified “U” for Universal audiences, and we had several noisy 6 year old’s surrounding us, one even taking phone calls on his mobile until (so J tells me) I shouted at him to be quiet. (I’m sure I only used a moderate tone designed to momentarily carry over the sound coming from the movie screen. Ahem.)

So, bearing this in mind, it could be that a niggle was explained, but I missed it. Which was, why did Alfred burn the letter from Rachel? Surely it would’ve provided Bruce Wayne with some closure? And don’t you love the way computers work in Movielandia? “Just type in your name”. Not “Type in your name, in the order of first name, followed by family name, in mixed-case, space delimited”. Gods, I wish we all worked with software like that.

FAVOURITE ACTOR: Always, whatever I see him in (if I can recognise him behind the character), Gary Oldman.

THE SCORE: 9 out of 10. I’m definitely getting this one on DVD as well!

Being a post-colonial, post-WWII, post-Japanese-wanted-to-eradicate-my-race-because-Eurasians-are-not-of-pure-blood child, the one label that strikes a chord with me, more than the vilest swear word you can think of, is ‘collaborator’. As much as I like to pride myself on my ability to see multiple sides to any story, I was very black-and-white when it came to collaborators. They were/are scum. End of story.

Until, that is, I picked up a copy of The Fugitive by Toer. By any definition, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was a true Indonesian patriot. That is, every action of his (mostly literary and as an educator) was geared towards the betterment of the Indonesian people as a whole. He was against the Dutch exploitation of his country, the Java-centric view of the independent government, and the discrimination of the Indonesian Chinese. And, although he died in 2006, he taught me that — like life — collaboration is also mired in grey.

The Fugitive takes place over one evening and the following day — the eve and day of the Japanese surrendering in WWII, and follows the steps of Hardo, a renowned resistance leader who will not rest until the Japanese have given up. He can feel the winds of change as he visits his home village of Kaliwangan, but the inhabitants of the village still believe the Japanese are unbeatable, and they have each come to some internal agreement within themselves on how they cope with the situation.

Hardo’s mother has died in the time since he became a rebel. Hardo’s father, once head of the village, was stripped of his title and spends his time gambling, as an escape from a life he refuses to face. Hardo was engaged, and his future father-in-law is the new village chief who — while trying to engineer the best outcome for himself and his daughter, Ningsih — ends up being a catalyst for disaster. Ningsih, Hardo’s fiancee, is the most faithful of all, still waiting for Hardo’s return, patient and gentle. Even more than the Japanese, the ostensible, mostly hidden, enemy in the book is Karmin, Hardo’s best friend, who continued serving with the Japanese rather than rebel against them in a failed coup as Hardo and two of his companions did. Hardo’s rebel friends and the villagers themselves want to kill Karmin because they view him as a traitor, but Karmin’s story is not as simple as that, even as he acknowledges the label, and Hardo, rightly, does not believe in Karmin’s unadulterated evil.

The short novel, Toer’s first I believe, is very readable. Its style is more oral rather than written, in much the same way as Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is really meant to be watched and heard rather than read. And, like Godot, the story takes place over a short period of time. Complex concepts and situations are presented in clear and simple language, giving the reader plenty food for thought amid the storyteller-type repetition. This is probably the best piece of advice I can give a prospective reader. The Indonesians have always had a very strong oral tradition, and The Fugitive, although written, feels more like a tale being woven by a storyteller to a young audience at night. There are no deep characterisations (to my disappointment), but the language is soothing and evocative. Any interpretation of motive and emotion are left completely to the listening reader. This is more a play than a novel which, I think, is why I was so forcefully reminded of Godot as I read it.

The dilemma facing the Indonesian people on the eve of WWII was never an easy one. Was it better to support a cruel colonial power (the Dutch) or put their trust in the Japanese promise of the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Many, like Toer himself, initially supported the Japanese because they saw such support as the only viable route to an independent Indonesia but, as the atrocities of the Japanese became more evident, more Indonesians turned against them, like Hardo and his friends, Dipo and Kartiman. Fleeing the threat of summary decapitation, they melted into the burgeoning beggar population, biding their time, moving around and living off scraps. In one of my favourite passages, the new village chief (and future father-in-law) meets Hardo (who is fasting until Karmin approaches him and asks his forgiveness for betraying their cause) on the outskirts of the village. This is near the beginning of the book:

‘Are you able to manage in the condition you’re in?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are? That, I do not understand at all.’ The old man spoke as if to a child. ‘When you go to the city you see children sprawled lifeless at the side of the road. In front of the market and the stores, down beneath the bridge, on top of garbage heaps and in the gutters there are corpses. Nothing but corpses. The place is filled with the dead–children and old people. And you know what they do? If they’re going to die, before they take their final breath, they first gather together a pile of teakwood or banana leaves that have been used to wrap food in. And they cover their bodies with those leaves and then they die. It’s like they know that in two hours they’re going to die and that after they’re dead no one is going to prepare them for burial. These are crazy times we’re going through. And I don’t know why it is. In all my life this is the first time I’ve seen anything like it. Corpses. Wherever you go, unattended corpses. Come home, Hardo.’
‘Thank you but no.’ Hardo discounted the old man’s plea.
‘No one will betray you.’

But of course he does.

I am eager to read more of Toer’s work, and think I’ll hunt down The Mute’s Soliloquy next. This is a collection of essays and unsent letters to his family that he wrote while imprisoned at the penal colony of Buru island for eleven years without charge. For me, as a post-colonialist, Toer’s work is thought provoking and disturbing but, then again, most true education is.

The Fugitive is available in most bookstores through the Penguin imprint.