Thought Train to Pusan

Brief Lives is the 7 th volume of Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel series of The Sandman, and while I am obviously already a fan of these books, this installment has struck me as my favorite to date. All the fantastical and bizarrely wonderful things from the previous episodes are strongly present, but there is also something more… something simple, human and remarkable. Here’s the deal: Have you ever had a song stuck in your head throughout the entirety of reading a book? I have, and it was with this one. Whenever I picked it up and read a page, my brain started blasting, “Red! The color of Desire/ Black! The color of Despair” at me, over and over again. But in all honesty, that wasn’t really a bad thing. It actually makes a lot of sense, as this addition to The Sandman focuses heavily on the family of The Endless, two of which are the twin embodiments of Desire and Despair. (Oh, my dear brain, your mind-palace is far more organized than I ever realized.) But although

Richard, Richard, Richard… What ever are we going to do with you? No, this isn’t the one they found under the car park a few weeks ago, this is the one that came before all the Henrys. If I’m being honest with this one, while I do love my serious Shakespearean tales, his histories are not really my thing. The large amounts of (real) characters, almost all of which are Dukes or nobility of some sort always leave me confused as to who is who and who is on whose side. And I’m sorry to say that I found Richard II to be no different. After being a little confused as to how the whole thing went down, however, I decided to watch the BBC’s film version of the play with Ben Whishaw (as a part of their “Hollow Crown” series), and it definitely helped me understand not only what happened, but also what exactly was being said. And in this way, like some of Shakespeare’s other works, I found Richard II to be much more suited to viewing than reading. Ben Whishaw as Richard

(It's been a while since my last Cannonball 5 review, I know. Schoolwork hath slowed me down immensely, reminding me why I only signed up for a half-cannonball, and not a whole one this year. In any case, here we are at #08!) As I sat on the bus the other day, thick in the midst of this novel, I heard a couple of first-year university students nattering behind me claim that they needed to read The Picture of Dorian Gray for their compulsory English class. “Oh hey! That’s what I’m reading too!” I thought gleefully, “They are in for a treat”. But then I heard it. I heard the disgust in their voices. “Man, that totally sucks. Just watch The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen , it’s basically the same thing.” The face I made when I heard this… I only wish you could have seen it. Because no. No no no. Nothing about that abomination of a film relates back to this novel in any sense, especially thematically. And while the themes of the novel may seem simple in this day