On Rereading (and Kakashi agrees)

from aschs

(But it’s been so long I had a book so absorbing I read until morning… the last I recall is The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin last May.)

What I like about this, though, is Kakashi re-reading. The second time is always better than the first, because usually in the first reading I go too fast because of the suspense and wanting to know what happens next. I love what author Poppy Z. Brite had to say about rereading:

"But if the story is interesting enough, I’ll want to reread it examining how it happens, how it’s constructed, how the author elects to tell it. These are often difficult aspects of a story to attend to when you don’t know what’s coming. When you don’t have to worry about page-turning suspense, you can take more pleasure in a story’s subtler aspects.

But it’s not always that technical. There are many books I reread simply because I want to spend more time with the characters, or want to return to the mood the story put me in the first time I read it.”

[fave fictional people #2] We are all alone together: Tomoko Kuroki from Watamote

This is dedicated to those who have haunted empty places to spend time in, a corner where no one passes by. To those who have silent rooms in the mind to retreat in when the outside world is much too noisy and imagination is the only escape. To those who can spend weeks and months and years with no one but themselves. To those who have been desperate for friends who could understand, a group to belong in, and found only disappointment and learning that in the end you were better off with no one and you shouldn't have opened up. 'Open up' only means you also open yourself to unwelcome judgment, and it only ended with hurt.

Cheers to our loyal companion, the one who will truly never desert us... toast your wine glasses to loneliness! Whether you hate it or love it, whether it makes you cry or makes you content, whether you accept it or reject it... "We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?" said the cynic Diogenes. We learn a kind of zen here, we know how to live with it, and keep the wolves out, and keep our sanctuaries of screens, keyboards, and bookshelves clean. (Random Reader complains: "Here she goes again with the same old topic!").

"Books were safer than people anyway." ~Neil Gaiman

Ah, that was just an attempt to write a pretty-sounding paragraph and not that related to the subject. I'm okay, and time alone is as important as time with others... But we've all been there once, alone in a pit hole of that shitty experience unique to you and only you. Good people may have tried to help, but ultimately we face it by ourselves. Anyway, we all find ways to dig a way out and survive.

---

I'll talk about an anime. First, this character is odd in a way that most internet posts I've read say that they can relate to her so much. It's almost like their lives animated. She's hysterical, lonely, desperate, paranoid, deranged, perverted, bitter and envious at the same time about people she thinks are better than her. She just wants to be popular but she just can't! Here's our girl, Tomoko Kuroki from the CRINGE comedy (yes, that needed all-caps because it is a major depressing cringefest) WataMote -- shortcut for a long title, No Matter How You Look at It, It's All Your Fault I'm Not Popular!

The new face of that expired meme, Forever Alone, but still relevant for our times

"When she enters her first year of high school expecting her life to suddenly turn around, she is stunned when absolutely nothing changes. This forces her to take a hard look at herself for the first time, and resolve to become more sociable and popular. Horrible, horrible Hilarity Ensues."

Replace that high school with "college" and you get the worst version of myself way back (Only the first sentence, not the trying to be popular part). The show is funny, it's sad, I cry from both laughter and sadness for both the hilarity and the biting truth of it. Tomoko's life seems to be one embarrassing moment after another as she tries (and always fails) to be popular.

"I'm not all that quiet either! I'm actually a cheerful and funny girl!" Yeah right. 

What I found funny is after a long time of not looking at a mirror, she puked at the sight of herself. I can't count how many times I've laughed during all the episodes. She pukes a lot, actually. The show focuses on her often hysterical inner monologue, her delusional thinking, and overactive imagination.

An accurate summary of their loving relationship

Aside from her misadventures, what keeps me watching is her family life. Considering she has like less than three people she can call friends, the anime shows many mundane scenes with her at home. Also, her younger brother is often the victim of her silly antics, and it's a realistic depiction of typical siblings -- mutual irritation, bickering, and keeping your sister/brother out of your room. 

“At some point, this show will hit way too close to home for you. You will either be incredibly depressed or appreciative that someone out there understands you, but you will inevitably experience one or the other. Watch, laugh, cringe, perhaps feel a little better about yourself.” -madp bully pulpit, Reviewer

I hope it will have a happy ending.

Great Reads Quarterly, April-June 2013 (2/4)

From now on, every post about books will have a picture of Kakashi reading.

Lots of things to do, Midterms is over, and we're in the middle of gathering the answered questionnaires for our Research and it involves me and my thesis partner running around the libraries in the city. Then, all the writing left until the semester ends by second week of October. My room is repainted aquamarine, a shade of sea-green. I have a new closet and a narrow floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, painted light pink. The ceiling is white. I could stay here for hours. (I am).

Continuing Great Reads Quarterly '13...

These book reactions were supposed to be posted last month... Right now I'm reading more short stories (that can be finished in a sitting) than novels. From April to June, I've been reading so few books.

Caedmon's Song by Peter Robinson (1990)
It was going to be a long haul, this recovery, Kirsten thought with a sudden chill of fear. It wasn't going to be easy at all.

In the topic of serial killers, it seems that more is said about the psychology and life of the killer than his victims. Killers fascinate and scare us, but most of the time their victims are just statistics.

What if a victim survives a vicious and brutal attack? I never thought about that myself until I read Caedmon's Song. Kirsten, a graduating university student, celebrates her last days in university with her friends by partying. However, she wakes up days later in a hospital, her body barely held together by stitches and having no memory of what happened. Due to damage from stabbings, her womb was removed. Life changed, but the killer is still out there. She decides to hunt him down herself and kill him, not only for revenge for herself but also for the other victims already dead, and to prevent him from killing more. She wasn't satisfied with the police investigations, and took it upon herself to deliver justice.

The book focuses more on Kirsten, the serial killer doesn't show up until the last few chapters. What's striking is how people treated her after the attack, saying that "she almost got herself killed" as if it was her fault, not the killer's. Instead of sympathy, she just got more hostility. The downward spiral that started from the attack was also depicted well, and her alienation from friends and family. In the end, it was a triumph for her. It's a good story about revenge. (Yeah, my words don't do it justice.)

No matter how bleak some of the possibilities seemed, she felt free at last. Even imprisonment would be a kind of freedom now. It didn't really matter what happened because she had done what had to be done. Now she was free.

The works of Catherynne M. Valente
I haven't finished reading her novels Deathless and Palimpsest yet, I go slow, the words better savored that way. Valente's use of language, her twisting words into iridescent images and spell-binding poetry, is overwhelming. Reading her written words illicit a physical reaction in me: I feel cold, I feel the little hairs on my nape tingle, I feel mild shocks through my spine. I'm not exaggerating. Mere words can make me feel that, and I read her sentences over and over to feel them again. Its almost like a drug. Very few writers make me feel that. I only ever finished her short stories online. I recommend "How to become a Mars Overlord", "The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World", "The Wolves of Brooklyn", and "Secretario". Valente is known for re-envisioning legends, folklore, mythologies, histories both real and imagined, blending science fiction and fantasy. Her voice is unique.

I would sacrifice a hand to write like that. Or my liver, because if its my hand then I can't type.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin was very good and complex, and at the moment I can't form an adequate summary or review, and the book is the first of a trilogy. I'm halfway through Book 3. I'll probably write a post after I finish it.

Favorite Fictional Characters (1): Midori Okui from After School Nightmare

After School Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro is a manga about a special subject in a high school. This subject is required for graduation. It occurs in a dream class. In order to graduate, one must find a key located inside each classmate. Yes, you must fight them, and cut them open.

In the dream, however, students take on surreal forms which are symbols of their 'true nature'. The most memorable was this student's dream form:

Midori Okui acted like the good and responsible student, always trying to please teachers and classmates. But, this was what she was thinking: "This isn't the real me! I don't want to do this! I'm just playing the part of the model student! If you can deceive everyone, you should. You have to do whatever is necessary to get recommendations - to become winners..." All that because she wanted to enter a university. In the end, she didn't get accepted because even if her grades were good, they weren't good enough and the teacher's recommendations turned out to be useless.


Once her whole class gave her a tribute, simple scribbled messages on a piece of paper, thanking her for being so good and so kind... when it was all an act and she had deceived everyone. She thought, This isn't me. I don't know this person. Who do they see?

After that, she can't keep up with the act anymore. The "I love school life!" attitude changed to apathy and withdrawal. After pretending to be someone else, maybe she had no real identity or feelings left from trying to impress other people -- thus being 'faceless' and 'heartless'.

There's a happy ending for her, finally having her face and heart back just before graduation.