Onion-cutting ninjas

Stories have a lot of unique abilities.  They have the power to transport people from where they are to entirely different time periods, points of view, and even worlds.  They have the ability to both inform and entertain.  They can distract us from our worries or help us feel like we're not alone in them.  They can make us laugh, quake in terror, sympathize, hate, and cry.

But, man, I hate when a story makes me cry.  It just sneaks up on you and ambushes you in the feelings.  Today's post is devoted to some of those stories.

Books

There actually aren't very many books that have made me cry when I read them.  Now, to clarify, when I say "books", I mean actual text on a page (or electronic...field thingy).  I will cover manga in another section.  I don't know what it is about books, but, although they can make me feel a whole bunch of other emotions: angry, joy, relief, etc... there's something too distant about text on a page to make me cry.  There are always exceptions, and I'll go over two of them here.

The first book that made me cry was Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene.  For those of you who didn't have this book assigned to you in middle school, it's about a 12-year-old Jewish girl, Patty, who falls in love with a German prisoner being held captive in her hometown in Arkansas.  When the prisoner, Anton, breaks out of prison, she hides him in the storage room above the garage.  Without going into too much detail, things do not go well with this plan.  The part that made me cry, however, wasn't the inevitable "death of a loved one", but the aftermath of Patty's choices.  In the end, she loses her freedom and her tentative place in her own family.  The only person who comes to see her in prison (aiding and abetting the enemy) is her family's African American maid, Ruth.  Everyone else has pretty much disowned her without trying to understand her motivations or feelings.  Although you can understand her family's reluctance to associate with her, it's still a huge punch to the gut.

Another book that made me cry was Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto.  Kitchen was Yoshimoto's Western debut, and if you haven't read it, you really ought to because it's amazing.  The story follows a grieving young woman coming to terms with the loss of her beloved grandmother.  She reaches out to her grandmother's friends for support, and together they become a new family to weather the storms of loss in their lives.  I read this shortly after having lost a family member myself, and Yoshimoto's description of grief hit right on the mark for me.  Seriously, though, if you can get your hands on this one, do so.

Movies

There is no medium better suited to inducing a tear-fest than movies.  The combination of elements - actors' emoting, musical scores, lighting, framing, color - manage to hit all of your "cry buttons" at once.  Children's movies are especially devastating because you let your guard down about them.  You go there thinking "there's no way a story about a bunch of stuffed animals is going to make me cry" and before you know it, the toys are on a conveyor belt heading toward an incinerator and you're bawling into your popcorn.  And let's not get started on the first twenty minutes of Up.

If you're looking for a good weepy movie, look no further than Still Life.  This slow-paced dramatic story chronicles the life of a councilman whose job is to look for the family members of unclaimed corpses.  In this era, where anyone can connect with millions of strangers with the click of a mouse or the tap of a key, it's hard to believe that anyone could be so isolated as to have no one to come to their funeral, say a few words, or even mourn for their loss.   However, even in this interconnected age, there are still people who have very few connections in the real world.  John May does his best to try to find the next-of-kin of these kinds of people, and if there is no one, or no one wants to come for them, he tries to give the deceased a decent funeral based on what he does learn about their lives in the course of his research.  This is the kind of movie that really makes you think about those people who might be on the periphery of your life, and it might even inspire you to reach out to those people.

 Manga

When you think of manga, you probably think of action, adventure, romance, magic, and The Power of Friendship.  You see those big, child-like faces and those colorful splash pages and you think it'll be a nice, light, entertaining read.

And then you read Twin Spica by Kou Yaginuma.  Twin Spica is a science fiction story set "five minutes into the future" in a Japan that has tried, and failed, to send a manned mission into space.  And when I say failed, I mean failed in the most firey and spectacular manner possible - the maiden launch of the shuttle The Lion crashes onto a busy market street, killing the crew and many civilians.  Among those killed is Asumi Kamogawa's mother, but despite this tragedy, Asumi has dreamt of nothing but becoming an astronaut her entire life.  However, the cards are stacked against Asumi - she's short, she's weak, she's poor, and her father - an engineer who worked on the ill-fated space project - bore the brunt of the blame for The Lion's failure and lost his job and any credibility he might have had.  Yet still she dreams and works hard to get into the extremely competitive and exclusive high school program newly introduced into Japan with the hopes of rebooting its space program.

The story doesn't seem all that sad.  I mean, sure, it has sad beginnings, but Asumi doesn't seem to be too hampered by this.  However, echos of The Lion play pretty heavily throughout, and almost everyone involved in the program has some sort of tragedy or hardship going on in the background of their lives.  Plus, not everyone is going to make it into space, and when someone fails, it's hard to watch them see their hopes and hard work go to waste.

That said, I still highly recommend Twin Spica. It didn't do very well in the Western market, but you can still get it as an ebook.

So, those are my Onion-Cutting Ninja stories.  If you have any to share, please leave me a comment!

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

And now, a little thing I like to call Books I Should Have Read In High School.  As the oh-so-original title suggests, these are books that are commonly on the curriculum lists in high school English classes, but I haven't read.  This will probably be its own tag as this blog develops, so watch for it.

Today's book is The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.  For those of you who missed this one in school, it's about an unlucky old man who goes out on a deep-sea fishing expedition by himself and nets himself The Big One. However, the fish isn't going to go quietly and drags him around the Gulf for a couple of days.  I won't spoil the ending for you.

Now, I'm going to be honest with you here - I really didn't like this book.  I don't like stream-of-consciousness narration, for one thing, and the story itself is pretty tedious.  I mean, how long can you read about someone getting dragged by a fish that he should have cut loose before you start to root for the sharks?

But I am going to try to give this book a fair shake despite how much I despised it.

One thing I can say for this book is that its stream-of-consciousness and descriptive style really makes you feel like you, too, are trapped on this tiny fishing dinghy with the old man waiting for the fish to tire.  You almost start to sympathize with him through the ordeal, too.  After all, he's just trying to prove that he's still a productive member of society, and the fish/fate/the Sea is just not going to let him bring back that proof without a fight.  He really has to hang in there in spite of his exhaustion, his pain, his hunger and thirst, and his boredom to wear this fish out.  He's admirable -- to a point.

Towards the end of the book, and keep in mind that this is a really short book, you are ready for him to just cut the line and bring back at least some of the smaller fish he'd caught.  (And for Pete's sake, stop about the baseball!)  I mean, there's hanging on out of grit and guts, and then there's just being too stubborn to know when to cut your losses and try again another time.  Or maybe that's just my own lack of fortitude speaking.

A lot of people try to draw parallels between this story and Biblical narratives.  Maybe because I didn't pay attention in Sunday school, but aside from a few descriptive phrases here and there, I didn't see what they did.  Personally, I saw this more as a Greek tragedy.  A man is driven by his pride to go do something foolish and dangerous, and ultimately comes back with little to show for his efforts.  If he had just swallowed his pride about coming back with a big fish to prove that he's still "got it", then he could have at least come back with a couple of smaller fish to sell at the market.

Now, I'm willing to concede that perhaps I came into this with overly-high expectations.  Hemingway is talked up as being this Great Man who influenced all these modern authors, so he has a lot of reputation to live up to.  Also, it's possible that he shines more in longer novels despite all the critical praise heaped upon this short novella.  I'm willing to try him again in something longer, but probably not for a while.

As far as this being a high school read -- well, it does have a couple of points that make it ideal for high school readers. For one thing, it's short.  If you had to read a book over summer break and you were the type of student that left things until the last few days of vacation, this is a good book to check off that requirement (providing, of course, that you can stomach stream-of-consciousness narration).  For another, Hemingway claims that he didn't put any intentional symbolism into this story, so there's a lot of room for interpretation and discussion of what the book means to individual readers.  If there's one thing I learned from my English teachers, it's that you can find symbolism in everything, even the most straight-foward, utilitarian piece of writing.  There are probably English teachers that have written an entire thesis about how the instructions that came with their toaster is a brilliant insight into the moral structures of mankind.  And, finally, like most assigned reading books at the high school level, not everyone is going to like it, but at least they will get exposure to a variety of styles and authors.

And this concludes the first of probably many installments of Books I Should Have Read In High School.

Slayers: The Ruby Eye - Hajime Kanzaka

Light novels are beginning to get a bit more attention in the Western market these days thanks to successful series like Durarara!! and Sword Art Online, but these titles aren't the first to make the jump from East to West.  Way back in the mid-90s, Tokyopop and a few other companies tried their hand at bringing light novels to the US, too.  They didn't catch on right away, in part I think because people didn't know how to categorize them, and also because the marketing for anime and manga was still pretty underground.

One of the novel series that was brought over was Slayers, which was the basis for the popular anime series of the same name.  The anime series did reasonably well in the U.S., and still has a pretty dedicated audience here as well.  There was recently a revival with two 13 episode seasons, Revolution and Evolution-R, that featured new animation and characters with some nods to previous seasons' characters.  If you are looking for some good old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery fun that maintains a fairly even balance of comedy and action, I highly recommend looking up the Slayers series.

But this post is about the books.  I would like to review each individually, so today I'm going to start with the first one: The Ruby Eye.  This book introduces the bombastic sorceress Lina Inverse and her loyal, but somewhat dopey, swordsman companion Gourry Gabriev.  Lina Inverse is travelling the world seeking adventure, fame, and maybe a little stolen treasure (although in her defense, she only steals from bandits).  After a certain item falls into her hands following a particularly successful raid on a bandit camp, she finds herself launched into an adventure whose repercussions would impact the rest of her life.  You see, the item in question is the key to reviving a fearsome Demon Lord, and the forces of evil would very much like to get their hands, mitts, paws, tentacles, and any other extremity on it for themselves.

Of course, Lina is no shrinking violet when it comes to defending herself or her treasures.  She's a powerful Black magic sorceress - she's even mastered one of the most powerful spells in the field: The Dragon Slave.  And if magic won't work, her companion Gourry Gabriev will make short work of any enemy with his elite swordsmanship and, if necessary, the power of the legendary Sword of Light.  Just don't ask him to do any heavy thinking - he's really more the brawn of the pair (though sometimes he surprises you with astute observations...).

If this book sounds a lot like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, that's because Kanzaka himself is a fan of tabletop RPGs and conceived Slayers as a means of exploring some of his ideas about them.  In the author notes at the end of the book, it's mentioned that he's often asked himself questions about how different types of magic could be used in creative ways.

What I like most about this series is how much fun it is.  The story is narrated from Lina's point of view, and she has a lot of smart-mouthed commentary to add to the situation that's sure to get a chuckle out of the readers.  The illustrations sprinkled throughout the book also help to add to its charm.

Since this is the first book in the series, is does suffer a little from pacing issues.  Some adventures are glossed over a little too much, either because the author ran out of time to devote to specific fights or because he wanted to just skip closer to the Big Battle at the end.  Still, there's a lot of action squeezed into just about 200 pages, so I can't really complain too much about a few missing battles with hired goons.

It's also a little bit dated, but I don't think that this is a bad thing.  Lina's voice is a product of the time that this book was written and translated in, so if you hear a little bit of a Valley Girl voice in your head sometimes, just consider that part of its charm.

The other drawback about this series is that it is really hard to find.  It was put out by Tokyopop back in the 90s to early 00's, so it's long out of print.  I keep holding out hope that someone will rescue the license from purgatory and release ebook versions of the books, and maybe even continue where Tokyopop left off.  There are 8 volumes available in English, but the series ran on for 15 volumes in Japan, plus specials and manga.  Still, if you can get a hold of these books, grab them while you can.  They may not be worth much, but they're a fun read.

I'd recommend these books to anyone from teens to adults.  They're good, light reads that you can use to escape for an hour or two.  And, maybe if enough people read and demand more of them, we'll see that license rescue that I keep hoping for and we'll get the rest of the series (I can dream, can't I?).

Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs

If you've ever wondered what X-Men would have been like before Charles Xavier, I think the Peculiar Children series would make a pretty good indicator.  If you haven't read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, then you are really missing out.

Tales of the Peculiar is a follow-on story to the original trilogy, much like The Tales of Beedle the Bard were for the popular Harry Potter novels.  The short stories in this collection are curated by the invisible, but impeccably styled, Millard Nullings.  The original Tales of the Peculiar consisted of a collection of heavy, hard-bound books, but Mr. Nullings has done the readers a favor by choosing only the best stories for this collection.  These stories range from cautionary fairy tales to histories of famous Peculiars such as the first Ymbryne.  For those who did not grow up around other Peculiars, there are also enlightening footnotes that explain the significance of certain story elements, or merely add tidbits of interesting information.  

Each story is unique and imaginative, and if you didn't particularly care for the last one you read, you're sure to find something to your tastes in this collection.  My personal favorite was The Woman Who Befriended Ghosts.  I'm a sucker for a happy ending and stories involving ghosts, though.  People wanting a story with a strong female protagonist might enjoy The Fork-tongued Princess or The First Ymbryne.  Others who might want something lighter might like The Splendid Cannibals.

I would advise you to take your time going through these stories. Maybe stretch them out over the course of several days.  Because the stories do differ widely in tone, you can get a pretty bad case of mood whiplash.  Plus, it's just more enjoyable to read each story by itself without worrying about influence from the last one you just read.  Remember, these tales were meant to be read to Peculiar children as bedtime stories (for the most part).

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

I have to make a confession. I have a bit of a clutter problem.  My desk looks like a hurricane hit it.  The longest I've managed to keep it clear was about a week.  My closet is even worse, and let's not get started on the state of my drawers.

So, when I finally got the chance to read the best-selling non-fiction book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was hoping that I might find some insight or a solution to my clutter problem. While I'm sure that her methods will work if I applied them, the real test will come when I finally get around to tidying up myself.

Marie Kondo's definition of tidying up is wildly different from what I imagined.  To me, tidying up is to clear surfaces, dust a little, maybe vacuum, etc... You know, the surface cleaning you do around the holidays or when company is coming over.  Kondo's definition is more like a full-scale purge.  This isn't a simple thing you can do a few hours before Aunt Martha shows up for dinner this Sunday.  Think of this as more of an exercise in moving meditation, because that's almost what it is.

Her method is based on many years of trial-and-error, and her own personal confessions of clutter-clearing failure at the beginning of her efforts make this one seem a little more likely to stick.  She explains where and how her method differs from popular methods touted in house-keeping magazines, and why she made these particular changes.  Some things that stuck out to me about her method were the order that she insists things must be tidied and how each item should be handled, evaluated, and thanked individually. Yes, that's right, thanked.  It's an odd idea to Western minds, but it makes sense when she explains it - each item was brought in to fulfill a particular purpose, and it is important to acknowledge that item's contribution and thank it for its service, thus allowing you to dispose of the item guilt-free.

Another idea she explores in this book is the idea that items should "spark joy" in you.  In other words, you should only keep things around that make you feel happy to have.  I guess this makes sense - after all, you only have so much space in the personal sanctuary that is your home/room, so why shouldn't it be full of only things you love?  Even if I don't get up the courage to do the full-scale purge that Marie recommends, I think that this is an idea that would be easy for most people to grasp and apply right away.  Sure, you should definitely aim to do things properly - pull everything out in the correct order and handle each item individually to assess their "joyfulness" - but if you find you just can't devote that kind of time and energy immediately, perhaps asking yourself if something "sparks joy" in you before you buy it might keep you from adding to the clutter.

I got a lot of interesting ideas from this book.  If I actually do manage the Kondo-style tidying  on my own, I'll be sure to update you here.

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

Out-of-work librarian Simon Watson has a problem.  Well, aside from being unemployed, that is. No, Simon's problem all starts with a water-logged book sent to him out of the blue by an antique books dealer half a country away from him.  The book dealer explains that he tracked Simon down based on some information inside the book, and that it might be of interest to him because it has a connection to his mother's mysterious family. Strange provenance not withstanding, the hardest thing for any librarian to resist is a book, so he dives right in...

The book details the business dealings of a travelling circus that dates back as far as the late 1700s.  As Simon reads and researches deeper, he finds a sinister thread winding through this circus's history.  All of its mermaid acts have all drowned on the same date - July 24. As if that weren't coincidental enough, his own mother - also a former circus mermaid - also drowned on July 24th.  With the date fast-approaching, his concerns turn toward his estranged younger sister, a fortune teller in a traveling circus that just so happens to be in town.

This book was a difficult one to put down. In addition to the summary outlined above, there's at least two other sub-plots and a parallel story in every other chapter that details how the curse on Simon's family started.  I mean, this author intended to debut with a bang, and for the most part, I think she did.

I have to confess, I have a weak spot for "mysterious book" stories. Some of my favorite novels are The City of Dreaming Books, The Book of Heroes, and The Neverending Story.  If there's a "mysterious book" involved, you've already got my attention. You never know where any book is going to lead you, but a "mysterious book" guarantees a wild ride.

The other thing that grabbed my attention in this story was the variety of characters.  I've seen books with librarians; I've seen books with circus performers; I've never seen anything that tries to combine the two characters.  You would think that it would make for a clashing combination, but it actually works really well. Swyler does a good job of fleshing out personalities and balancing them against each other.  There are some characters I would have liked to have seen more development of, in particular Simon's love interest, but given how much is going on in the story, it's hard to see when there would have been an appropriate time to put that in.

The book has some fairly good pacing and switches between present-day and the 1700s every other chapter or so.  This means that the stories develop at a pretty steady pace and rise and fall for the most part in a natural rhythm. However, once the action takes off, it rushes through the climax to a somewhat unsatisfying ending.  The pace was a little more measured in the plotline taking place in the 1700s.  I wonder if Swyler intends to pick up these characters again at a later time.

I enjoyed all the little twists and turns Swyler added into the story to keep it too hard to guess what would happen next. In particular, I liked seeing how everyone involved was connected in some way through the circus.  It was actually almost believable that people from so many different walks of life would still be drawn together by their past associations.  Other little coincidences, such as how Enola just so happens to be back in town so close to the Fated Date, are a little more strained, but still work within the confines of fiction.

My only complaint about this book is that the romance between Simon and Alice felt a little weak.  I almost felt like they were obliged to become lovers because they were "childhood friends" and it would add extra tension to their relationship on top of everything else that was going on.  I didn't feel like it enhanced the story at all.

Overall, I think that this book would make an excellent book club read. There are interesting themes to explore here that would make for some great conversation and debate material. I'm looking forward to future writings by this author.

The demoralization of science fiction

It has been observed before by more professional types than myself, but, sci fi has gotten depressing these days. Every time you turn around, the world is ending and a rag-tag group of survivors must "Row, Row, Fight Za Powaa" to overthrow an oppressive regime and restore a decaying society.

Sci Fi has been heading this way since the late nineties. Back then, if you remember, we were terrified of the Y2K bug, the predictions of Nostradamus, and the Book of Revelations. One of the most popular book series of the time was the Left Behind series and its various spin-offs.

And, since 2001, it could be argued that we were, in fact, living in The End Times. After all, since 2000, we have war, widespread disease, social unrest, economic decline, corruption, and reality t.v., so we must be. We're so caught up in dealing with all of these problems, there seems to be no time for optimism for the future.

But isn't this when we should be trying to be optimistic for the future? Shouldn't we be encouraging exploration and scientific advancement in the imaginations of readers all over the world? When our "escapist" mediums do nothing but reflect our already bleak view of the world, doesn't that just trap us in an echo chamber of Doom and Gloom and Learned Helplessness?

This is not to say that sci fi has always been happy and cheery. They still address major issues and project what the future would be like if these issues continued, be they social, environmental, or political. Even so, there was always a glimmer of hope. Yes, the Earth may have become uninhabitable due to a thick cloud of smog and trapped bacteria, but we're trying to fix things, or we're starting over on a new planet with the lessons we've learned from Earth.  Yes, we might have been invaded by interstellar Orkin exterminators, but we humans are willing to fight to survive and stand our ground.

What kind of glimmer of hope is there in dystopian fiction?  Why do we need to wait for some "chosen savior" or "plucky heroine who goes against the order of things" in order to find hope in the future? Why place so much stress on an individual? Have we, collectively, become so beaten down that we can't overcome our own inertia?

So, I challenge the aspiring sci fi writers who might read this - change the narrative. Bring the hope for the future back into sci fi. Don't wait for the present to get better before you can imagine a shining future.