Recommended and borrowed by J. He warns of cheese beforehand, but that it has its good moments. That’s pretty much the most accurate summary I can come up with. It’s quintessentially Singaporean – the best parts of it. We thrive in the cheesy, the nostalgic, toe-ing the line of tacky (stay within it and we’re safe). Teenage Textbook is your JC puppy love condensed into a slim one-sitting novel. The style is tongue-in-cheek, stripped of its pretension. Think of it as an exceptionally compelling series of Dad Jokes. The gems are aplenty, humour is consistent throughout the novel (approx. 4 per page if you’re curious).
Beyond the funnies, this is all in all well-written. A good dose of meta, helmed in smoothly because of how the book is structured. Which brings me to how it’s structured: interspersed with excerpts of the actual Teenage Textbook. I have to applaud Adrian Tan for his effort: the Textbook bits were unnecessary but thoroughly enjoyable breaks. Just bask in Tan’s wit and sometimes attempt-wit, also the retrospectively hilarious 1980s-ish fashion/dating advice.
The nostalgia. I’d think a novel so heavily creamed with slapstick (plus of course written > 2 decades ago) wouldn’t be very relatable to me, but nope. Still evoked that hazy, pleasant, carefree JC daydreams. I was especially touched by the references to curry puffs, which for some reason seems to resonate with all Singaporeans with fond memories in school canteens. Anyway.
Teenage Textbook is perfect for anyone who’s greedy for several elements at once 1) light-heartedness, 2) indulgent feel-good, 3) clever narrative, 4) something to prepare you for that nostalgic SG50 trip. In fact yes, I think TT is just right for 2015. I wish more local writers would be fearless enough to try something other than hipster/wispy, or rid of the compulsion for explicit, literary ~depth. Sometimes all we need is some good, conscious writing rooted in everyday life. And everyday life is more of a comedy than deep rumination tbh.
There is so much to go in-depth about for a review, but to do it justice i’d need to spend way more time than i can afford now with work. Essentially, it’s amazing and everyone should give it a try.
1. I don’t know why i started.
Throughout the first episode i kept asking myself: “Why am i watching this?” Not because it was bad, but… it just didn’t seem like something i’d watch. The premise is as distilled as it can be: man arrives in town and corrupts other man. Small town cop investigates. The best i can do with categorizing it is dark comedy. By the first episode, i still had no idea what i was into – but damn was i hooked.
2. It’s just… good.
It’s difficult to pinpoint why exactly, because every element is perfectly crafted then melded together into an impeccable series. The acting – Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton, Colin Hanks, Allison Tolman. There is literally no attractive person on the cast, male or female. By attractive i mean Hollywood attractive. NONE. Except maybe Collin Hanks, he is strangely appealing. Shut up.
That is just so rare in any show? They’d always have at least a token hot girl. But no Fargo doesn’t give a shit. Everyone is as they are, like in real life. Acting is top-notch from everyone: the chilling Billy Bob Thornton, and special mention to Martin Freeman.
FREEMAN you beautiful human being. As if being an excellent Watson isn’t enough. Here he is as Lester, his Minnesotan accent fucking spot-on; the transition of him from awkward to angry believable and stunning. He has such unassuming control over his self; i can only describe his success in acting as not being over. His eyes when he *spoiler* sends Linda to her death for his sake, i went breathless and had to watch it several times, just reveling in that moment of acting that transcends fiction and becomes fucking art.
3. The script is genius.
This is a series to be re-watched, because there are just too many moments of discreet humor along with the more direct ones. It’s a kind of funny that seamlessly weaves into the dialogue and plot, the kind of humor that punctuate our daily lives. It is unpretentious and natural, and thoroughly enjoyable. You get the kind of rush when you share an inside joke; also you’ll feel smart because their jokes aren’t cheap.
There are also gems of genius in the writing i can’t quite describe. They grab you and tease you, then before you know it surprise you. *Spoiler* I was especially taken by the scene where Malvo follows Gus home, the neighbor who had shared a midnight cuppa with Gus went up to Malvo and hissed “you’re not supposed to be here.”
At this point we’re aware of Malv’s manipulative ways and resourcefulness. I just know the scriptwriters were attempting to make us infer neighbor is involved with Malvo. They quickly let us know it’s not true though, but still – that tiny little audience manipulation to let you know they care. Brilliant.
Also, the beautiful fucking cinematics. I apologize for all the swearing in here, my love for Fargo is tapping into that. It’s like Wes Anderson without being pretentious.
Began and finished Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting today.
It was the kind of book that even while reading it i understood it had a genius significant beyond present engagement; the kind i itched to write about after to make sense of just why it is so good.
It had the eclectic premises i so loved from George Saunders: to address overpopulation, all people had to host another organism on their bodies, a women chose to have an ant colony drilled into her bones – she is later consumed and becomes one with the herd; A porn star sits through a eat-all contest, she is to have anal sex in space with the winner; A mortician smokes the hair of corpses and hallucinates their memories.
She does this with a startling clarity of unorthodox metaphor, and just the right amount of epigrams. Even the prose was reminiscent of Saunders at his best: concise, unpretentious, in your point – but so cleverly delivered.
Probably the insight i’ve most gratefully plucked from Nutting’s work, though, is that the best satire does not take a stand. ‘Teenager’ finds the frighteningly casual take of a young girl on sex and her abortion. Nutting frees herself from the onus of criticism – she merely portrays the characters as they are: bored, flippant. If any judgements were made, other roles did so on her behalf.
The pre-abortion counselor takes on the role of adult, of conservative persecutor: “It’s hard to understand the concept of something being permanent,” she says of abortion. “Having a baby is just as permanent as not having a baby,” retorts our protagonist.
There is truth in what the teenager said. There is also something vaguely self-righteous and therefore annoying about the counsellor. At the same time there is a disturbing, detached cruelty shading the teen that we cannot shake off. She says of giving birth:
Vaginal elasticity is a secondary concern […] My vag must stay like the glove in the infamous OJ Simplson trial: too small to fit unless the wearer really, really wants it to.
We’re forced to think for ourselves, make the call on what we think is right – or realize that there is no right/wrong dichotomy.
Later, she filches her grandmother’s (on the brink of death and speech-device ala Hawkings) credit card to pay for the abortion. At the juncture between with-fetus and near-death she observes
It is so gross how we are born and so gross how we die.
There is something striking how simply Nutting has laid out this fact, as if we are for the first time having a truth brought into sharp focus. Like it has always been there, its truthfulness never verified nor denied, but just there – and then all of a sudden pulled inwards from our peripheral vision.
Another merit is Nutting’s chameleon-like abilities with perspective taking. She shape-shifts from laughable self-deceiving gullibility to resigned, precocious, apathetic, desperate.
My favorite character of hers was probably that of the porn star. We know little of her but her current thoughts. I found it especially poignant in the small way she enjoyed being a formless, androgynous figure when slipped into the space suit. She has a quiet desire that we are given just the bare crumbs of, making her a mystery. As the man enters her anally in space, she thinks:
I feel fine but also very strange, looking at the world and its distance. I feel its weight in my stomach like a pregnancy, like an old meal. When I want to, I cover up the Earth and its oceans with my hand, and then even with the cameras it seems like no one can see me.
There is something so sad but so hopeful contained in a single imagery, and it is such a perfect imagery precisely because it evokes a shade that i cannot explicate in words.
Another, less elusive one, that got me:
My phone is a tightly shut clam and all the badness that happened inside is going to irritate itself into a pearl.
In ‘Teenager’, in the moment of teenage life gone to shit. Drawing back from more incomprehensible feelings we get the one almost everyone has experienced. The moment of dread and thrill when we’re swimming in drama and are just waiting for the shit-storm to stir and settle before we tentatively step back to reveal the collateral damage.
Very much in love with this and am hoping Alissa Nutting has written more.
My greatest literary weakness is for twisted characters – humans innately drawn to cruelty but free from circumstantial stimuli and narrative judgment. No group of writers does this better than Japanese authors. Reading Yoko Ogawa’s The Diving Pool has deeply satiated my need for raw human darkness. It renders her other more renowned (translated) work, Housekeeper and the Professor, positively tame. I can’t reconcile the fact that the two pieces once resided so intimately within the same mind.
Ogawa, in The Diving Pool, brings cruelty to its extreme – nonchalant, matter-of-fact, and entirely internally driven, the protagonist finds deep pleasure in her private torment of a young toddler.
I wanted to savor every one of Rie’s tears, to run my tongue over the damp, festering, vulnerable places in her heart and open the wounds even wider.
What fascinates me is how non-violent her cruelty was: hiding, leaving the child to find herself alone; lowering the child harmlessly into an urn. These acts are almost childish or innocent in its simplicity. No blood was shed, no pain inflicted, yet the motive to upset was so sparklingly clear. It is how real, how plausible these acts are to us that draws me in.
I refuse to believe that there isn’t a tiny but fully alive mass in us – cushioned and curtained between fear, between conscience – that strains to test the power we have over the vulnerable. There is something about how children fall into our trust so wholeheartedly and confidently that nudges our curiosity, our need to exploit it. It’s in everyone, regardless of whether or not it’s acted upon. Ogawa parcels it neatly in a single line:
The arrogance of Rie’s self-assurance restored my cruel thoughts.
I’ll never bear to intentionally hurt a child. I’m the kind of person who spirals into obsessive panic when a child (any child) bumps against something (usually the floor). But it doesn’t preclude me from understanding (or even having) such dark thoughts. It’s an unpopular opinion, sure, but darkness is in everyone. It can be overshadowed, or completely under the control of our conscience, but it’s a basal characteristic. What I love about Japanese fiction is their understanding, and complete acceptance, of this innate cruelty.
My desires seemed simple and terribly complicated at the same time: to gaze at Jun’s wet body and to make Rie cry.
Here lies a beautiful juxtaposition, the equally intense desire for the external, the aesthetic, the perfect, against the internal, the dark and the hidden hideousness. Ogawa crafts a protagonists without the fuss and fancy of societally constructed moral fear, choosing to present one whose needs are laid out bright as day before her.
The novella contains two other short stories. Both adequate, but if you’re not someone who can swallow blunt human cruelty and unresolved endings, steer clear of it. Personally very pleased with this read, though.
I suggest reading this at a go, on a sunny afternoon, listening to Orange Pekoe . The effect is stunning, if you like me have a thing for jarring contrasts.
I finally got around to Black Mirror’s 2014 Christmas special yesterday, after putting it off in my reluctance to clean Black Mirror off my to-watch dock. It was – if i were to be succinct than loyal – disappointing. First things: I’m very new to (and very much in love with!) the Black Mirror universe. In fact, i started it because the release of White Christmas rejuvenated its fan base. Series 1 & 2 was completed within two weeks, so my inclination to compare runs rather high.
Even as the weakest BM episode, it was engaging enough for > 1 hour to feel much shorter than it was. Again, the actors were on point; i do have a penchant for british actors – there’s always a faint shadow of stage in their performance, which appeals to my early years in theatre. Jon Hamm worked in contrast to the cast, especially in context of his character – more offhand and quick charm.
Also, not sure if it’s just me, but little segments (technology, songs, dialogue, plot) reminiscent of past episodes. Perhaps hidden tributes?
That’s pretty much all for that was commendable though. The most glaring of its faults was its over-dependence on thought experiments. In previous BM episodes, i gave full pardon for leaps of logic – because it was psychologically water-tight. Meaning, the episodes often sliced off a narrow piece of universe on which the premise is centered, without considering possible external factors, or how this might work in context of the actual world (e.g. crime logic in National Anthem? what does everyone else do? in 15 Million Credits, governmental intervention in White Bear?). BUT, the courses of action taken within that assumed universe followed its rules, and closely mimicked what anyone would do in the situation. Given that the premises are primarily thought experiments, the external world doesn’t play as crucial a role.
In White Christmas however, even within the given universe, the plot is sketchy. Firstly, surely the cookie cannot be seen as viable. It’s unlikely that humans, with so much fear and desire for self-preservation, would willingly allow a copy of the consciousness – even if it were code – to be imprisoned. Even more unlikely is that they would use the technology to force confessions out of lower level crimes. It could only imply that the technology is widespread and inexpensive. If it were, it suggests that there should be more sophisticated methods available that could extract a consciousness that coded pure informational memory, taking away the whole imprisoned consciousness! conundrum.
The concept of blocking someone could also have been polished. It’s strange that blocking constitutes of making another a huge, conspicuous, static mess who still makes rather loud – albeit muffled – sounds. Isn’t it way easier to tune out another human being than something so unnatural and obviously distinct from everyone else!?
Charlie Brooker wrote this episode, like he did the other amazing ones. I can only guess that the pressure of an 80 minutes episode forced his hand at expanding the scope of his new tech theme. In almost all episodes there was a tight and elaborated focus on one technology (social media, memory chips, dead people imitator); in White Christmas it took on both in-person blocking devices and the cookie extractor. Perhaps it was this that muddied his ability to troubleshoot the viability of his tech creations. The moral implications of both technologies were also pretty divergent, without ever converging to deliver a singular message as happened in all other BM episodes. Given that this is the main factor for BM’s success, i’d say White Christmas failed its predecessors.
The last gripe i have is its predictability, which was so, so deliciously absent in all other episodes. Every past episode shocked me in ways my new-media sensation-craving being yearned for (okay yes, i double checked, at least one satiating surprise in each). This episode, however, i knew the kid was Tim’s. Even more offensively is perhaps that Tim wasn’t a casual Asian seamlessly folded into the plot – he wasn’t even a bloody token Asian. HE WAS THERE BECAUSE HIS ETHNICITY PROVIDED A PLOT DEVICE. So we could have Potter immediately recognize the Asian child and realize she’s not his. So: predictable + Asian as convenient plot device otherwise would not have been Asian.
TLDR: I loved Black Mirror series 1 and 2, but was quite disappointed with the Christmas special.
Yesterday I was up till 3am reading this contemporary fiction. This is surprising because usually my off-switch is activated at 11pm, and I’d drift into unconsciousness by 12. I’m not sure if it’s a compelling novel, or if my coffee was too strong that morning – but anyway, I finally finished it today morning.
I have contradictory feelings on this one, summed up by my description of it as a family drama through and through. It engrosses you, but on a more basal than intellectual manner. It is akin to watching a Korean soap. You can’t stop because it spurs on feelings of injustice and morbid fascination we all face towards another family’s misfortune; but it so blatantly flouts literary rules and common sense, it’s hard to tout it as a work of genius.
Most glaringly, it fully exercises the Idiot Plot trope, which in – oh idk – EVERY SINGLE ASIAN DRAMA THERE IS. Seriously, each family member basically lived out extreme misery, inflicted upon one another, just because no one fucking tells each other anything. It’s difficult to sympathize with the characters when they could’ve prevented their predicament by simply saying, “I want to pursue a medical degree, can we find a way to do this?” instead of backing out of your children and husband’s lives soundlessly to re-enter school. I mean. Just.
The one redeeming hook of this novel, and which makes it a family drama at its very core, is the uninhibited use of pathos. Idiot Plot though it is, the family is driven straight into the cesspit of guilt and anger and loneliness – a wreck you cannot turn away from. It is also decently written, with all the tones of Jodi Picoult and assorted mainstream contemporary. Because I’m not a hipster, mainstream does not take on a negative connotation: it’s everything pretty and distilled, neat and sufficiently arousing to the very same emotions that compel housewives to soap operas.
It’s not that I’m a snob, but after sinking into the same contemporary narratives, I’m craving a little post-modern. Not in obnoxious amounts, but just something more offbeat and able to slice through thick indulgent pathos.
I read Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl on my phone, and was so obsessed with her writing i immediately tore through Dark Places and Sharp Objects. They were all fascinating reads, but in different ways. In Gone Girl, the cutting descriptions of love as it can be: cruel, sour, obsessive, was especially immersive. I found myself hoarding Diary Amy’s words – a fiction weaved within a fiction but almost embarrassingly real.
As a side note, underlying embarrassment should be what compels a writer’s subscription to Mary Sues: the inability to fully recognize or reveal themselves as flawed as they really are. Gillian Flynn’s characters are either superficially polished but severely messed up inside, or else rotten through and through (Dark Places). She doesn’t see the need for a redemptive theme, so eagerly pursued by many American authors (Good triumphs Evil! Bad situation lead to Personal Growth! etc.), which I love and is a feature of a great many Japanese novels.
Beyond the shedding of Mary Sue types, it occurred to me that the most subtle devices employed crafted the most believable characters. As opposed to telling me what or how the characters were, there were little irrelevant details Flynn intersperses into the text:
I take baths. Not showers. I can’t handle the spray, it gets my skin buzzing, like someone’s turned on a switch. So I wadded a flimsy motel towel over the grate in the shower floor, aimed the nozzle at the wall, and sat in the three inches of water that pooled in the stall. Someone else’s pubic hair floated by.
I’m not sure how this tells me something about the character, but it does. It fascinates me how writers can conjure up the most mundane, detailed aspects of everyday life. Is it something they think up on the whim, or an extract from their actual lives? I’d love to try incorporating it to my own writing.
This weekend, J and I both made rewarding entertainment choices. He bought Divinity: Original Sin, and promptly shed his worldly self and could only be found gleefully tweaking the stats of his in-game characters. GEEK. I’m no better: started on The Crimson Labyrinth by Yusuke Kishi and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. It has been a long time since i found myself willing and able to finish a novel within two sittings. We spent most of the day together but reading/gaming respectively, and it was rather late in the evening before we couldn’t ignore our hunger and wandered out to Nando’s for dinner (before rushing home to continue haha).
The Crimson Labyrinth was, simply put, an exciting book. It’s somewhat a cross between Battle Royale and Hunger Games, although i loathe to associate a good book with HG. I take it back, besides the broad premise, it is nothing like HG. Fujiki finds himself awake in a strange – almost alien – place, with only a GameBoy giving him vague hints of a game he seems to be in. Eventually he finds other participants, who like him seem unable to recall the immediate events preceding their awakening.
From there, it gets increasingly sinister. What i loved most about the novel is the way it unravels. It may not be brilliant stylistically, but does a neat job dishing out hints – just enough for to thrill, for the reader to feel like the hints were cleverly caught than served. There were also grotesque plot features that shocked enough to be fascinating: cannibalism, the devolution of humanity, all strung together in a stimulating pace.
It was so exhilarating, in fact, that J read the last parts with me. I must have looked very tense or disturbed, because he paused his game and made me read aloud. A few paragraphs in, he was hooked too. We read the last couple of chapters together. Midway through i was so eager to get ahead of the story i started speed-reading verbally… we ended up just sharing the book haha.
If you don’t mind a ***spoiler***, what i especially liked about was it’s departure from the ‘dystopian future’ easy route. It made references to very real events in contemporary history i.e. the Japanese economic bubble burst. Although elaborate and almost unfathomable, it appears that the entire ‘game’ was for an extreme snuff film, based on someone’s obsession to bring to life a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game existing in the market. So, unbelievable but fully plausible.
A strong plot without a distinctly brilliant style. For one, it’s translated, so i really can’t say for sure. Secondly, it didn’t need too stylistic a narration… it may even have detracted from the simple, clear presentation the plot details required. Either way, it was a direct juxtaposition to the book i read right before it: Anne Enright’s The Portable Virgin.
This is an example of postmodern gone awry. Although pretty, it is a hollow glass vase. I was so drawn to its minimalist aesthetics in the first few pages, that i decided to give it a chance despite prior warnings. It’s the literature version of the emperor’s new clothes, you tell yourself that unlike others, you ‘get it’. But there really is nothing to get. I give up.
The short stories in this collection get exponentially more fragmented and meaningless, and not even in a good way. Its only saving graces are images, striking and sublime. The Portable Virgin was more a viewing gallery in words than literature. It describes casual sex with a baker found at a bar:
“…(he) sort of dodged in, like I was an alley on the way to school. I didn’t know whether he had come, or a picture had slipped on the wall… True love.”
Holidays bloat up my recreational activities. Unable to walk for long distances or take jogs this time round, i’ve succumbed to the slothful activities of reading and watching shows and snacking in bed. I haven’t been able to find really good books recently, and my reading list is pitiful relative to last holiday’s. But still. A short run through of this season’s hits and misses, will probably do a more in-depth recommendation later.
READS
HIT – Pastoralia by George Saunders
Pastoralia is a compilation of Saunders’ short stories. This is breathtakingly masterful writing. The premise itself is novel: think a displaced time and space where things work differently, but not impossibly so. Pastoralia, the cover story, is set in a museum where humans are made to live the life of people in different eras (protagonist a caveman) for the entertainment/pleasure of others. Simple enough, but Saunders method of unfolding the setting is absolute genius. I love most his relinquishing of explicit telling, and his expert narration of the protagonist’s throughts (it’s almost poetic). Also the irony that always follows behind his stories, sort of like a superior Catherine Lim without the pompous use of language. In fact that’s a better analogy than i thought: most of their stories slant towards social critique.
I can go on and on about Saunders, but not for this post. I’ll read more of his works before recommending them all at a go. So far i’ve only read Semplica Girl Diaries and Pastoralia.
MISS – For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
This was extremely disappointing because 1) it had rave reviews 2) JAPANESE AUTHOR. I usually love their work! But i guess my benign racist generalization backfired. I didn’t like how self-conscious and self-referential Ozeki was. It was too indulgent and explicit, leaving a squeamish, awkward aftertaste when reading. Ozeki was trying too hard to highlight Japanese elements (i should have seen it coming… Zen Buddhist nun, Hello Kitty lunchbox, Japanese tsunami….)
I guess what i love about Japanese novels that i love is their embodiment of the Japanese wabi sabi spirit. A distilled, quiet, intense but controlled aesthetics in writing and telling. Ozeki violates this on all fronts. It screams: I AM JAPANESE LOOK AT MY OTAKU HELLO KITTY MAID CAFE ZEN ZEN. Frankly i found it very offensive. This book made me very angry.
SEMI-MISS – One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes LENGTHY novels. Not Harry Potter action-packed lengthy, but ‘i am going to retell decades of their lives’ lengthy. I read Love in the Time of Cholera, and loved it, lengthiness and all. This one stretched my patience by spanning seven generations. I had trouble keeping up with the new people with similar names, which kind of disrupted the flow of reading for me. I only have my own inadequacy to blame here, therefore the semi-miss. To be fair, the first half of the book before the characters started inter-breeding, dying, and spawning, was very captivating – in the typical GGM way.
I’d say this was still a good book overall, but a challenging one to read.
EATS:
HIT – Snickerdoodle Snackimals!!!
CINNAMON COOKIE GOODNESS. And the best part??? ORGANIC GLUTEN-FREE SUPER HEALTHY! To be honest i have no idea what gluten-free or organic really means, except that it’s more expensive. But this one does taste much more wholesome (but just as yummy) than other cookies in the market, and they are in tiny bite-sized pieces. This means you don’t get that sick buttery jelat feel and can probably finish the entire (quite huge) pack in a day.
ALSO THEY COME IN ANIMAL SHAPES. What is there not to love!? Only drawback: VERY ADDICTIVE.
MISS – Peanut Butter Snackimals
You’d think no one can screw up PB, but they did. Following the success that was Snickerdoodles, i got a pack of PB. It was flat and crispy, tasting vaguely like salty chips? Eugh. Anyone wants i will give away mine.
TV:
HIT – Legend of Zhen Huan / Empresses in the Palace / Zhen Huan Zhuan
Started watching this on Kejun’s recommendation. Up to Episode 30 right now, so yes – definitely addicted. This is available HD on YouTube! Yeah okay everyone mocks me for watching something so cheena, but MOCK ALL YOU WANT. It is worth it! The intelligent well-written script in all its superb subtlety and nuances, SO INCREDIBLE. The plot also avoids the pitfalls of predictability just to please the crowd… it portrays human desires and failings very, very truthfully. Usually i shun away from shows where tragedies occur, because my weak heart cannot take it. But this one – you can’t stop. THINGS – BLOODY AND HEART-BREAKING THINGS HAPPEN. BUT IT IS SO GOOD YOU WATCH IT AND TAKE IT – HEARTBREAK AND ALL.
Songs:
HIT – STRFCKR’s older albums
Recently i re-listened to Starfucker’s earlier works in a bout of nostalgia. Introduced it to Justin, who can be quite stingy with his music preferences. He approved of it! So it must be pretty good… not that i didn’t know that already. I’m nostalgic for the all the good earlier works of my favorite bands. Is it bad that i avoid listening to their new pieces, because i’m afraid of disappointment?
That’s all for now. OH and also i’d be watching Inside Llewyn Davis soon.
HIT – Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack
Some movies are made pretty good by virtue of their soundtrack. Garden State was one of them. Hopefully Llewyn Davis too. xx
From there, it gets increasingly sinister. What i loved most about the novel is the way it unravels. It may not be brilliant stylistically, but does a neat job dishing out hints – just enough for to thrill, for the reader to feel like the hints were cleverly caught than served. There were also grotesque plot features that shocked enough to be fascinating: cannibalism, the devolution of humanity, all strung together in a stimulating pace.
Q 