Friday, October 20, 2023
Finished reading Trust by Hernan Diaz. I took too long reading this that the next book which I bought together had turned a bit yellow waiting :( Trust is quite an interesting book. There are 4 sections in the book. The first section tells the story of a Wall Street rich man - his rise to acquire wealth, meeting his wife, their quirks, and it ended with how his life was after his wife died. It was quite tragic towards the end. The second section was like a draft for a biography. The names were different but some parts of the content were similar to the first section, so reading that was really weird - I was like what's going on?!? This draft painted a prettier picture of the life of another rich man. The third section was from the point of view of a writer who was tasked to help write the biography in section two and that's when I found out that the first section was a novel that the actual rich man hated because it was a fiction based on his lives and he wanted to set it straight by writing his own life story. His motivation was also to do justice for his wife which he felt had been dragged through the mud by the novel. The writer he tasked to help write this biography couldn't get a real sense of who the rich man was and even more so for his wife who had been dead and she never got to meet. She felt rather conflicted in helping to write the biography because it's like trying to paint a pretty picture that might not even be close to reality. At the end of this third section, long after the death of the rich man, the writer found a journal written by the wife during the last few months of her life and this was presented in the last section. The wife was so much more, so much than what the novel in the first section said about her and so much more than what the husband was willing to admit. According to the wife, she was influential in their business strategy and the reason for the extraordinary rise in wealth. She actually knew the writer of the novel, so that was interesting. I was really curious about their relationship, but this wasn't elaborated more. The title of Trust feels so apt for this book because which one it is that you want to trust of all these different narratives. Who you are, what you think you are, what people think you are, and sometime what we could admit of who we are can differ greatly. I guess you are many things. Overall very interesting book in terms of how it presents the story.
Another book that I also finished and took way too long was, 女のいない男たち or in English Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami. It took a long time to complete this because my Japanese is awful and I had to painstakingly google words or even sentences :( Got this book after I watched Drive My Car which won Best International Feature Film at the Oscar, the Oscar where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. I remember the director's acceptance speech was cut short by the music and yet Will Smith could speak for as long as he wanted despite of what he did. Anyways 女のいない男たち contains several short stories and some parts of it were used for Drive My Car. I can't say that I really like Drive My Car, it was quite a long movie and though the premise was perhaps quite interesting, in the end I just wasn't into it. An interesting thing about Drive My Car was that the main character was a play director and the plays he directed are very interesting in its presentation because the actors could come from different countries and they would perform their lines in their native languages. So the play is being presented in different languages and of course there's subtitle for the audience. I've never been to one of those so I thought it's very very interesting. I guess for the director and the actors who do not speak the languages of the other actors, you really rely on how you feel when those lines were spoken. Very interesting. As for 女のいない男たち, I also can't say I like it much. It was definitely a good exercise. When my Japanese was good enough to understand, I do appreciate some sentences that I thought was beautiful, but I'm just not into the stories. The short stories are from the point of view of men and it's about their relationship with women. The last story, Men Without Women, told a story of a man who received a telegram-like phone call in the middle of the night informing him that a woman he used to date killed herself. The caller was her husband. The story was then about this man's reflection, first why did the husband feel the need to call him, then about the woman, then about the saddest man in the world which he concluded was the man without a woman. He thought that when you lose the one woman you love, it's like you lose all women. He thought he's actually the second saddest man, the first was the husband. Again my Japanese might be so bad that I may misunderstood this completely. In this story also the part that I thought actually was the biggest revelation was the fact this woman was the third woman he dated that killed herself. I was re-reading this part over and over to make sure I get it correct and I think I got it correct. I think this part is actually the one that might be more interesting to explore.
As for films that I've watched. I've really been watching Italian and French movies on Saturdays. It is very possible that I don't have taste that I can't say that I enjoyed some of the things I watched even though they won awards. I mean I can see why the movie would be critically acclaimed, but I just wasn't feeling it. I can only recommend one that I watched sometime ago, the french animation film J'ai Perdu Mon Corps / I Lost My Body. It was really good. The film opens with a severed hand escaping the medical facility it's in. Knowing the title, I kept on thinking this is going to be bad, we're on a quest to find a dead body or more severed body parts, but how the story unfold defies what I thought and it's really good. You know throughout this exercise of exposing myself to these different languagues, I think I'm best in Italian though by best I would still say it's bad and my French and Japanese are kinda shameful :( Part of it is I guess in French and Japanese many times I couldn't differentiate sound, some words just sound the same but they mean different. Japanese is even harder for me, I think I cannot stop reading because whatever little Kanji I know will just go away. I found a book of short stories in the library, at least that's what I think it is. It has illustration in it so I'm quite excited to read it.
As for things in English - you know I watched every iteration of The Walking Dead, except for the webisodes. It's a lot following all these different people and their stories but somehow I can't stop. The latest iteration is The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon or I like to term it as the French Walking Dead and I have to say it's quite good. Quite interesting to see Daryl on its own. I was one of those people who got disappointed when it was reported that Carol in the end was not joining this new iteration but she's coming in season 2, so I really look forward to that. I do get tired watching the latest season of The Morning Show though. I wish I can quit it, but it's like once I started something I have to finish it. I kinda can see the charm of Jon Hamm here; I wasn't captivated by him in Mad Men. Then to clear my head before I embark on more serious stuff, I finished watching The Lovers which was cute and Modern Love season 2 which I think might be better than season 1. Kit Harrington starred in one of the episode and he actually could be quite funny. It's nice seeing this side of him rather than the downcast Jon Snow. I also managed to watch The Creator in a big cinema with only 3 people watching. Well it was a weekday morning. I thought it wasn't bad though I started to yawn a lot. Been having days where I couldn't sleep and restless nights. Anyways, it's always good to hear something of Indonesia, there were old Indonesian songs playing and one of the line was in Indonesian. I think it's Indonesian not Malay, because of the pronunciation of Joshua :D
As for life, oh dear, the usual anxiety. It's a lot. One time I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep and all the bad thoughts raced in my head and I thought why do I torture myself like this. It's this time next year when we're going to freak out especially if I'm still the same. So right now it's the good time, the no worry part. It is so sad really that I couldn't just enjoy this time. I'm just so scared. It's the fear of not knowing how to do life :( On top of that are things changing without my control and I have to just deal with it. I'm trying to hang on, but it's like being tossed by invisible waves that's probably not real, just a creation of my head :( I'm trying really, I'm trying to be cool but it's just too fast how the anxiety creeps up uncontrollably and engulfs me :( Even though recently I received some heavenly affirmation of do not fear at the present, I still have a lot of worry *sigh* Alright, gonna stop now. Going home for a few days next month where I intend to just sit, watch more TV, and eat.
:) eKa @ 8:50:00 PM • 0 comments
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