Hello everyone, long time no see. It’s been a wild two months since I last posted here; I was busy moving to another country (yikes), figuring out where I want to continue with the rest of my life (also yikes), traveling around, and flying for more than 24 hours in a row. You will definitely be able to see that in the movies that I was able to watch (lot’s and lot’s of movies that I have seen on the airplane). In fact, because I saw so many films, July is going to be split into two parts, so keep an eye out for part two! I'll probably be posting soon.
So anyway, let’s start with the books. I read a few books that I want to talk about from June, but the majority of the books that I’m going to be writing about here are books that I read in July. There will also be no spoilers (yay). So, without further ado:
June 27th, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Wow. So. This book. It’s hard to be able to put into words exactly what this book did to me because wow. I was so impacted by this book that I literally started to read fanfiction for this book and started writing my own fanfiction (don’t tell anyone else about this) for it. I swear, this book will be the death of me.
Essentially, this book is about the story of Mr. Stevens, a butler, and his struggle with what he thinks is ‘dignity’ and his personal happiness. That’s all I can really say without spoiling the story, but oh my god, if I wasn’t sure before, now I am a hundred percent sure that Kazuo Ishiguro is my favorite author of all time. I loved The Buried Giant, thought Never Let Me Go was okay, and this book has now completely made me a die-hard fan.
I will say, though, that the beginning of this book, before you actually start to realize the consequences of Mr. Stevens’ obsession with his dignity and abilities as a butler, is pretty slow. Unless you like to read long, meandering contemplations of what it means to be a butler, I doubt you’ll enjoy the beginning of the book either. But because so much of the book is Mr. Stevens narrating his thoughts, you start to gobble up any interaction he has with other people, and that’s when you start picking up the signs. I won’t say more, I don’t want to spoil this book because it’s the ending that hits you the hardest here, but once you start picking up the little hints of what is to come in the book, you’re really going to be unable to put the book down.
In summation: READ IT.
June 28th, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
(You can kind of tell I read both of these on the plane from the pictures. Ignore that.)
I know this is technically a novella, but something happened after I read it that really resonated with me and so I want to be able to talk about that, which is why I’ve included it in the books that I’ve read in the June section. My friend got me this for my birthday, and it’s very short, short enough to finish in 45 minutes.
The story is about Ivan Ilyich, who is dying, and the people around him who basically just accept that it’s time for him to die because he’s been dying for a long time. That’s the gist of the entire story.
Honestly, I didn’t enjoy this book much while I was reading it. To begin with, the story is boring. The story just isn’t the most fun to read, because it’s entirely just the man contemplating death until he dies. Plus, the story is short, and there really isn’t anything for you to be surprised by. But then I had a conversation with a friend of mine, and she told me about her grandmother who died and how she didn’t feel much when her grandmother died because they simply weren’t close. Death really is something that you can’t make people change for. So even though I don’t think this is my favorite book ever, I do think that this is a book that everyone who can should definitely read. It definitely gave me some perspective on death, at least.
July 6th, The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
I think this book is a lot more popular amongst even people who don’t read books a lot (thanks, Disney), so I’ll keep the summary short. Basically, this is the story of a hunchback, a gypsy named Esmeralda, and Frollo. I don’t remember his exact title, but he’s a religious man, which tells you all you need to know about him.
The book itself was fine. I know people might want to murder me if I give this any less than a sterling review, but the truth of the matter is I didn’t like this book as much as I had hoped to. I did appreciate the fact that there were no good characters (Esmerelda is stupidly a damsel-in-distress, Frollo has love and compassion but he’s also an obsessive monster, and Quasimodo, well, he’s just a big pile of love wrapped in a whole lot of violence). No one is really the good guy here, and no one is really the bad. I mean, society is bad, but that’s not really a person. It’s more about the interactions between people and the undertones of what it means to be human. So did I enjoy this book? Not as much as I had wanted to. Do I understand why it’s part of the literature canon in the West? Yeah. I think it would be hard not to understand.
So in summation. If you like reading hardcore lit, I would recommend this. If you want to seem cultured and sophisticated, I would also recommend this. If you’re just reading for fun, I would tell you to stay away from this book.
July 26th, The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters
After all of that hardcore lit, I decided to read something fun. Hence, The River Has Teeth, by Erica Waters. This book is essentially the story of two girls, one of whom has magic, the other of whom has anger, and the story of the two of them figuring out who is the serial killer that has been rampaging in their town.
I enjoyed this book. It’s a page-turner, doesn’t have much substance, but is a fun read and is perfect for when you still can’t bring yourself to get into another piece of heavy literature. I did love many of the themes of this book, and as a bi girly I did enjoy the way that every single character in this book is in one way or another either part of the queer community or an ally. On the other hand, the topics that it did try to touch on (the idea of the ‘perfect victim’, adoption, race, class) didn’t really go that deep, and so at the end of the day it read a bit like the author telling, rather than showing, the readers her opinions on certain topics. So I have to say, not my favorite YA book in a long shot.
I didn’t watch any shows in July. I did start the show called Durian’s Affair, which is a K-drama about two women who find themselves entangled in a love affair after they travel to the future, but the only reason why I’m watching it is for the very, very sidelined plot of one of the female characters falling in love with her mother-in-law. I skip all of the main plot so I can watch the two of them, so I can’t really say I’ve watched the whole show. No regrets, though, Se-mi and Do-yi for the win!!!!!
I did, however, watch a whole lot of movies, but I think I’ll focus on that here in the next post. I won’t bore you all with the details of my very, very obsessive relationship with Se-mi and Do-yi in Durian’s Affair.
Keep an eye out for a part two for what I watched on film in July! And happy Tuesday and August!!
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