Obasan and A Seperate Peace
Jun. 28th, 2005 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaI finished two books today, one the "Obasan" novel I've been working on, and the other "A Separate Peace" which Mom picked up at the library for me at about 3:00 today and I have spent the past six hours reading.
Obasan got a bit better, but I still can't help thinking most of its acclaim is merely in its revelation of an unpopularly-brought-up time in history. How the ending comes to pass makes it better, and it has some tying-up-sums-up bits . . . but I dunno . . .
I really liked "A Seperate Peace," though (if it isn't obvious by how quickly I read it, lol . . . ). At first, since it was at a boarding school, I kept attaching the two main characters to James Potter and Remus Lupin, because their personalities were similarly situated on the outside surface . . . but then it was weird because I started equating a lot of it to Alice and I, but neither one of us as particularly one character or the other, sort of switching back and forth. Maybe it was just a really good book about summing up friendship (you don't get many of those, purely on that . . . there was no romance at all, with anyone, in this), a really long-term, close one, particularly one with high emotions and lots of tension and sometimes even bitterness . . . I don't know, it was kind of odd . . . I can't really explain it . . . maybe you should read it, Alice, and see what you think . . .
The book cover said something about it showing "the darker side of adolescence" and creating a theme "deeper and bigger than evil itself"-- sort of equating an incident between the boys in the novel as an allegory for war in general (since it takes place in WWII), and it did a really good job with the parallel, but, once again, I don't think it was about "evil." The author himself referred only once to what could be "evil" as "an ignorance of the human heart"-- which is really much more believable . . . weakness, not evil. So I disagree with that reviewer, in that sense, lol . . . but you know me ^_^ Still, I liked how it was darker but still reconciled with the idea of optimism . . . it wasn't the typical happy-ending book, but it wasn't pure tragedy, either. It really lacked a catharsis, actually (a death made me cry . . . that's usually a good sign there isn't one, lol . . . ), but it had, well, a good point to it. Part of it really shook me . . . but thank God it wasn't over without reconcilation. *Phew* I hate it when books do that . . .
At any rate, as you can tell, by my glowing report, I really liked it, and it left me with a sort of flowing eloquence afterward running through my head . . . I love it when books do that. I haven't felt that since "Demien" by Hermann Hesse . . . I love it when the narrator has a voice that stirs you and makes you feel, afterward, lingering in their afterglow, eloquent yourself and capable of expressing all things . . .
. . . okay, so maybe that isn't the case, but I feel that way . . .
I am going to go take a shower and then write my own book (even though it's dangerous to write directly after reading something good; I develop a tendency to copy . . . oh, DAMN, Harry Potter is going to so set me off course, it always does, lol . . ) before that eloquence comes to pass, lol . . .
PS: I have "In the Hall of the Mountain King" as a ringtone on my cellphone. Call me, lol . . .
Obasan got a bit better, but I still can't help thinking most of its acclaim is merely in its revelation of an unpopularly-brought-up time in history. How the ending comes to pass makes it better, and it has some tying-up-sums-up bits . . . but I dunno . . .
I really liked "A Seperate Peace," though (if it isn't obvious by how quickly I read it, lol . . . ). At first, since it was at a boarding school, I kept attaching the two main characters to James Potter and Remus Lupin, because their personalities were similarly situated on the outside surface . . . but then it was weird because I started equating a lot of it to Alice and I, but neither one of us as particularly one character or the other, sort of switching back and forth. Maybe it was just a really good book about summing up friendship (you don't get many of those, purely on that . . . there was no romance at all, with anyone, in this), a really long-term, close one, particularly one with high emotions and lots of tension and sometimes even bitterness . . . I don't know, it was kind of odd . . . I can't really explain it . . . maybe you should read it, Alice, and see what you think . . .
The book cover said something about it showing "the darker side of adolescence" and creating a theme "deeper and bigger than evil itself"-- sort of equating an incident between the boys in the novel as an allegory for war in general (since it takes place in WWII), and it did a really good job with the parallel, but, once again, I don't think it was about "evil." The author himself referred only once to what could be "evil" as "an ignorance of the human heart"-- which is really much more believable . . . weakness, not evil. So I disagree with that reviewer, in that sense, lol . . . but you know me ^_^ Still, I liked how it was darker but still reconciled with the idea of optimism . . . it wasn't the typical happy-ending book, but it wasn't pure tragedy, either. It really lacked a catharsis, actually (a death made me cry . . . that's usually a good sign there isn't one, lol . . . ), but it had, well, a good point to it. Part of it really shook me . . . but thank God it wasn't over without reconcilation. *Phew* I hate it when books do that . . .
At any rate, as you can tell, by my glowing report, I really liked it, and it left me with a sort of flowing eloquence afterward running through my head . . . I love it when books do that. I haven't felt that since "Demien" by Hermann Hesse . . . I love it when the narrator has a voice that stirs you and makes you feel, afterward, lingering in their afterglow, eloquent yourself and capable of expressing all things . . .
. . . okay, so maybe that isn't the case, but I feel that way . . .
I am going to go take a shower and then write my own book (even though it's dangerous to write directly after reading something good; I develop a tendency to copy . . . oh, DAMN, Harry Potter is going to so set me off course, it always does, lol . . ) before that eloquence comes to pass, lol . . .
PS: I have "In the Hall of the Mountain King" as a ringtone on my cellphone. Call me, lol . . .
