There's a wonderful website for book fanatics called Goodreads. I like Goodreads because not only does it allow me to keep track of what I read (which is handy when you've forgotten how far through your collection of The Ultimate Spider-Man comics you are) and allow me to read (and write) reviews of books I may, or have, bought, but it has free give aways. When you are a poor person student and have a love of books, this is the closest thing to Heaven.
I've not won many books through Goodreads. Three, I think? And, to be fair, one I couldn't finish and one was kind of alright but nothing amazing. (The third one was interesting and kind of fun, but probably not going to be the next best seller.) But the thing that's really nice about Goodreads giveaways, is that it can put the author in touch with their readers. I've also received two books directly from authors, which is such a wonderful thing to do on their behalf. The only thing they ask for (and the same is for an official give aways) is a review at the end of it.
One of those books was The Silent Deal, by Levi Stack. I'd entered the give away but not won, so he contacted me (and other enterants) about receiving a free e-book anyway. This was only shortly after I'd bought my Kindle, so, still wanting to sort of 'play' with my new toy I accepted (I would have accepted even if if my Kindle were older, but certainly before I'd had it I would have had to decline as I cannot abide reading books on LCD screens; so huzzah for fortune smiling down upon us).
While I was looking forward to reading the novel, I wasn't excited. I mean, at the end of the day, it is a children's book. Children's books are kind of fun, but, for the most part, adult Malice is boring and likes boring adult books. Maybe it's just because in the last few years I've read some abysmal young adult fiction, which has some what put me off reading anything intended for an audience younger than me. I'm not sure; I still love and cherish all of the children's books I read when I was a child (and, no word of a lie, I nearly cried when I realised Stewart and Riddell were releasing another Edge Chronicles earlier this year, despite having written the 'final' book five years ago), so maybe I need nostalgia to really, truly enjoy a children's novel. The Silent Deal was only released in 2013, long after I'd forsaken my own childhood to memories and years past, so there was not going to be nostalgia attached. Ergo, it was probably going to end up on the pile of 'well, that was interesting, but not really what I was looking for'.
You know, sometimes it's nice to be proven wrong (although I'm starting to think I always have unfairly low expectations of books now a days. Ah, I have grown up to be cynical.)
What can I say? This book isn't just good, it's amazing. It was a book that was thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. It was a book that was light hearted enough to not drag me down in serious and complex plots but still able to create intrigue. The story was original (well, as much as it can be; I know this a slight contradiction from what I said in my last post, but for what it's worth, the story felt new), the setting (19th century Russia) is different and the world is a brilliantly laid out so that you're not quite sure if there's fantastical folk lore goings on, or if it's just the wild imaginings of childhood.
To give a summary, the story is about two boys, Viktor (a serf) and Romulus (the wild boy of the forest)
who go on a personal mission to discover the secret of 'the cards'. The
town of Aryk is under the strict leadership of Master Molotov and there are
three rules; no guns, no arms and no playing cards. Break them and the
penalty is death. There is mysterious and unnerving graffitti across
the town, which is somehow linked. Romulus some how has the elusive King
of Spades, a family hierloom. Viktor is haunted by nightmares of a man
hanged for having a playing card. The two have a burning desire to find
out what has made cards so dangerous.
This is what children's literature is meant to be about. I particularly enjoyed how, throughout, red herrings and child like misunderstandings where littered to mask the truth until the last moment. There were questions I'd had, things that didn't quite match up, but I dismissed them as being over analytical only to be given half answers and more questions. Eventually it is (well, the main query) tied up and explained in full (enough that it is no longer confusing and having to back track to earlier information). Of course, there are still things left unanswered for later novels, but I feel that the correct balance of answers and evasiveness is reached at its conclusion.
For me, the imagery was absolutely perfect. Littered with puns and wordplay (as seems to be an oft used device in children's literature), we are introduced in the early chapters to the Masqueraiders; an army, or dirty fighting force, dressed in masks and cloaks. Anyone who knows me (anyone who has been in my office) will know that I adore masquerade masks. I have a small collection going. I also like all things cards. I tend to avoid collecting things with the four card suits on as for the most part, they're very poker or gambling themed, whereas I just like, well. Playing cards. I don't actively collect them but I appear to have a growing number of some very pretty decks indeed.
So masks and cards as two of the central visual themes make any book a winner in my eyes.
I must say, the book is a little longer than I first expected. For some reason I expected it to only be a few hundred pages long, a short novella perhaps, but in reality it is closer to four hundred. This is hardly a problem, as it just means there is more to read. I think, perhaps, it is as much me getting used to read e-books/using a Kindle as anything else; the lack of having pages in my hand to effectively judge the length of a book.
The book isn't perfect, but then, nothing ever is. There's a couple of little, niggly points that I feel I should point out if I'm being truly honest. They didn't ruin the experience for me. One is that the book could do with being proof read; on more than one occasion I spotted typographical errors. I mean, it's no where near as bad as that one edition of Battle Royale (which, honestly, has an error every other page), but getting someone to go over and correct them would be no bad thing. The second point was that I notced that once Mr. Stack describes a character or object with a specific word, he sticks to it (e.g., one minor character is described as 'lightning haired' every time he appears). A range of adjectives would be more entertaining to read. As I said though, while preferential, it does nothing to detract from the rest of the fantastic work.
One thing I will say is that the book is surprisingly violent. I mean, I'm not talking 'that-one-scene-from-A-Storm-Of-Swords', but given its target audience a fair bit of brutality. Characters are hanged, attacked by wolves, suffer broken bones, receive physical punishment off of a teacher, just to name a few. There is even mention of ('off-screen') torture. As I said, it's hardly graphic, but a little bit more that what I anticipated. Obviously this was no issue for me, as an adult, but I do wonder if some parents would have concerns over this (maybe not; I'm neither a child nor a parent, so perhaps my worries are misplaced).
It's a fantastic start to a series. I heard there was going to be four; certainly I'm already eager to read the next installment! Although I have this on Kindle, I am sorely tempted to buy the paperback copy; not only because I just have a bit of a thing for physical books, but also because I really want Mr Stack to get something back for what he's given to me.
So, Mr Stack, if you're reading this, thank you so much. Not only for writing an amazing piece of children's literature, but also for personally giving me the chance to experience it.
This book in facts and figures;
My rating: 8/10
Pages: 359
My Format: E-book
Published: 2013
Monday 1 December 2014
Monday 24 November 2014
The Odds That Were Never In Their Favour
With the recent release of Mockingjay: Part 1, I felt it was apt to write up a blog on a topic that I've been mulling over for a while now. This isn't a review of The Hunger Games trilogy; I read them a couple of years ago, so any review wouldn't be fair and would be probably be influenced more by the films than the books.
No. What I wanted to write about was the oft mentioned comment, regarding The Hinger Games. The ones that states 'yeah, but it's just a watered down Battle Royale'. Why do I feel a need to comment on this, when both books have been out for so long? Because friends of mine are still comparing them and I honestly don't think the comparision is apropos. This blog is about why The Hunger Games isn't Battle Royale.
Now, before I begin here is your fair warning. There will be spoilers for both books; so if you're still, or waiting to start, reading either and don't want to know what goes down, stop. Close the window. Avoid this post until another day, when you can face the things to come.
With that out of the way, let's begin.
The Hunger Games (by Suzanne Collins, 2008-10) is a book/series about a teenage girl called Katniss Everdeen and her friend Peeta Mellark, who later sort of becomes her lover. They get thrown into a 'fight to the death' situation against their will with a load of other teenagers. Who put them in such an awful situation? Their own government, in legal, sanctified action.
Battle Royale (by Koushun Takami, 1999) is a book about a teenage boy called Shuya Nanahara and his friend Noriko Nakagawa, who later sort of becomes his lover. They get thrown into a 'fight to the death' situation against their will with a load of other teenagers. Who put them in such an awful situation? Their own government, in legal, sanctified action.
So what's the problem then? Near identical plots and Battle Royale predates The Hunger Games, so there is some definite plagarism going on right? All those Hunger Games fans should be ashamed of themselves for buying in to an inferior, Westernised copy of a good, solid, Japanese story?
Well. No, not really. When was the last time you actually read a book that was original anyway? Let me give you an example here. The Lord of the Rings; this is considered by many to be the pinnacle of fantasy literature. It is the beginning of everything we understand as 'high fantasy'; it inspired world renowned franchises such as Dungeons & Dragons and even ongoing series such as The Elder Scrolls. I mean, for goodness sake, there's even essence of Middle Earth in the Harry Potter series (Gandalf and Dumbledore. I'm sure die hard Potterheads will shoot me down for this and tell me they are nothing alike, but stop and look. If nothing else, visually they are similar. Dumbledore is the 'stereotypical' wizard in appearance, which started with good ol' Gandalf. And, again, Ringwraiths and Dementors. Different in practice, similar in visualisation; evil, ghost like creatures clad in black robes. I won't argue the toss as to whether personalities are the same because, to be quite honest, I stopped reading Potter at age six, so like hell I can remember characterisation. Sorry world, but Potter doesn't do it for me.)
I'm digressing. My point is that The Lord of the Rings is often seen as the beginning. But is it really? I'm sure what I'm about to write is no surprise to any die hard Rings fan, but a lot of it is, well... Unoriginal. Tolkien was, first and formost, a historian not a fiction author. I read somewhere that Rings is meant to be a replacement for British mythology, seeing as, sort of Arthur, we didn't have one. You know, like the Norse Gods, or Greek myths. I suppose the closest we have is Roman myhtology, which is only because they conquered us and even then it's mostly a carbon copy of Greek mythology, as the Romans wanted to emulate the (then) most powerful/educated nation in the world. There's Celtic mythology, too, I suppose, but overall Britain has a lack of mythology. Tolkien couldn't rewrite the past, but he could write a story fit for myths of old. That's why the books are so full of detail, with songs and maps and history. Tolkien wrote England's mythology. But! He's a historian. He studied other mythologies, he wrote his own. Hey, guess what? There is loads of influence from other mythologies in Rings.
I studied philosophy with my best friend. We studied Plato's The Republic. In it he mentions the legend of the ring of Gyges. A man accidentally ends up in a cave. Here he steals a golden ring. He then discovers this ring turns him invisible. This ring is ultimately used for evil and when weak men possess it then become enslaved to its power.
Hold on. Why does that sound so familiar?
There's no evidence to prove that Tolkien was inspired by the ring of Gyges, but either way it proves the point that nothing is ever really original. If he was inspired, so what? It doesn't detract from the wonder he creates in his own work, it doesn't lessen its value. If he wasn't inspired? It shows that people can independantly have the same idea, which at a later date can be percieved as 'copying' or 'inspiration', even if it was not. To be fair, how many modern fiction novels are based off of Greek or Roman mythology, or even fairy tales and folklore, yet readers don't scream 'blatant rip off' (in fact, Collin's cites the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur as inspiration)? If you've actually read Gyges and Rings you'll know that although there are similar elements, they're not the same story; thing is, if you only pick up on certain elements or only expand on the basics they can sound the same. If you actually know the full story (no pun intended), you realise they're not the same.
Gyges is about a man who finds a magical artifact, which he uses for his own gain. He abuses the power to kill the King and seduce his wife, putting himself in the position of power. The ring doesn't
corrupt, it just allows the unjust man to act corruptly with out being detected.
Rings is about a group of unlikely heroes who set out a long quest to destroy evil and bring the world to peace. The ring is actively malicious and breaks even the most saintly of people.
Shifting the focus, suddenly the stories don't really seem all that similar at all.
And so it is with The Hunger Games and Battle Royale. There is too much of a focus on the similarities (and screams that Collins should at least 'acknowledge' her inspiration from Takami's earlier work, even though she claims she was not aware of it until post-publishing. And do you know what? I believe her; as I said earlier, it is possible to come up with the same idea independantly) and not enough focus on the differences.
For me, the biggest difference between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, is that the Game is only the start for Hunger Games. It develops in to so much more after massive defiance from its core players. It is the start of the revolution, the start of the downfall of the Capitol, the end of the Games. In Battle Royale, it's one isolated event. The novel ends, but the programme continues. Sure, our heroes managed to save two lives instead of one, manage to thwart the plans of the overseer but... Bring down the government? Prevent the programme ever running again? No. They don't. They escape with their lives and become fugitives, with expectations that the government will someday catch up with them and finish off what the programme started.
The Hunger Games is hopeful. Battle Royale is hopeless.
Secondly, one of the major differences between the two is how the rest of the country percieve the Game/programme. I get the feeling that The Hunger Games is very much an allegory/social commentary for the Western obsession with reality TV. You know, trash TV where people do stupid, often embarassing or dangerous tasks to win prizes? It's not really such a great stretch of the imagination that, with our other obsession of needing more and more visceral imagery (e.g., the fact that scenes of actual war are often projected into our homes on a daily basis and the rise of 'splatter/torture porn' films; I do forensics so am expected to see horrific images, but who hasn't seen a decapitated corpse on the screen, even if it wasn't real? Gore seems very much part of the every day in modern culture) that we could possibly end up in a world where we watch people fight to the death for entertainment purposes. It wouldn't be the first time (the gladitorial games spring to mind; hold on, if that pre-dates Battle Royale, does that mean Takami just ripped off history? What a fiend; can't possibly like his work now, it's just watered down as he only had fictional people killed... Yeah.) The Capitol revel in the Games; it's like a national event for them. They get excited and place bets and watch avidly.
But the programme? It isn't broadcast, save for the announcement of the winner at the end. The public reaction is horror and revulsion. Parents and guardians are terrified that their child will be taken and used; while most parents in The Hunger Games also have this fear, some Districts see it as an honour to fight in the Game. There's nothing honourable about the programme, no one wants to experience it. It isn't glamorous. There's no betting. Kids are abducted and made to fight each other. The point of the Games is to emerge with a winner; one person will always win and they will run for as long as they need to. The programme has a time limit. A winner isn't necessary. Some times there is no winner; if there is more than one person alive when the time limit runs out, everyone gets killed. The programme is not a game (I mean, the Games aren't much of a game either, but there are still clear 'winners' and 'losers', however messed up it is). The programme is not, in any way, like reality TV. It is not grotesque and vile entertainment. It's a form of opression. The government uses the programme to keep the country in a constant state of fear and panic. The public are told that the programme is for military research, that the kids are abducted so that they can test out weaponary. It's horrific, but necessary, to keep the country safe in case of war. The kids are dying for their country. Of course, that's not what the programme exists for at all; it's to subconsciously induce mistrust into the public. If a group of teens will do anything, including brutalise, maim and kill their friends to survive, then who knows what might happen in the real world? If you can't trust your best friend to not, literally, stab you in the back, who can you trust? No one. If the community has no trust in one another, they cannot band together, they cannot rise against the government. They are divided.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that the Games are to opress the Districts and too remind the people that rebellion results in punishment (even though the Capitol call it 'remembering sacrfice' or some such). It's also more overt; the public know the Games exist as a reminder to not rebel. The programme's goals are more covert and subtle, working into the public's psyche.
There's a slew of other differences too. The Games has its 'tributes' fight strangers. The programme has its students fight friends and even lovers. The Hunger Games is dystopian, post WWIII American while Battle Royale is alternate universe, pre-millenium Japan. The Hunger Games only follows its main character (Katniss) and her allies, Battle Royale follows every single character, meaning every death you read is a character you know (yes, some characters you care about more than others, some characters you even actively dislike, but still the book has at least one chapter dedicated to eaach student). As I mentioned earlier, the actual 'fighting to the death' bit, is only the beginning of a much bigger story in The Hunger Games. The 'fight to the death' is the story in Battle Royale. Really, actually read them and you'll see the books aren't really that similar at all.
The Hunger Games is about a girl called Katniss who is forced into futuristic gladitorial games, where she has to fight to the death for the entertainment of others. She manages to deceive the system and becomes the figurehead for a revolution against this cruel government that put her there, becoming the last of the 'tributes'/'victors'.
Battle Royale is about Shuya and his classmates, who are abducted and placed into 'the programme', whereby they are forced to kill one another. The programme, which is mostly run in secret, seeks to place fear and mistrust into it's populace to prevent revolution. Shuya manages to survive the programme, but he remains on the run forever, knowing that next year more children will be put through what he was.
Suddenly they don't seem so similar after all, do they?
For the sake of argument, I like Battle Royale more than The Hunger Games. It's a book for an adult audience, which makes its descriptions more graphic, more harrowing in my opinion, which for a topic that's mostly about murder, you need. I have a friend who says (having not read Battle Royale) that The Hunger Games are horrifying and vile things do happen (such as Peeta's torture and brain washing) but... I just can't agree. The Hunger Games does seem a little too sanitary. It's written for young adults, it can't be as violent or psychologically screw with you the way it really needs to. And that isn't that 'Battle Royale does it better', because I felt that about The Hunger Games long before I'd read or watched Battle Royale. The fact I feel that The Hunger Games falls short of expectations isn't because of something else; even as an independant piece, it just wasn't what I wanted. If I'm going to compare Battle Royale to The Hunger Games, my comments would be that the former has better, more likeable main characters (Katniss is actually pretty uninspiring in my opinion) and that, to be perfectly honest, I just think Takami is a better author than Collins. The Hunger Games didn't evoke emotion in me. I did not care at the end when the big 'oh shit, you didn't' happened. I did care when that final 'fuck, I thought there was hope' event at the end of Battle Royale happened (actually, having already seen the film, I was really reluctant to read those last few chapters because I knew what was coming). But those comparisions are comparisons I could make between any two books, regardless of topic. I like Battle Royale, but I prefer Beyond the Deepwoods, by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, despite the fact the latter is kid's book about an elf like creature who gets lost in a forest, has many fantastical adventures before eventually finding his long lost father and becoming a Sky Pirate. I can say that I think Stewart is the better author, that I felt the tone of his book matched the topic as well as Takami. And, to be fair, that's the only way Battle Royale and The Hunger Games should be compared. They are not the same story; one is not a better telling of 'modern day gladitorial fights' than the other. They are both independant works, with a similar theme (like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter have similar themes) but they are not identical. Yes, Battle Royale is one of my favourite books, yes, I got bored and only rated Mockingjay two stars out of five on Goodreads (the 'it was okay' rating), but those opinions aren't linked. I didn't ditch The Hunger Games after I found Battle Royale. I'd already dismissed it (that said, I really enjoy The Hunger Games films. I think its the better format for that story).
So, Battle Royale versus The Hunger Games? No. It isn't a fight. You can like both equally, hate both equally or have a preference, but that should't be based on one being 'better' at telling the same story. If after all this, you still think that The Hunger Games is just stealing ideas from Battle Royale, well... I urge you to pick up William Golding's 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies and tell me that Takami's work is the first of it's kind again.
No. What I wanted to write about was the oft mentioned comment, regarding The Hinger Games. The ones that states 'yeah, but it's just a watered down Battle Royale'. Why do I feel a need to comment on this, when both books have been out for so long? Because friends of mine are still comparing them and I honestly don't think the comparision is apropos. This blog is about why The Hunger Games isn't Battle Royale.
Now, before I begin here is your fair warning. There will be spoilers for both books; so if you're still, or waiting to start, reading either and don't want to know what goes down, stop. Close the window. Avoid this post until another day, when you can face the things to come.
With that out of the way, let's begin.
The Hunger Games (by Suzanne Collins, 2008-10) is a book/series about a teenage girl called Katniss Everdeen and her friend Peeta Mellark, who later sort of becomes her lover. They get thrown into a 'fight to the death' situation against their will with a load of other teenagers. Who put them in such an awful situation? Their own government, in legal, sanctified action.
Battle Royale (by Koushun Takami, 1999) is a book about a teenage boy called Shuya Nanahara and his friend Noriko Nakagawa, who later sort of becomes his lover. They get thrown into a 'fight to the death' situation against their will with a load of other teenagers. Who put them in such an awful situation? Their own government, in legal, sanctified action.
So what's the problem then? Near identical plots and Battle Royale predates The Hunger Games, so there is some definite plagarism going on right? All those Hunger Games fans should be ashamed of themselves for buying in to an inferior, Westernised copy of a good, solid, Japanese story?
Well. No, not really. When was the last time you actually read a book that was original anyway? Let me give you an example here. The Lord of the Rings; this is considered by many to be the pinnacle of fantasy literature. It is the beginning of everything we understand as 'high fantasy'; it inspired world renowned franchises such as Dungeons & Dragons and even ongoing series such as The Elder Scrolls. I mean, for goodness sake, there's even essence of Middle Earth in the Harry Potter series (Gandalf and Dumbledore. I'm sure die hard Potterheads will shoot me down for this and tell me they are nothing alike, but stop and look. If nothing else, visually they are similar. Dumbledore is the 'stereotypical' wizard in appearance, which started with good ol' Gandalf. And, again, Ringwraiths and Dementors. Different in practice, similar in visualisation; evil, ghost like creatures clad in black robes. I won't argue the toss as to whether personalities are the same because, to be quite honest, I stopped reading Potter at age six, so like hell I can remember characterisation. Sorry world, but Potter doesn't do it for me.)
I'm digressing. My point is that The Lord of the Rings is often seen as the beginning. But is it really? I'm sure what I'm about to write is no surprise to any die hard Rings fan, but a lot of it is, well... Unoriginal. Tolkien was, first and formost, a historian not a fiction author. I read somewhere that Rings is meant to be a replacement for British mythology, seeing as, sort of Arthur, we didn't have one. You know, like the Norse Gods, or Greek myths. I suppose the closest we have is Roman myhtology, which is only because they conquered us and even then it's mostly a carbon copy of Greek mythology, as the Romans wanted to emulate the (then) most powerful/educated nation in the world. There's Celtic mythology, too, I suppose, but overall Britain has a lack of mythology. Tolkien couldn't rewrite the past, but he could write a story fit for myths of old. That's why the books are so full of detail, with songs and maps and history. Tolkien wrote England's mythology. But! He's a historian. He studied other mythologies, he wrote his own. Hey, guess what? There is loads of influence from other mythologies in Rings.
I studied philosophy with my best friend. We studied Plato's The Republic. In it he mentions the legend of the ring of Gyges. A man accidentally ends up in a cave. Here he steals a golden ring. He then discovers this ring turns him invisible. This ring is ultimately used for evil and when weak men possess it then become enslaved to its power.
Hold on. Why does that sound so familiar?
There's no evidence to prove that Tolkien was inspired by the ring of Gyges, but either way it proves the point that nothing is ever really original. If he was inspired, so what? It doesn't detract from the wonder he creates in his own work, it doesn't lessen its value. If he wasn't inspired? It shows that people can independantly have the same idea, which at a later date can be percieved as 'copying' or 'inspiration', even if it was not. To be fair, how many modern fiction novels are based off of Greek or Roman mythology, or even fairy tales and folklore, yet readers don't scream 'blatant rip off' (in fact, Collin's cites the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur as inspiration)? If you've actually read Gyges and Rings you'll know that although there are similar elements, they're not the same story; thing is, if you only pick up on certain elements or only expand on the basics they can sound the same. If you actually know the full story (no pun intended), you realise they're not the same.
Gyges is about a man who finds a magical artifact, which he uses for his own gain. He abuses the power to kill the King and seduce his wife, putting himself in the position of power. The ring doesn't
corrupt, it just allows the unjust man to act corruptly with out being detected.
Rings is about a group of unlikely heroes who set out a long quest to destroy evil and bring the world to peace. The ring is actively malicious and breaks even the most saintly of people.
Shifting the focus, suddenly the stories don't really seem all that similar at all.
And so it is with The Hunger Games and Battle Royale. There is too much of a focus on the similarities (and screams that Collins should at least 'acknowledge' her inspiration from Takami's earlier work, even though she claims she was not aware of it until post-publishing. And do you know what? I believe her; as I said earlier, it is possible to come up with the same idea independantly) and not enough focus on the differences.
For me, the biggest difference between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, is that the Game is only the start for Hunger Games. It develops in to so much more after massive defiance from its core players. It is the start of the revolution, the start of the downfall of the Capitol, the end of the Games. In Battle Royale, it's one isolated event. The novel ends, but the programme continues. Sure, our heroes managed to save two lives instead of one, manage to thwart the plans of the overseer but... Bring down the government? Prevent the programme ever running again? No. They don't. They escape with their lives and become fugitives, with expectations that the government will someday catch up with them and finish off what the programme started.
The Hunger Games is hopeful. Battle Royale is hopeless.
Secondly, one of the major differences between the two is how the rest of the country percieve the Game/programme. I get the feeling that The Hunger Games is very much an allegory/social commentary for the Western obsession with reality TV. You know, trash TV where people do stupid, often embarassing or dangerous tasks to win prizes? It's not really such a great stretch of the imagination that, with our other obsession of needing more and more visceral imagery (e.g., the fact that scenes of actual war are often projected into our homes on a daily basis and the rise of 'splatter/torture porn' films; I do forensics so am expected to see horrific images, but who hasn't seen a decapitated corpse on the screen, even if it wasn't real? Gore seems very much part of the every day in modern culture) that we could possibly end up in a world where we watch people fight to the death for entertainment purposes. It wouldn't be the first time (the gladitorial games spring to mind; hold on, if that pre-dates Battle Royale, does that mean Takami just ripped off history? What a fiend; can't possibly like his work now, it's just watered down as he only had fictional people killed... Yeah.) The Capitol revel in the Games; it's like a national event for them. They get excited and place bets and watch avidly.
But the programme? It isn't broadcast, save for the announcement of the winner at the end. The public reaction is horror and revulsion. Parents and guardians are terrified that their child will be taken and used; while most parents in The Hunger Games also have this fear, some Districts see it as an honour to fight in the Game. There's nothing honourable about the programme, no one wants to experience it. It isn't glamorous. There's no betting. Kids are abducted and made to fight each other. The point of the Games is to emerge with a winner; one person will always win and they will run for as long as they need to. The programme has a time limit. A winner isn't necessary. Some times there is no winner; if there is more than one person alive when the time limit runs out, everyone gets killed. The programme is not a game (I mean, the Games aren't much of a game either, but there are still clear 'winners' and 'losers', however messed up it is). The programme is not, in any way, like reality TV. It is not grotesque and vile entertainment. It's a form of opression. The government uses the programme to keep the country in a constant state of fear and panic. The public are told that the programme is for military research, that the kids are abducted so that they can test out weaponary. It's horrific, but necessary, to keep the country safe in case of war. The kids are dying for their country. Of course, that's not what the programme exists for at all; it's to subconsciously induce mistrust into the public. If a group of teens will do anything, including brutalise, maim and kill their friends to survive, then who knows what might happen in the real world? If you can't trust your best friend to not, literally, stab you in the back, who can you trust? No one. If the community has no trust in one another, they cannot band together, they cannot rise against the government. They are divided.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that the Games are to opress the Districts and too remind the people that rebellion results in punishment (even though the Capitol call it 'remembering sacrfice' or some such). It's also more overt; the public know the Games exist as a reminder to not rebel. The programme's goals are more covert and subtle, working into the public's psyche.
There's a slew of other differences too. The Games has its 'tributes' fight strangers. The programme has its students fight friends and even lovers. The Hunger Games is dystopian, post WWIII American while Battle Royale is alternate universe, pre-millenium Japan. The Hunger Games only follows its main character (Katniss) and her allies, Battle Royale follows every single character, meaning every death you read is a character you know (yes, some characters you care about more than others, some characters you even actively dislike, but still the book has at least one chapter dedicated to eaach student). As I mentioned earlier, the actual 'fighting to the death' bit, is only the beginning of a much bigger story in The Hunger Games. The 'fight to the death' is the story in Battle Royale. Really, actually read them and you'll see the books aren't really that similar at all.
The Hunger Games is about a girl called Katniss who is forced into futuristic gladitorial games, where she has to fight to the death for the entertainment of others. She manages to deceive the system and becomes the figurehead for a revolution against this cruel government that put her there, becoming the last of the 'tributes'/'victors'.
Battle Royale is about Shuya and his classmates, who are abducted and placed into 'the programme', whereby they are forced to kill one another. The programme, which is mostly run in secret, seeks to place fear and mistrust into it's populace to prevent revolution. Shuya manages to survive the programme, but he remains on the run forever, knowing that next year more children will be put through what he was.
Suddenly they don't seem so similar after all, do they?
For the sake of argument, I like Battle Royale more than The Hunger Games. It's a book for an adult audience, which makes its descriptions more graphic, more harrowing in my opinion, which for a topic that's mostly about murder, you need. I have a friend who says (having not read Battle Royale) that The Hunger Games are horrifying and vile things do happen (such as Peeta's torture and brain washing) but... I just can't agree. The Hunger Games does seem a little too sanitary. It's written for young adults, it can't be as violent or psychologically screw with you the way it really needs to. And that isn't that 'Battle Royale does it better', because I felt that about The Hunger Games long before I'd read or watched Battle Royale. The fact I feel that The Hunger Games falls short of expectations isn't because of something else; even as an independant piece, it just wasn't what I wanted. If I'm going to compare Battle Royale to The Hunger Games, my comments would be that the former has better, more likeable main characters (Katniss is actually pretty uninspiring in my opinion) and that, to be perfectly honest, I just think Takami is a better author than Collins. The Hunger Games didn't evoke emotion in me. I did not care at the end when the big 'oh shit, you didn't' happened. I did care when that final 'fuck, I thought there was hope' event at the end of Battle Royale happened (actually, having already seen the film, I was really reluctant to read those last few chapters because I knew what was coming). But those comparisions are comparisons I could make between any two books, regardless of topic. I like Battle Royale, but I prefer Beyond the Deepwoods, by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, despite the fact the latter is kid's book about an elf like creature who gets lost in a forest, has many fantastical adventures before eventually finding his long lost father and becoming a Sky Pirate. I can say that I think Stewart is the better author, that I felt the tone of his book matched the topic as well as Takami. And, to be fair, that's the only way Battle Royale and The Hunger Games should be compared. They are not the same story; one is not a better telling of 'modern day gladitorial fights' than the other. They are both independant works, with a similar theme (like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter have similar themes) but they are not identical. Yes, Battle Royale is one of my favourite books, yes, I got bored and only rated Mockingjay two stars out of five on Goodreads (the 'it was okay' rating), but those opinions aren't linked. I didn't ditch The Hunger Games after I found Battle Royale. I'd already dismissed it (that said, I really enjoy The Hunger Games films. I think its the better format for that story).
So, Battle Royale versus The Hunger Games? No. It isn't a fight. You can like both equally, hate both equally or have a preference, but that should't be based on one being 'better' at telling the same story. If after all this, you still think that The Hunger Games is just stealing ideas from Battle Royale, well... I urge you to pick up William Golding's 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies and tell me that Takami's work is the first of it's kind again.
Monday 3 November 2014
Through Snow and Ice; or Winter's Bone
Last week I finished reading an absolute gem of a book. I'd picked it up in a Waterstones sale; I'd had a £10 voucher to spend and the book I wanted only cost £7, so I needed to find something else to get my money's worth. So, lo and behold, I pick up a copy of Winter's Bone, by Daniel Woodrell, for the low price of £3. There was a sticker on the cover, proudly announcing it was now a 'major motion picture', complete with an image of Jennifer Lawrence's face.
I came home, placed the scrap of a book (it's more novella than novel) on my shelf and promptly forgot all about it, instead pursuing other worlds of fantasy and monsters that made up my massive reading backlog. I didn't mind so much; it has a nice, crisp white cover with dead tree branches in black and silver and a crow (or possibly a raven) perched there, amidst the title. Gothic and bleak, reminiscent of many an old romantic thriller. It looked pretty, even if it was hardly the pinnacle of originality, so it didn't look remiss on my bookshelf, even in its unread, unloved state.
I imagine it was about six months after purchase (finishing one degree, starting another and moving house later) that I eventually picked up Winter's Bone. I'd finished reading Emporors Once More, which had taken what felt like a lifetime to complete, and Dark Waters for university. Although I knew I really ought to be reading A Call to Crusade, which had been wondrously gifted to me by the author in return for a review, all I really wanted was something short, light and finished with quickly. This gave me the choice of rereading one of my childhood favourites, a graphic novel or this forgotten, bargain, 'just because I have the cash' book. That and, ever since having placed it on the bookshelf in the living room I now share with my boyfriend, he has been exuberant with puerile glee over the title. So to satisfy his curiosity that no, this book is not about getting a hard on in the cold depths of Winter, I read it.
Sometimes you buy a book just because the title, or the cover, or the price appeals to you. You buy it on a whim. Sometimes you get what you deserve; trashy, cheap, throw away fiction or, as seems to be the case now, a novel riddled with supernatural romance and overly explicit sex scenes, when in reality you were looking for the next The Lord of the Rings. Sometimes you get something that was well written, with a unique spin on an age worn plot but wasn't really to your taste. Other times you find something that makes you wonder how you had not come across it before; something fantastic, something that engages you, pulls you head first into a different universe before spitting you out with a revelation of an ending. Those finds are the best kind and the reason I still pick up something different, something random in the sale section in bookshops.
Fortunately, Winter's Bone was this later category. it was brilliantly written. The blurb claimed it was a thriller, so I was expecting a fast pace, two dimensional characters and terrible forensic scenarios, feeling like it had been written over a weekend, with lots of coffee and cigarettes, to maximise profit potential. What I got was very different indeed.
Woodrell is, surprisingly, a wizard with words. He conjures up majestic scenes that juxtapose the austere and desolate plot. The story takes place, predictably, in winter and Woodrell has a habit of transporting you to the snow covered valleys in Missouri. I was a little stunned. This was far from what I had anticipated.
The book centres around sixteen year old, high school drop out Ree Dolly. Her father has gone missing and this means her family (two younger brothers and a mentally unstable mother) will lose their house. So Ree goes to find him. It hardly sounds earth shatteringly new, but somehow it's written in a way that makes it seem very new indeed. Perhaps it's the setting; the valleys, where people get rich on making meth and don't think twice about shooting the enemy. Where blood runs thicker than water. It's not the bright, bustling, underground New York setting I'm used to thrillers using. It's a refreshing change. The setting is very much unknown to me; British, living in the city. I don't know about the wilds of America. This is one way to open your eyes; it makes you realise that America isn't just rich and powerful. It's poor and weak, too. Perhaps I'm far too ethnocentric. Perhaps I'm sheltered. But it was an interesting insight to the areas of America that aren't 'sexy', even if it was only fiction.
Ree's an interesting character. The whole cast is, to be fair. They're not just cardboard cutouts of various stereotypes. You really get to know them. You get to understand Ree's (and everyone's) fear of Thump Milton, Teardrop's familial love for his niece, Gail's resentment for her husband. Each one comes to life, without the need for long, drawn out descriptions and back stories. you are invited to see a window of Ree's life, the one that involves the disappearance of her father. You do not need to know what happened before or after. You just see what is and who is. And it really works.
I think this is a great piece of literature. It's genuinely shocking in places, without being overly graphic or repulsive in its descriptions. It's just honest. it's one of the few books I've read recently that I felt was just the right length. Too often, I keep picking up a book that begins well but then drags for several hundred pages, out staying its welcome. Less often, I find a book that is wrapped up and finished without answering all of my questions, leaving me asking more and feeling utterly unsatisfied. Rarely, I find something that knows exactly when to draw everything to a close. Winters Bone does this superbly. I felt like not a great deal happened over the course of the pages, but enough happened, with enough emotion and determination on Ree's behalf to keep me engaged. Then, before that interest could tail off, Woodrell wraps everything up, neatly and with a sort of beautiful simplicity.
I honestly would recommend this novel to anyone who likes less run of the mill thrillers. Anyone who likes short stories about the fictional lives of others. Anyone who likes marvellous descriptions of a place not so far away. If you enjoy good, solid, real life fiction, you'll probably enjoy Winter's Bone. Certainly, I had never heard of Daniel Woodrell before, but I will certainly be on the look out for more of his work from now on. He is definitely an author to keep in mind.
This book in facts and figures;
My rating: 8/10
Pages: 193
My Format: Paperback
Published: 2007
I came home, placed the scrap of a book (it's more novella than novel) on my shelf and promptly forgot all about it, instead pursuing other worlds of fantasy and monsters that made up my massive reading backlog. I didn't mind so much; it has a nice, crisp white cover with dead tree branches in black and silver and a crow (or possibly a raven) perched there, amidst the title. Gothic and bleak, reminiscent of many an old romantic thriller. It looked pretty, even if it was hardly the pinnacle of originality, so it didn't look remiss on my bookshelf, even in its unread, unloved state.
I imagine it was about six months after purchase (finishing one degree, starting another and moving house later) that I eventually picked up Winter's Bone. I'd finished reading Emporors Once More, which had taken what felt like a lifetime to complete, and Dark Waters for university. Although I knew I really ought to be reading A Call to Crusade, which had been wondrously gifted to me by the author in return for a review, all I really wanted was something short, light and finished with quickly. This gave me the choice of rereading one of my childhood favourites, a graphic novel or this forgotten, bargain, 'just because I have the cash' book. That and, ever since having placed it on the bookshelf in the living room I now share with my boyfriend, he has been exuberant with puerile glee over the title. So to satisfy his curiosity that no, this book is not about getting a hard on in the cold depths of Winter, I read it.
Sometimes you buy a book just because the title, or the cover, or the price appeals to you. You buy it on a whim. Sometimes you get what you deserve; trashy, cheap, throw away fiction or, as seems to be the case now, a novel riddled with supernatural romance and overly explicit sex scenes, when in reality you were looking for the next The Lord of the Rings. Sometimes you get something that was well written, with a unique spin on an age worn plot but wasn't really to your taste. Other times you find something that makes you wonder how you had not come across it before; something fantastic, something that engages you, pulls you head first into a different universe before spitting you out with a revelation of an ending. Those finds are the best kind and the reason I still pick up something different, something random in the sale section in bookshops.
Fortunately, Winter's Bone was this later category. it was brilliantly written. The blurb claimed it was a thriller, so I was expecting a fast pace, two dimensional characters and terrible forensic scenarios, feeling like it had been written over a weekend, with lots of coffee and cigarettes, to maximise profit potential. What I got was very different indeed.
Woodrell is, surprisingly, a wizard with words. He conjures up majestic scenes that juxtapose the austere and desolate plot. The story takes place, predictably, in winter and Woodrell has a habit of transporting you to the snow covered valleys in Missouri. I was a little stunned. This was far from what I had anticipated.
The book centres around sixteen year old, high school drop out Ree Dolly. Her father has gone missing and this means her family (two younger brothers and a mentally unstable mother) will lose their house. So Ree goes to find him. It hardly sounds earth shatteringly new, but somehow it's written in a way that makes it seem very new indeed. Perhaps it's the setting; the valleys, where people get rich on making meth and don't think twice about shooting the enemy. Where blood runs thicker than water. It's not the bright, bustling, underground New York setting I'm used to thrillers using. It's a refreshing change. The setting is very much unknown to me; British, living in the city. I don't know about the wilds of America. This is one way to open your eyes; it makes you realise that America isn't just rich and powerful. It's poor and weak, too. Perhaps I'm far too ethnocentric. Perhaps I'm sheltered. But it was an interesting insight to the areas of America that aren't 'sexy', even if it was only fiction.
Ree's an interesting character. The whole cast is, to be fair. They're not just cardboard cutouts of various stereotypes. You really get to know them. You get to understand Ree's (and everyone's) fear of Thump Milton, Teardrop's familial love for his niece, Gail's resentment for her husband. Each one comes to life, without the need for long, drawn out descriptions and back stories. you are invited to see a window of Ree's life, the one that involves the disappearance of her father. You do not need to know what happened before or after. You just see what is and who is. And it really works.
I think this is a great piece of literature. It's genuinely shocking in places, without being overly graphic or repulsive in its descriptions. It's just honest. it's one of the few books I've read recently that I felt was just the right length. Too often, I keep picking up a book that begins well but then drags for several hundred pages, out staying its welcome. Less often, I find a book that is wrapped up and finished without answering all of my questions, leaving me asking more and feeling utterly unsatisfied. Rarely, I find something that knows exactly when to draw everything to a close. Winters Bone does this superbly. I felt like not a great deal happened over the course of the pages, but enough happened, with enough emotion and determination on Ree's behalf to keep me engaged. Then, before that interest could tail off, Woodrell wraps everything up, neatly and with a sort of beautiful simplicity.
I honestly would recommend this novel to anyone who likes less run of the mill thrillers. Anyone who likes short stories about the fictional lives of others. Anyone who likes marvellous descriptions of a place not so far away. If you enjoy good, solid, real life fiction, you'll probably enjoy Winter's Bone. Certainly, I had never heard of Daniel Woodrell before, but I will certainly be on the look out for more of his work from now on. He is definitely an author to keep in mind.
This book in facts and figures;
My rating: 8/10
Pages: 193
My Format: Paperback
Published: 2007
Wednesday 22 October 2014
Ghost Ship and Disaster; or Dark Waters: Chronicle of a Story Untold
Monday morning; I have a law assessment in the afternoon (where I have to present my case to an actual lawyer). I best prepare for exams by just relaxing and taking my time. This means breakfast and book (and tea, but that doesn't fit with the alliteration). Curl up on the sofa in the office, in my bed clothes and just read. Which is how I finished Dark Waters: Chronicle of a Story Untold by Magda Allani. I had nearly a quarter of the book left and I'd not had much chance to really sit down and indulge in the written word due to university commitments, so I took the morning to resolve both issues.
University doesn't mean I read less. It just means I read less of what I'd like to. (But I'm not reviewing every single journal article or book chapter I ever analyse.)
It was actually in my law module that it was recommended that my cohort read Dark Waters, despite not being an academic text. It was suggested we read it, not so much to explain why we operate the way we do from a science perspective, but to explain why we operate the way we do from an emotional or humanitarian perspective. (To clarify, I am studying Forensic Anthropology and the law module focuses on DVI or disaster victim identification.) That's the sort of knowledge you can't find in academic texts. Even in my own papers, that have got me emotional away from the books and journals, don't reflect the passion felt by the author; academia has no place for feelings. Academia wants ideas and notions, not from the heart, but backed up with facts and figures.
For this reason, although not this reason alone, I am glad to have read Dark Waters. I, like I suspect the majority of you reading this, have never been in a mass disaster. I've never known anyone in a mass disaster. For me, mass disasters are just part of the six o'clock news. They're just part of my degree. It happens to other people. And, if there's one thing I've learnt through studying forensics over the past three years, it's that there's no point freaking out over a corpse. They're dead now; the sights and smells might be unpleasant, but they cannot be hurt any more. My studies (and, to and extent, the culture I live in that revels in 'torture porn' films and streams the real time horrors of the Four Horsemen, war, pestilence, famine and death in to our living rooms via TVs and computers) have somewhat desensitised me to death.
Which is why reading books like this is so important. Being desensitised to death is one thing, but being desensitised to the dead is very much a different ball park. Victims of mass disasters might only be numbers to us, media consumers, but each one is a human being. Each one has a mother, a father. Possibly siblings, almost certainly friends. Lovers. It is so easy to forget this and so vital to not. Every death is a broken heart. We need to hear these stories from the survivors, from the people who knew the victims.
I am digressing. Dark Waters is about the Marchioness disaster of 1989. In the early hours of the 20th of August, the Marchioness, a small party boat, was hit and sunk by a sand dredger, the Bowbelle. Apparently, it took thirty seconds to be fully submerged. Of the 130 passengers, 51 were killed.
The book is written by Magda Allani, one of the survivors; she had been close friends with Antonio Vasconcellos, whose birthday the passengers had been celebrating. The first half of the book focuses on the accident itself and the following few weeks. The emotion is intense and raw, yet Magda manages to convey it all so poetically. It is somewhat reminiscent of the old gothic writers; the content is dark and genuinely morbid, yet somehow beautifully written. It's interesting to read about the media response; how it was all over the news for days, weeks and then... It tailed off. Survivors and family were still grieving, hurting and confused but the nation had moved on before October rolled around. As the nation forgot, it appears that, so too, the survivors were expected to. But the didn't. They couldn't.
The second half of the book is the years following. Although the first half is heart wrenching, I felt the second half was actually more poignant. A few years later, ten years later, twenty years later, and people are still hurting. Surprising? No, not when you really consider what happened. Yet I think it really just brings home the reality; there are some things in life you never, truly leave behind you. Fortunately, Magda does end the book on a positive note; she explains how she feels she is in control of her life again and is able to stop her past affecting her future but it still took twenty-two years to reach that point.
Strangely, the book mostly glosses over the controversy that I knew the Marchioness for. I suspect that this is because it did not affect Magda per se. She was a survivor; it was her friends, not family, who she lost that night (not to deny the power of friendship, only that in legal terms, friends have little involvement with an individual post death, e.g., in funerary arrangements). She did, however, question the officials's identification and feared that some of her friends were buried in incorrect plots. Although this is only briefly mentioned, she does raise the intrigued of a deeper conspiracy. This is something I genuinely did not anticipate and, I confess, that having not heard of any conspiracy surrounding the disaster in my brief research, I assumed it was just the need for an explanation formed by someone suffering PTSD.
The more I read, the more was revealed. Admittedly, the 'big, dirty secret' is... Not quite so, but what she hints at early on is not false either. There were some shady goings on and, yes, her friend had become aware of them. An assassination attempt was not, however, the reason for the collision. More shockingly, perhaps, is that it appears that most of the disaster was swept under the carpet by the Thatcherite government. It seems that it took a lot of fighting (mostly by the MAG, or Marchioness Action Group) to get even a semblance of justice for both the dead and the living. Certainly, the latter half of the book details the trial of the crew of the Bowbelle; it really is shocking. Not only had most of the crew imbibed alcohol, they did not stop to assist after they hit the Marchioness. Despite this, the Captain received very little in terms of punishment.
Over all, I felt it was a very well written book about a pretty heavy topic. Yet it did not come across as a sorrowful book; I think this was intentional on behalf of the author. Although a genuinely horrific thing to have to experience, Magda shows how it is not what defines her. It hurt, but there is a future beyond all the pain. She seems happy in the conclusion and that's quite heart warming to read. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who has a desire to understand disasters from a human perspective, or anyone who enjoys reading autobiographies of the the exceptional rather than the famous.
On a mostly unrelated note, this is the first book I've properly read on my Kindle. I won't expand on the experience, as I've mostly covered that my previous post. I am, however, very much enjoying the use of a real paper and ink book as my reading device.
This book in facts and figures;
My rating: 7/10 (on Goodreads I gave it 3 stars out of 5, as that is the rating for 'I liked this book'. Originally I was going to give it 4, which was 'I really liked this book'. Although I feel this book was important for me to read as outlined above, I do not 'really like' reading autobiographies, the way I do fiction novels. That and, the more I read, the harsher I get with ratings.)
Pages: 250
My Format: e-Book
Published: 2011
University doesn't mean I read less. It just means I read less of what I'd like to. (But I'm not reviewing every single journal article or book chapter I ever analyse.)
It was actually in my law module that it was recommended that my cohort read Dark Waters, despite not being an academic text. It was suggested we read it, not so much to explain why we operate the way we do from a science perspective, but to explain why we operate the way we do from an emotional or humanitarian perspective. (To clarify, I am studying Forensic Anthropology and the law module focuses on DVI or disaster victim identification.) That's the sort of knowledge you can't find in academic texts. Even in my own papers, that have got me emotional away from the books and journals, don't reflect the passion felt by the author; academia has no place for feelings. Academia wants ideas and notions, not from the heart, but backed up with facts and figures.
For this reason, although not this reason alone, I am glad to have read Dark Waters. I, like I suspect the majority of you reading this, have never been in a mass disaster. I've never known anyone in a mass disaster. For me, mass disasters are just part of the six o'clock news. They're just part of my degree. It happens to other people. And, if there's one thing I've learnt through studying forensics over the past three years, it's that there's no point freaking out over a corpse. They're dead now; the sights and smells might be unpleasant, but they cannot be hurt any more. My studies (and, to and extent, the culture I live in that revels in 'torture porn' films and streams the real time horrors of the Four Horsemen, war, pestilence, famine and death in to our living rooms via TVs and computers) have somewhat desensitised me to death.
Which is why reading books like this is so important. Being desensitised to death is one thing, but being desensitised to the dead is very much a different ball park. Victims of mass disasters might only be numbers to us, media consumers, but each one is a human being. Each one has a mother, a father. Possibly siblings, almost certainly friends. Lovers. It is so easy to forget this and so vital to not. Every death is a broken heart. We need to hear these stories from the survivors, from the people who knew the victims.
I am digressing. Dark Waters is about the Marchioness disaster of 1989. In the early hours of the 20th of August, the Marchioness, a small party boat, was hit and sunk by a sand dredger, the Bowbelle. Apparently, it took thirty seconds to be fully submerged. Of the 130 passengers, 51 were killed.
The book is written by Magda Allani, one of the survivors; she had been close friends with Antonio Vasconcellos, whose birthday the passengers had been celebrating. The first half of the book focuses on the accident itself and the following few weeks. The emotion is intense and raw, yet Magda manages to convey it all so poetically. It is somewhat reminiscent of the old gothic writers; the content is dark and genuinely morbid, yet somehow beautifully written. It's interesting to read about the media response; how it was all over the news for days, weeks and then... It tailed off. Survivors and family were still grieving, hurting and confused but the nation had moved on before October rolled around. As the nation forgot, it appears that, so too, the survivors were expected to. But the didn't. They couldn't.
The second half of the book is the years following. Although the first half is heart wrenching, I felt the second half was actually more poignant. A few years later, ten years later, twenty years later, and people are still hurting. Surprising? No, not when you really consider what happened. Yet I think it really just brings home the reality; there are some things in life you never, truly leave behind you. Fortunately, Magda does end the book on a positive note; she explains how she feels she is in control of her life again and is able to stop her past affecting her future but it still took twenty-two years to reach that point.
Strangely, the book mostly glosses over the controversy that I knew the Marchioness for. I suspect that this is because it did not affect Magda per se. She was a survivor; it was her friends, not family, who she lost that night (not to deny the power of friendship, only that in legal terms, friends have little involvement with an individual post death, e.g., in funerary arrangements). She did, however, question the officials's identification and feared that some of her friends were buried in incorrect plots. Although this is only briefly mentioned, she does raise the intrigued of a deeper conspiracy. This is something I genuinely did not anticipate and, I confess, that having not heard of any conspiracy surrounding the disaster in my brief research, I assumed it was just the need for an explanation formed by someone suffering PTSD.
The more I read, the more was revealed. Admittedly, the 'big, dirty secret' is... Not quite so, but what she hints at early on is not false either. There were some shady goings on and, yes, her friend had become aware of them. An assassination attempt was not, however, the reason for the collision. More shockingly, perhaps, is that it appears that most of the disaster was swept under the carpet by the Thatcherite government. It seems that it took a lot of fighting (mostly by the MAG, or Marchioness Action Group) to get even a semblance of justice for both the dead and the living. Certainly, the latter half of the book details the trial of the crew of the Bowbelle; it really is shocking. Not only had most of the crew imbibed alcohol, they did not stop to assist after they hit the Marchioness. Despite this, the Captain received very little in terms of punishment.
Over all, I felt it was a very well written book about a pretty heavy topic. Yet it did not come across as a sorrowful book; I think this was intentional on behalf of the author. Although a genuinely horrific thing to have to experience, Magda shows how it is not what defines her. It hurt, but there is a future beyond all the pain. She seems happy in the conclusion and that's quite heart warming to read. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who has a desire to understand disasters from a human perspective, or anyone who enjoys reading autobiographies of the the exceptional rather than the famous.
On a mostly unrelated note, this is the first book I've properly read on my Kindle. I won't expand on the experience, as I've mostly covered that my previous post. I am, however, very much enjoying the use of a real paper and ink book as my reading device.
This book in facts and figures;
My rating: 7/10 (on Goodreads I gave it 3 stars out of 5, as that is the rating for 'I liked this book'. Originally I was going to give it 4, which was 'I really liked this book'. Although I feel this book was important for me to read as outlined above, I do not 'really like' reading autobiographies, the way I do fiction novels. That and, the more I read, the harsher I get with ratings.)
Pages: 250
My Format: e-Book
Published: 2011
Tuesday 14 October 2014
To Kindle a New Love
I have finally decided to start writing, or keeping, a blog about the things I read. I say 'things' and not 'books', not because I'm a heartless crone who does not love the leaved and bound beauties, but because, as of a few weeks ago, book are no longer my sole source of reading material. No. I can now add 'e-books' to the list, shockingly enough, as I went and did the unthinkable.
I bought a Kindle.
Now, there's nothing wrong with Kindle, but, let's face it, I'm hardly pipping the gadget post of all my friends by purchasing one at such late a date. It isn't even a Paperwhite or a Touch, but instead a Kindle 4, which is now three years old. So why the sudden need to go get myself an e-ink friend, when I've lived with the precious of paper for years? It's a simple answer, really. University.
It was something I looked at doing way back when I started my BSc. You know how when you start a higher education course you get a book list? And how, if you're lucky, it will only set you back £100 (on top of the then £3.5k a year tuition fees) but, more likely, will set you back double that? And how each book is an absolute tome at one thousand pages, minimum, and if you're doing art it's full of text, yet if you're doing science it's full of indecipherable graphs? Ah, yes, the joys of academia; a library that will never be read and curse you to starve to death all in one fell swoop.
Anyway. Academic text books are big and bulky and heavy. While I do have a shelf put aside for my academic books, I realised that lugging them back and forth from the labs was going to break my back. The idea of being able to contain all this knowledge in one, slim, lighter than a swan feather 'volume' (and save pennies while doing so) appealed immensely; i.e., an e-reader. As I said, I looked at doing this when I started my BSc, but none of the textbooks I required had an e-book format; no e-books, no need for an e-reader.
So that was that.
Fast forward three years, freshly graduated and I get another dreaded book list for another course. It's only three books, but they come to over £100. Two of these books, however, have do have e-book versions; admittedly one I already purchased as an undergrad, but, once more, the notion that I can have multiple text books on my person without suffering a spinal fracture is very tempting. Thus, I turn my attention to the Godsend that is eBay and, a few weeks later, find myself with a shiny, unused Kindle 4.
I had been aiming for a Touch, 'charcoal' preferably, but at the low price of £25, I felt this was a deal I could not let slip away. Fortuitous actually, as, having seen 'graphite' in person, I find it so much more pleasing and I am in love with the page buttons. Yes, the keyboard function would be a lot quicker and simpler to use with a touchscreen, but I like being able to press a key to turn the page. It's such a satisfying press, too; soft and without a click. No substitute for a real page, but it has the added bonus of being completely one handed; something both real books (to an extent; it can be done) and any touchscreen e-readers lack. While this may not seem like a massive pull, for me, it works. When I am in labs, I can hold the Kindle in one hand and write notes or pick up and observe the specimens in my other hand. Multitasking; I am female, after all.
I like the Kindle; I've been sold on e-ink readers over LCD e-readers ever since my best friend showed me her Kindle many, many years ago, over a Costa coffee. I've just not had the need to buy one before as any money spent on a Kindle I'd rather spend on books (I am absolutely a committed bibliophile as I'm sure this blog will serve to show). I read a lot of PDFs on the Kindle without too much issue, despite having been told it can be quite difficult to read them. Maybe it's the quality of PDFs (all from Academic Journals, rather than scanned in pages), I'm not sure, but I have found that, combining the zoom and contrast controls allows me to rather comfortably read them. Again, useful for bringing articles to lectures, rather than sheaves of print outs. Some are more difficult to adjust, but, over all, not so much issue.
I do have some complaints of the Kindle though; these may have been addressed in later models, I have not had chance to compare. Kindle has this wonderful feature where you can e-mail the files straight to your device. I say wonderful because it is, it's so easy for when I'm at the Library or somewhere else without my connection cable. It is wonderful... When it works. Despite having enabled my secondary and university e-mails, my Kindle will not accept any file that is sent from any e-mail other than the one it is registered with. Yet I don't get the 'unknown sender' e-mail either. I send and... Nothing happens. Which is frustrating as I sometimes have to download the item, send it from one e-mail to another to e-mail it to my Kindle; which is almost more hassle than it's worth. It's a shame, because it's a feature I really approve of and it means I can send documents to it, whether I have it on me or not.
The other issue I have encountered is whenever I try to access my 'notes' for one of my books, the Kindle hangs. This is extremely exasperating when I'm in the labs or in lectures and, instead of being able to read the page I wanted, I'm spending several minutes trying to restart my Kindle. Proof than analogue will always be simpler than digital; I've never had to reboot a textbook. I'm not sure why it takes so long to restart; the manual says to hold the power switch down for some twenty seconds, but I'll need to repeat this action three or four times before, rather than a blank page continually refreshing, I get the loading page. It does always, eventually, reboot though. I feel like it harkens back to my BlackBerry days; when it hangs, reboot and reboot again. I'm going to try deleting my notes and trying to add them afresh, see if that makes any difference, although I doubt it will.
Despite these few problems, I'm enjoying my experience with Kindle over all. It's not a book and, for me, it will never replace a book, but as an extra tool to add to my academic arsenal it's useful. I do have a few non-academic e-books on there now. One (which I am currently reading and will likely be subject to my next blog post), Dark Waters was actually bought for my course, but more of a 'this will give you an insight in to what we do' rather than 'this is vital for understand the topic'. I was debating on whether to buy it in paperback or e-book but my mum and boyfriend convinced me to buy the e-book (I think so that I could 'make the most' of my Kindle, and save £7 while I was at it). Part of me wishes I had bought the paperback; I miss the feeling of progress as the pages on the left (assuming it's a Western book) get more numerous the closer to the end you get. Even though there is a bar at the bottom proudly stating that I am '55%' of the way through the book it just isn't the same. I don't really feel that I have got anywhere.
I've also downloaded a slew of free e-books, courtesy of a wonderful site called BookBub. I haven't read any yet; perhaps I never will but I'm a sucker for free 'books' and, it would appear, that that includes 'e-books'. They're mostly cheap, throw away thrillers and disposable fantasy novels, although some of them have very good reviews on Amazon. They'll be at the top of my 'to read' list... Although I still have some thirty real world books to fight through before hand. Still, it's fun to get the newsletters once a week and see if anything catches my eye.
I suppose, ultimately, the title is misleading. I like Kindle, I really do. I like the ease of e-ink compared to the blinding light of LCD but... A new love? No. A passing fancy perhaps, or maybe even a fling, but my true love lies with paper and print.
I bought a Kindle.
Now, there's nothing wrong with Kindle, but, let's face it, I'm hardly pipping the gadget post of all my friends by purchasing one at such late a date. It isn't even a Paperwhite or a Touch, but instead a Kindle 4, which is now three years old. So why the sudden need to go get myself an e-ink friend, when I've lived with the precious of paper for years? It's a simple answer, really. University.
It was something I looked at doing way back when I started my BSc. You know how when you start a higher education course you get a book list? And how, if you're lucky, it will only set you back £100 (on top of the then £3.5k a year tuition fees) but, more likely, will set you back double that? And how each book is an absolute tome at one thousand pages, minimum, and if you're doing art it's full of text, yet if you're doing science it's full of indecipherable graphs? Ah, yes, the joys of academia; a library that will never be read and curse you to starve to death all in one fell swoop.
Anyway. Academic text books are big and bulky and heavy. While I do have a shelf put aside for my academic books, I realised that lugging them back and forth from the labs was going to break my back. The idea of being able to contain all this knowledge in one, slim, lighter than a swan feather 'volume' (and save pennies while doing so) appealed immensely; i.e., an e-reader. As I said, I looked at doing this when I started my BSc, but none of the textbooks I required had an e-book format; no e-books, no need for an e-reader.
So that was that.
 |
| Tesco's Finest |
I had been aiming for a Touch, 'charcoal' preferably, but at the low price of £25, I felt this was a deal I could not let slip away. Fortuitous actually, as, having seen 'graphite' in person, I find it so much more pleasing and I am in love with the page buttons. Yes, the keyboard function would be a lot quicker and simpler to use with a touchscreen, but I like being able to press a key to turn the page. It's such a satisfying press, too; soft and without a click. No substitute for a real page, but it has the added bonus of being completely one handed; something both real books (to an extent; it can be done) and any touchscreen e-readers lack. While this may not seem like a massive pull, for me, it works. When I am in labs, I can hold the Kindle in one hand and write notes or pick up and observe the specimens in my other hand. Multitasking; I am female, after all.
I like the Kindle; I've been sold on e-ink readers over LCD e-readers ever since my best friend showed me her Kindle many, many years ago, over a Costa coffee. I've just not had the need to buy one before as any money spent on a Kindle I'd rather spend on books (I am absolutely a committed bibliophile as I'm sure this blog will serve to show). I read a lot of PDFs on the Kindle without too much issue, despite having been told it can be quite difficult to read them. Maybe it's the quality of PDFs (all from Academic Journals, rather than scanned in pages), I'm not sure, but I have found that, combining the zoom and contrast controls allows me to rather comfortably read them. Again, useful for bringing articles to lectures, rather than sheaves of print outs. Some are more difficult to adjust, but, over all, not so much issue.
 |
| Kindle 4, 'graphite'; MSc aide |
I do have some complaints of the Kindle though; these may have been addressed in later models, I have not had chance to compare. Kindle has this wonderful feature where you can e-mail the files straight to your device. I say wonderful because it is, it's so easy for when I'm at the Library or somewhere else without my connection cable. It is wonderful... When it works. Despite having enabled my secondary and university e-mails, my Kindle will not accept any file that is sent from any e-mail other than the one it is registered with. Yet I don't get the 'unknown sender' e-mail either. I send and... Nothing happens. Which is frustrating as I sometimes have to download the item, send it from one e-mail to another to e-mail it to my Kindle; which is almost more hassle than it's worth. It's a shame, because it's a feature I really approve of and it means I can send documents to it, whether I have it on me or not.
The other issue I have encountered is whenever I try to access my 'notes' for one of my books, the Kindle hangs. This is extremely exasperating when I'm in the labs or in lectures and, instead of being able to read the page I wanted, I'm spending several minutes trying to restart my Kindle. Proof than analogue will always be simpler than digital; I've never had to reboot a textbook. I'm not sure why it takes so long to restart; the manual says to hold the power switch down for some twenty seconds, but I'll need to repeat this action three or four times before, rather than a blank page continually refreshing, I get the loading page. It does always, eventually, reboot though. I feel like it harkens back to my BlackBerry days; when it hangs, reboot and reboot again. I'm going to try deleting my notes and trying to add them afresh, see if that makes any difference, although I doubt it will.
Despite these few problems, I'm enjoying my experience with Kindle over all. It's not a book and, for me, it will never replace a book, but as an extra tool to add to my academic arsenal it's useful. I do have a few non-academic e-books on there now. One (which I am currently reading and will likely be subject to my next blog post), Dark Waters was actually bought for my course, but more of a 'this will give you an insight in to what we do' rather than 'this is vital for understand the topic'. I was debating on whether to buy it in paperback or e-book but my mum and boyfriend convinced me to buy the e-book (I think so that I could 'make the most' of my Kindle, and save £7 while I was at it). Part of me wishes I had bought the paperback; I miss the feeling of progress as the pages on the left (assuming it's a Western book) get more numerous the closer to the end you get. Even though there is a bar at the bottom proudly stating that I am '55%' of the way through the book it just isn't the same. I don't really feel that I have got anywhere.
I've also downloaded a slew of free e-books, courtesy of a wonderful site called BookBub. I haven't read any yet; perhaps I never will but I'm a sucker for free 'books' and, it would appear, that that includes 'e-books'. They're mostly cheap, throw away thrillers and disposable fantasy novels, although some of them have very good reviews on Amazon. They'll be at the top of my 'to read' list... Although I still have some thirty real world books to fight through before hand. Still, it's fun to get the newsletters once a week and see if anything catches my eye.
I suppose, ultimately, the title is misleading. I like Kindle, I really do. I like the ease of e-ink compared to the blinding light of LCD but... A new love? No. A passing fancy perhaps, or maybe even a fling, but my true love lies with paper and print.
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