All Consuming : Christopher

Consumed "Never Learn Anything From History"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:12:29 GMT

Never Learn Anything From History

by Kate Beaton

WORTH IT!

Consumed "Anyone here been raped and speaks English?: A foreign correspondent's life behind the lines"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:07:54 GMT

Anyone here been raped and speaks English?: A foreign correspondent's life behind the lines

by Edward Behr

WORTH IT!

A story about "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 06:48:17 GMT

What the Bleep Do We Know!?

by William Arntz

I know I’m going to sound like an old man, but what a bunch of claptrap. There’s nothing I can add to what’s been said below except my almost complete dissatisfaction and boredom with the movie. Tiresome.

A story about "Walsh"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 07:00:03 GMT

Walsh

by Sharon Pollock

I first heard about this book in an English class in high school, but even though I got a copy of it we never covered it, so I didn’t bother picking it up. I wonder what I would have thought about it if I had. Sharon Pollock is a really interesting Canadian playwright; she writes about events in Canadian history that are often skipped over or left unsaid, but she doesn’t write theatre that really really compels me. That being said, I found Walsh both moving and difficult. It’s a story about the North West Mounted Police Chief in Western Canada in the late 1800s who Sitting Bull came to when he and the rest of the Sioux in the United States fled north to avoid being wiped out by the Americans after Little Bighorn. It’s difficult because it plays with your morality, your sense of right and wrong, and whether justice even exists. It’s moving because it’s human. Walsh is every one of us. Every one.

A story about "Half of a Yellow Sun"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 06:28:59 GMT

Half of a Yellow Sun

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I forgot this wasn’t out in paperback yet. An expensive choice for a book club, let me tell you.

A story about "Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner: The Fast Runner : Inspired by a Traditional Inuit Legend of Igloolik"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:07:49 GMT

Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner: The Fast Runner : Inspired by a Traditional Inuit Legend of Igloolik

by Paul Apak Angilirq

The director is actually Zacharias Kunuk, and I found this movie hard to get into, harder than The Journals of Knud Rasmussen anyway. Probably just because I’m a southerner. All I can remember about this movie is this image of him running naked across the snow… or ice?

Wait…damn, this is a book, isn’t it?

A story about "Like Water for Chocolate"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 16:38:39 GMT

Like Water for Chocolate

by Alfonso Arau

This is an abominable adaptation of a breathtaking book. For a novel written through the language of love, and sex, and sensuality, and most of all through food, the movie is insultingly prosaic, as bland as dried-out white rice, and as devoid of any emotionality as… well, as Stephen Harper. I don’t know if it’s possible to translate magic realism onto film, but if there’s a way, this certainly isn’t it.

A story about "China's Water Crisis (Voices of Asia)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:23:24 GMT

China's Water Crisis (Voices of Asia)

by Jun Ma

I haven’t read this yet, but the picture is totally wrong.

A story about "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 03:02:37 GMT

One Hundred Years of Solitude

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Bizarrely, this book kept reminding me of Milan Kundera, who I was reading at the time by pure coincidence, and myself. Now, when I say it reminded me of myself, what I really mean is that as I was reading this book, it seemed to me that I knew what was going to happen next, even if I had no idea, because it seemed like something I could have been feverishly dreaming. The preoccupations with family, with the soul, with alchemy, with the unending cycles of human nature and of blood…

It’s like a hot, sticky room you think you can get out of, but everytime you open the door, you find yourself walking into the same place you just left. See if you can find out what the prophecy is for yourself. And see if the naming, the Aurelianos, the Arcadios, begins to make sense to you. It is a mad, wondrous strange, beautiful novel.

A story about "What We All Long For"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 04:40:07 GMT

What We All Long For

by Dionne Brand

This story is too drawn into itself. I couldn’t even finish it; after a hundred and fifty pages, nothing happened. Dionne Brand is first and foremost a poet I guess, and it really comes across in her meditations on these characters’ lives. Starts off electric but quickly slows down. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you reallllly love stories about Torontonians.

How "The Lovely Bones" changed my life

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:16:10 GMT

The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

After I read this book, I resolved never ever to read anything by Alice Sebold again.

This is a really terribly written novel. The concept is interesting, the main character is almost someone I could identify with, but the way it’s written is like cotton candy; it’s fluff, there’s no substance to the story and it seems sweet at the time but leaves a really awful aftertaste. There are very few books I have felt like I wasted my time reading, and some of my friends highly recommended I read The Lovely Bones, but it comes across something like a Readers Digest story expanded for YA publication; this would be fine, of course, if it didn’t try to pawn itself off as mature literature.

Really, read something by Yeats instead.

A story about "Autobiography of Red"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:06:34 GMT

Autobiography of Red

by Anne Carson

This book is like fragments, sketches, outlines of a love that runs rivulets and deep canyons through a red, red, life.

I fell in love with Herakles. I had my heart torn out with Geryon. Who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t want to see that volcano with him, who wouldn’t go to Buenos Aires to wrap yourself in echoes of that love, try to pick up scraps like torn fabric and sew it back together, and dive, and dive, and share the secret no one ever tells?

A story about "Gilead: A Novel"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 04:41:29 GMT

Gilead: A Novel

by Marilynne Robinson

I found this to be a very quiet, truthful novel. It’s a story about a father and a son, or perhaps a father and his father and a son, or perhaps the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. But it’s also about love.

The book is written as a letter, or a series of letters left behind by a reverand reaching eighty for his seven-year old son. There are many times when he seems to be quietly apologetic for ‘just not expecting’ him. There are so many things he wishes he could grow up with him and show him, so many quiet beauties in the world he wants his son to share. The way water shakes off leaves or dresses, the way afternoon light settles gently on tables…

And it is also a story about forgiveness. This novel came quite unexpectedly to me as an airport book (an instinct I always trust; I am convinced that any book I pick up in an airport will be worth reading). I gave a copy to my own father, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

It is sweet like a the kiss of a child.

A story about "Death of a Salesman"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 04:29:41 GMT

Death of a Salesman

by Arthur Miller

I can’t stand this play!

Yes, it’s worth reading, or much better, seeing, because it is a cornerstone of modern theatre. But I couldn’t bear watching these characters play out their hopeless lives. There are so many chances they had to change things for themselves, and they refused to take them! Willy Loman is a tragic figure, perhaps. But his tragedy is entirely and irritatingly avoidable. Come on, Biff! Change! Change! Do something with yourself!

Man oh man. This play makes me mad.

A story about "Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:22:15 GMT

Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel

by Jonathan Safran Foer

What does this remember like?

“In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”

- Milan Kundera, ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’

Why I recommend "Race Against Time (CBC Massey Lectures Series) (CBC Massey Lecture)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Mon, 29 May 2006 05:50:41 GMT

Race Against Time (CBC Massey Lectures Series) (CBC Massey Lecture)

by Stephen Lewis

Stephen Lewis is one of the Canadians that really makes me feel there is some good in this world. This book is a passionate plea to take up arms against a sea of indifference and apathy and a damning indictment of those who have sat by and allowed to AIDS crisis to reach pandemic proportions in Africa.

With quiet fortitude and ample reserves of compassion and fire, he wrote this book as a companion to the annual Massey Lecture series, of which he was last year’s speaker. It is heady at times, and he is wont to lapse into UN jargon from time to time, but he sets out simply and unflinchingly steps which must be immediately taken to head off the crisis and make education, women, children (especially those orphaned by the disease) and food uncompromising priorities. I challenge anyone to stand up and say neoliberal macroeconomic policies like structural adjustment are beneficial for developing countries after reading this book.

You will not be unmoved.

A story about "Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Tue, 23 May 2006 04:28:53 GMT

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

by Daniel Quinn

With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?

Or, the better question…

A story about "The Book of Shrigley"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Sun, 21 May 2006 07:14:11 GMT

The Book of Shrigley

by David Shrigley

This man… toes the fine line between insanity and genius. A very fine line.

A story about "Woman At Point Zero"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Fri, 19 May 2006 05:10:17 GMT

Woman At Point Zero

by Nawal El Saadawi

This a visceral, extremely emotional novel about a woman in Egypt who is forced to do a terrible thing and is sentenced to death. You meet her in prison, and she does not ask for your forgiveness, and that is perhaps the most unsettling part about it.

I read this novel in high school. I have mixed feelings about it, because I think it is an important book to read for its subject matter, perspective, and sheer immediacy. I did not, however, find I could sympathise with the main character on any level (harsh, perhaps, but that was my indictment at the time). There are some things that are simply unforgiveable.

That being said, I was impressed by this quote I found from el-Saadawi:

‘Danger has been a part of my life ever since I picked up a pen and wrote. Nothing is more perilous than truth in a world that lies.’

Why I recommend "Small Island: A Novel"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Tue, 16 May 2006 09:32:21 GMT

Small Island: A Novel

by Andrea Levy

It is at heart a book about empire, about family, and about understandings that sometimes cannot be bridged, or perhaps, must be bridged. It reminded me of A Fine Balance in the best ways, but touched more on what the immigrant ‘windrush’ from the West Indies to Britain after World War II, especially in 1948, meant for Jamaicans and other islanders from the Caribbean as well as for the British at the heart of the empire suddenly inundated with immigrants from the colonies they’d maintained at a sea’s length before. Not too vast to be epic, not too tragic to be unmanageable, but a splendid balance of bitterness and sweetness.

I highly recommend it (that is, re-commend it indeed, because everyone in my family commended it to me).

Oh, and it’s funny. Really.

A story about "Self"

nobody@allconsuming.net (Christopher) — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 15:21:02 GMT

Self

by Yann Martel

Definitely too bizarre.