Waiting for "On The Road"

For years I've been hoping for a Hollywood adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On The Road. Yearssss, I tell you! Now I know why it took this long: They were waiting for Garrett Hedlund. *swoons*

I've seen all his movies (there aren't a lot) and he is good! It also doesn't hurt that he's so gorgeous!  I'm  sure he'd make a damn good Dean Moriarty. But I will never forgive Kristen Stewart if she ends up ruining the movie with her Bella Swan stammering.

Some stills:

They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

- On The Road, Jack Kerouac

  

January books

I've been really good at keeping my promise of four books a month...So far :) 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

It was a page turner, that much I attest to. I finished the 600-odd paged book in record time! I began reading because I got bored waiting for my dinner and I had no intention of finishing it. But finish it I did – in one evening with several bathroom breaks in between. I never even got to eat.  

I’ve had the book for awhile but I stayed away because of all the hype around it. But with a movie coming out – a movie I will most certainly watch if only for Rooney Mara – I thought it was high time I gave it a read.

It took quite a while for the story to reel me in. Lisbeth Salander, the titular hacker with Asperger’s syndrome, didn’t immediately make an appearance. After several chapters, I got restless and read the ending. It’s a bad habit (I know!) but I have to know if there’s something I can look forward to.

The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is a thriller set in Sweden. That bit is hard to forget because they drank a lot of aquavit and referenced Ikea often. I should like to shop in Ikea myself but even thinking about aquavit makes me shudder. It tastes like nail polish remover. 

No one had any crayfish though. I was almost disappointed.

Digression: Here are photos of Toni during the Swedish Crayfish party ’08 and at home later that evening. We had a couple of shots of aquavit and went a little loopy.

Also starring is (can I say ‘starring’ if I’m giving a book synopsis?)Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged, disgraced financial journalist who is irresistible to women. (But) He (only) beds 3 during the course of the novel. After over 600 pages, I still don’t get why. Maybe the two other books in the series would condescend to explain. I hear Daniel Craig is playing him in the movie, which makes it even more mystifying. I’m not really a huge Daniel Craig fan.

After the murder-disappearance mystery plot surrounding the high-profile Vanger family played out, the story then focused on Blomkvist’s quest to take down one of Sweden’s wealthiest and most powerful businessman guilty of financial crimes, among others. He never made an appearance in the book, by the way, which made it a bit difficult for me to care about this particular subplot, but it was interesting in its own way. Blomkvist is a part owner of a magazine (Millennium) that is about to go under because of the scandal he caused and the enemies he made. I have a soft spot for books that deal with publishing, even tangentially. (The Devil Wears Prada, Confessions of a Shopoholic. I’ll Take Manhattan, Lipstick Jungle etc…I read them and loved them all!)

And during all this Lisbeth was doing some major sleuthing… She’s a freelance private investigator after all.

The original Swedish title of the book translated to English is Men Who Hate Women, which should give you an idea of the central theme of the book. Some parts were horrific to read. I was sure it was going to give me nightmares.

I'm not "in love" with this book but I like in enough to be currently reading the sequel. I'm about a hundred pages in. I've read the ending, too. I can't help it. 

For your viewing pleasure, here is Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander:

The week I was born people were reading...

According to the New York Times:

FICTION
1. The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum
2. Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keilor
3. The Mammoth Hunters, Jean M. Auel
4. Lie Down with Lions, Ken Follett
5. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

Get yours at http://www.biblioz.com/best_sellers.php

Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami

“Ice is cold; roses are red. I’m in love. And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. The current’s too overpowering; I don’t have any choice. It may very well be a special place, some place I’ve never seen before. Danger may be lurking there, something that may end up wounding me deeply, fatally. I might end up losing everything. But there’s no turning back. I can only go with the flow. Even if it means I’ll be burned up, gone for ever.”

"So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us - that's snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness."

---   Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami

Sputnik Sweetheart is narrated by a 24-year-old school teacher who is secretly in love with his friend Sumire, an aspiring writer who reveres Jack Kerouac and chain-smokes. At the beginning of the novel, she is plagued with doubts on her capacity to love and bothered by her utter lack of sexual desire, which she, at times, blames for her lack of writing inspiration.  She discusses this openly with the narrator.

Sumire soon falls in love with Miu, a sophisticated older woman with a secret that turned her hair snow-white.

I promise it is not as ridiculous as I’m (unintentionally) making it seem.

It’s a love story of sorts, but to call this a love-triangle doesn’t quite capture its central theme. Like in all Murakami novels, the characters are all lost, lonely souls looking to be loved by someone too damaged or too selfish to reciprocate.  

It was an interesting read. Though I admit, I’m not too fond of the ending. I feel like it was missing several chapters in the middle and I just don’t get how it got from point A to point B. It’s not my favourite Murakami but it’s still pretty good, if you could call feeling very, very depressed after reading “good.”.  

Here’s another Murakami that is not my favourite.

In my very humble opinion, Norwegian Wood devoted too many pages on the emo, suicidal (and completely unlovable!) Naoko and not enough on Midori, the coolest girl to ever come out of Murakami’s wonderful imagination.

To this day, one of the best compliments I’ve ever received – and this happened several years ago – was “you’re my Midori.”

I haven't seen the movie. I'll tell you all about it when I do.

Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert

If there is one indignity I shall never endure gracefully, it is watching people mess around with my most cherished personal narratives about them.

-- Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert – of the Eat, Pray, Love fame – and I are kindred spirits. Reading Committed, the book that came after Eat, convinced me of it.

We’re both writers. She’s had immense success in her career, while I…am not quite there yet. We’re both blondes. She has her head-full of gold-spun hair, while I –even with my head-full of black hair— get  teased a lot for being blonde.

In Committed, to prepare her fiance (now husband) on what he was getting and getting into by marrying her, she made a list of her worst character flaws, the ugliest, most unlovable things about her person. She could very well have been decribing me! It goes:

1. I think very highly of my own opinion. I generally believe that I know best how everyone in the world should be living their lives—and you, most of all, will be the victim of this.

2. I require an amount of devotional attention that would have made Marie Antoinette blush.

3. I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy. In my excitement, I routinely take on more than I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion. You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart. This will be unbelievably tedious. I apologize in advance.

4. I am openly prideful, secretly judgmental, and cowardly in conflict. All these things collude at times and turn me into a big fat liar.

5. And my most dishonorable fault of all: Though it takes me a long while to get to this point, the moment I have decided that somebody is unforgivable, that person will very likely remain unforgiven for life--all too often cut off forever, without fair warning, explanation, or another chance.

None of us is ever too unique or too special, are we? I find it very comforting; our darkest thoughts and in our worst, we are not alone.  

I say this to everyone who’d listen and I’ll say it again here: skip Eat, Pray, Love and go straight to Committed. 

One-Woman Book Club 2010

No need to state the obvious, but I will: I LOVE BOOKS. Last year I promised to really, really make time for reading and to finish at least 4 books a month. Obviously, I didn't quite make it to my goal. Here's to hoping I'll do better next year.

Below are the books I did get to read. Some I'm proud of and I'd recommend to my friends. Others -- just one, actually -- I am NOT proud of, but I'd recommend to my friends anyway. :D If anyone can appreciate smut, they can! 

So, in no particular order: