Shoes at the Door

Category: Books

  • Let’s Go!

    Let’s Go!

    I have the semi irregular tradition of listening to DePaPepe the Japanese acoustic guitar duo while reading 100 years of solitude. It’s a good tradition and it reminds me of spring in Japan cherry blossoms warmish weather green trees busy streets and the beautiful city skylines. Man, what a great memory. Like Saturday afternoon Fox movies. Something warm and good from childhood. Essentially, you know that’s what I think about when I listen to DaPaPePe’s album Let’s Go while reading 100 years of solitude in the spring.

    spring or summer.

    It makes me think about spring in Hirakata at the Tsutaya bookstore sitting in the back by a window reading, which is interesting because you know when you kinda have nostalgia for a time and place, but you were reading a book about nostalgia about a time and place There’s a kind of circular literary satisfaction that makes the tradition pleasurable. I also enjoyed the kind of pureness and the great mixes in the audio of the DePaPePe songs, the simplicity of the guitars yet the stories and drive of the music make for a really good experience and reminds me a lot of when I used to play guitar in high school in college.

    It takes me back to another time when you know, I guess one memory leads to another sometimes they’re just kind of a chain reaction of thought and this memory is a good memory because it makes me think about another good memory of eating lunch at Kansai Gaidai with Scott and Thomas and Rye and Bryan and Rebecca and Levi, Brack and Chris and yeah it makes me think about eating rice balls at the Kansai Gaidai cafeteria with the little chicken nugget inside the rice ball wrapped in a piece of seaweed so there is sort of this cyclical nostalgic weaving that’s going on that I guess is pretty well illustrated in 100 years of solitude and for me it’s wrapped up in this Spring weather sunny day guitar playing listening to DePaPePe music.

  • Have You Ever Been Handed a Wet Towel and Gone, “Arrggghhh!”?

    Have You Ever Been Handed a Wet Towel and Gone, “Arrggghhh!”?

    Well, Dr. Mitsuo Ando has.

    I finally finished reading Spiral, the second novel in Koji Suzuki’s Ring trilogy at around 5:50 p.m. yesterday, and if you’ve read that book before, you know that it leaves you with something. But it’s not time to say exactly what that something is, yet. I’ll first have to read the last book in the series before I try and articulate any thoughts, but I suspect that the end of the second book might be trying to leave me in a similar place as the end of the first book. Asakawa was wrong. Now, how about Ando?

    You really have to love that towel scene. I’ll never forget it.

    But I think I can say without spoiling anything that one of the most interesting things about the sequel to Ring is the fact that it mentions the Ring movie and the Ring video game within its own universe. It also mentions why the movie and the game must be different from the book! Say what you want the series’ perspective, but I can’t remember the last time I encountered something so incredibly clever.

    Speaking of such, the title of this blog post has gotten a little too clever. It started out in my first post as a Hot Fuzz reference that Dr. Ando has unwittingly completed. Well, I’m not done with it yet, but this is probably the last time I’ll mention it.

    So, to me, Spiral answers the question that this video most certainly imparts to the viewer as, “What’s with all this wacky different Ring stuff?” For years, I’ve wondered how someone might explain what I call the Rashomon aspect of Japanese media. We have all seen how different video games, manga, and anime will have different sequels and spinoffs that, to the Western mind, disrespect the original cannon. However, this particular criticism seems to be an imposition of the West, demanding something of Japanese culture with which its people have no interest in producing. It is also worth noting that this sort of story variation was also popular in the West, during what is commonly referred to as the “silver age of comic books.”

    Perhaps a better question, then, is, “Why are we demanding canonicity now?”

    Was Ryuji right? Are we being pulled apart, with one pole being an innate desire for conformity and the other being the unequivocal human dilemma of boredom? Is this the tension that drives humanity forward? Carrying with it the unasked, but unavoidable question left hanging at the end of the spiral: Why now?

    But as for Grimbeard, not now. He’ll get his own post later.

    Maybe it was that thing Sadako’s mother found in the water.

  • Did You Ever See a Weird-Looking Robot c. 1987… ?

    Did You Ever See a Weird-Looking Robot c. 1987… ?

    I recently finished reading Michael A. Stackpole’s Warrior trilogy for the BattleTech tabletop and roleplaying games launched by the Fasa corporation all the way back in 1984. Though Wikipedia says that this is not the first trilogy written for the tabletop universe, some of my own research into the publication of these books renders their dates somewhat dubious. At any rate, these books were the first to move the entire plot of the franchise universe forward in its chronological time-space, which makes them more of an interesting read than you might think. For other tactical tabletop and roleplaying games such as Warhammer and War Machine, the source books and campaign books usually carry that load. But here, you get an entirely fleshed out story of the warring dynasties of the great houses that rule the various successor states vying for control of the galaxy. This means that the events in the book actually change the state of the universe you might be playing your game in! I thought that by showing you all the covers created for the various reprints over the years might help you appreciate how many people have been interested in this science fiction epic, even beyond its original tabletop context. The original printing doesn’t even have Battle-Mechs on the cover!

    Another reason I might be interested in recommending these books to an interested reader has to do with the framework of the story. Stackpole tells the story of several warring dynasties by shifting narrative perspectives between individuals and families in various settings ranging from the battlefield to the bedchamber. Sound familiar? And this was written quite a handful of years before George Martin supposedly started writing A Song of Ice and Fire. That doesn’t mean that Stackpole originated this style, but while reading, I definitely experienced a sense of pace and perspective that was incredibly reminiscent of watching the Game of Thrones TV show. And though the political intrigues and power strategies perpetrated by the various noble houses play center stage in the BattleTech novels, fans of Martin and GoT may find Stackpole’s novels lacking at the near absence of bombastic soap opera twists and minimal portrayal of the depths of human depravity.

    But while the books may be fascinating within their own time and place, they are not for everyone. While Stackpole had been writing for some time, these are his first novels. And while nothing about them seems amateurish, I found some parts of the storyline to be rather dry and to drag on at what felt like a slow pace. Also, I did not find all of the human relationships, as well as the dialogue sinewing those relationships, to be totally convincing. Nothing about the characters or their actions and motivations feel inhuman, but a practiced hand, deft at subtly illustrating the intricacies of the human heart was noticeably absent at some key moments. Also, much of the ‘Mech combat seemed to take a back seat to the greater story. I didn’t mind this, but I would expect depictions of three-story robot warriors battling to the death to be a little more colorful. On a side note, the books have a very 1980s take on Japanese culture, and I absolutely love it.

    All told, I would recommend Stackpole’s Warrior trilogy to anyone who can handle some dry writing and might be interested in BattleTech’s richly intriguing world of a post-shattered galaxy federation filled with warring dynasties, noble family discord, political intrigue, espionage, assassination, honor, betrayal, and, of course, giant curb-stomping robots.

  • Currently Reading

    Currently Reading

    The City and Its Uncertain Walls – Haven’t read a Murakami book in a while. After reading a lot of his short stories recently it will be a fun change of pace.

    The Name of the Wind – Trying a new fantasy.

    100 Years of Solitude – I reread it every few years. It’s especially fun to read to Depapepe songs like I initially did inside Tsutaya in 2006.