After reading Nick Hornby’s awesome book High Fidelity (which also has a brilliant movie version with one of my top 5 actors John Cusack), I decided to check out more of his work, and I stumbled across the novel About a boy. I already saw the movie before reading the book, and found the story quite interesting. Normally, a movie featuring Hugh *Vomit* Grant is reason enough for me to quickly turn off a movie, but surprisingly his appearance in this movie was not too nauseating. The book is quite similar to the movie and tells us about Will, an enormously rich and jobless single who’s life does not contain any form of stress or excitement whatsoever. By a chance encounter, Will discovers that beautiful, single mothers, who normally would not think of dating him twice are prepared to go out with him now, and out of boredom and desperation he decides to subscribe for SPAT, a single parent talk group, even if this means he has to create an imaginary two-year old son Ned. Via SPAT Will gets to know Marcus, a 12 year old real boy with a manic depressive mother; an encounter which will change Will’s life for ever. Again Nick Hornby surprises with a wittingly written book that addresses a very serious topic in a light way. Even if the tone of the book is not dramatic at all, the events in it make you reflect, and the way Hornby addresses the main topics of loneliness, growing up, and friendships, is just brilliant. The irony and humour make it that you can follow the story with a bit of emotional distance ,which make the main topics all the more clearer. If you liked the ironic, sarcastic, sometimes absurd, and definitely British humour of High Fidelity, you will definitely like About A Boy too.
About a year ago I stumbled across a tv-series called Legend of the Seeker, which I enjoy a lot. The series follow Richard Cypher, the seeker of truth, and his friends Zedd and Kahlan in an epic quest against the evil-incarnated Darken Rahl. During this quest all kinds of problems have to be solved and all sorts of evil creatures have to be fought, by brute force or by magic. Shot against a beautiful background of New Zealand scenery, the series are not only great fun to watch, but a joy to the eye. Apparently, these series were based on The Sword of Truth fantasy series of books written by Terry Goodkind, I set out to read some time ago. When I was visiting the namesake in the US I bought the first part, called “Wizard’s First Rule”, which I finished some time ago. Although, with over 800 pages its quite a big book, it doesn’t feel like that as from the very beginning you find yourself absorbed in the story. The story in the series contains similar parts to the book but also differs significantly in some parts, which in my opinion is nice because you can follow both without the one influencing the other. Anyway, if you are into fantasy like me, both the tv-series as the book are worth checking out. I’ll keep you posted about the second book “Stone of Tears” that is being sent to me as we speak.
Some months ago The Namesake gave me a book he thought I should read. At that time, the title ‘The Kite Runner’ didn’t ring a bell, but in the months after it became clear to me that it was number one hit, not only in the States, but also here in Europe. While I’m normally not too fond of popular literature, like for example the Da Vinci Code, and especially dislike the way the quality of some books is greatly exaggerated(again like the Da Vinci Code), I must say I can’t but praise Khaled Hosseini for his incredible achievement. The Kite Runner tells the story of two Afghan boys, Amir and Hassan, growing up in the Kabul of the 70s, just before the Russian invasion. Amir is a Pashtun with a rich father, Hassan a Hazara and servant of Amir’s father, being looked at as ‘less equal’ by other Afghans, just by his lineage. Amir and Hassan grow up together as brothers, but at a certain moment something will happen that scatters both of their worlds. More I will not tell, because otherwise I will spoil the story for you. I will add that the book is just beautiful to read, and tells a story about Afghanistan and the Afghans without going too much (or not much at all) into the politics and the current situation in that country. Moreover, it tells a story that also easily can be placed in a different country, intriguing, moving, and beautiful but saddening at the same time. Definitely a recommendation!
Recently, I’ve read what I think must be the most ironic, sometimes even cynic book, I’ve ever read. However, McCarthy’s Bar is a beautiful journey through Ireland and a must-read for everyone interested in that beautiful country. The book’s written by Pete McCarthy, a British journalist, who has an Irish mother but who was raised in England. In this book, he travels back to the country of his mother, starting in Cork and from there travelling through all of the other counties. He does this in an old Volvo he calls ‘the Tank’, guided by at least 40 year old travel guides and, moreover a list of rules he says he should abide to. Most important of these rules is “should you ever come across a bar that bears your own name, you should always enter it”. Knowing that in Cork almost half of the people are called “McCarthy” or some derivative of that name, Pete, ends up entering lots of bars. In every one, trying to get closer to answer to his biggest question: “is the warmth I feel for this country and its people caused by my genetic bond or is it caused by a non-existing commercialised Irish standard-culture?” Apart from being a witty, humouristic and at least ironic narrative, making fun of every foreigner including the British, McCarthy’s bar is also an alternative travel guide, bringing you along all places worth seeing in Ireland, some more known than others. Also, it’s a delightful description of the Irish as a people, their curiosities, their warmth and most of all their hospitality.
If you haven’t got the film or the book yet, I really advise you to go out now and go get either of them, preferably both though. I first saw the film quite a while ago, in University to be precise. The film started with a turning record on a turntable and a piece of vinyl is always a way to attract my attention. When seeing the film the first time, I got hooked on it: the countless awesome quotes it had, the continuous enumerating of such-and-so top five lists and one of my favourite actors, John Cusack, in the leading role. This month I decided to buy the book and after finishing it, I can say two things: a) the book is brilliant b) the movie becomes even more brilliant after reading the book; the cast in the film is just awesome, John Cusack as Rob Fleming, playing the way too much rationale guy that’s doubting about everything, Jack Black is the raving lunatic Barry, and even Dick and Laura are perfectly chosen. Somehow they also managed to put almost an entire book into the movie, only ommitting some of the less important stuff. The movie also has some cool additions that would immediately fit in the book, would Nick Hornby decide to rewrite it (for those who have seen the movie the “Ray enters the shop” part). Well, I can say up till now, I think I did only like one book-movie combination so much, and this book has really left me wanting to explore more of English literature. Even more so after the big disappointment that’s called Dutch “literature”, of which only authors that are either sexually frustrated, plain crazy or major attention whores (in both the male and female meaning) seem to reach the wide public. Anyway let’s not get me started on that; what are you still waiting for, go out and buy High Fidelity immediately!
In the beginning of this week, I started reading the first book in the Discworld series of Terry Pratchet and I really really enjoy it. I knew discworld by the series of computer games that came out in the beginning of the 90s, and when I stumbled into the novels in a book shop in Aachen, on Stephan’s advice I bought the first book in the series. The computer games I really loved because they had this weird sense of humour. But of course this sense of dry über-English humour is even more apparent in the writing.
The story deals of a failed wizard called Rincewind which was expelled from Magic School, mostly because he learnt a forbidden spell, or as Pratchett says the spell learnt him. Moreover, it’s the only spell he knows. Now this failure of a wizard, by some unexpected series of events comes into contact with a tourist from the other side of the Discworld, called Twoflower, and becomes his guide in the city of Ankh Morpork. Obviously, this is a receipe for disaster and soon enough the entire city burns down. Anway, I’m really enjoying this book, even if I only read about 80 pages about now, but the style of writing, the humour and absurdness of the world Pratchett describes makes it a very easy read and nice way to relax after work. For people that like British humour like me, this book is definitely worth the read. Also you can find it around 10 euros, maybe even less, which makes it even more worth trying.
