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...

I’ll admit that my knowledge of Ernest Hemingway before reading this book was excruciatingly limited. As in, I saw the portrayal of him in Midnight in Paris and was struck with a serious case of the giggles, and I wasn’t really sure why. So hey, why not actually read something by the guy? He is considered to be a classic American author, right? The problem I often find when I read “classic” novels is that I typically end up either frustrated by everything and slamming the book shut for forever before I even come close to finishing, or painfully trudging through something totally disconnected from myself, just because of the beauty of the language… However, in this case I was surprisingly fortunate, as The Old Man and the Sea was absolutely stunning to read. The novel focuses on an old, poor fisherman in Cuba, whose boat is pulled further and further out to sea for days on end by a massive fish that the man is too proud to let go of. From here, we follow the...

After harshing quite a bit on the previous Shakespeare play I read, Twelfth Night , we now come to the comedy of Much Ado About Nothing . And this comedy, for some reason, I enjoyed much more than the previous one. I’m not really going to compare and contrast the two, however, as they are just so different in terms of where they draw their comedic factors from. I remember seeing the 1993 film of this play back in the eighth grade, and in all honesty, I had no idea what was going on. All I know is that I found Robert Sean Leonard’s melodramatic acting to be hilarious, and by God, did Kenneth Branagh ever worm his way into my heart, the sly devil! Upon reading it now though, I appreciate the language and plot a lot more, even if the story itself follows a simple course to its predictable, rosy end (as is to be expected in Shakespearean comedies). In any case, here’s an extensive rundown, with the ending included… Spoilers? Can I really “spoil” a 500 year-old play?: A ...

I couldn’t tell you how many people asked me if I was planning a vacation upon seeing that I was reading a book called Daytripper . And even though, yes, am, this is not in fact a book about day-trips or traveling adventures: it is something else entirely. Co-written and drawn by twin brothers from Brazil, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon, Daytripper is a graphic novel that examines the moments in life that define us. Or, more likely, it takes a look at the moments that make us truly start living, but in a very Benjamin Button “if-one-thing-had-been-different-or-taken-a-second-longer-would-this-have-happened?” kind of way. Ideas concerning death, and the subsequent lives of those left behind are also explored, through having the protagonist work as an obituary writer for a long time. The story itself follows a man named Brás de Olivia Domingos at various ages, and not necessarily in chronological order. Each short tale includes some moment of Bras’ life that made h...

And so my long and arduous stream of Shakespeare reviews begins (as spurred by required readings in my current English course). I’d apologize, but we all need a little Will in our lives every now and again, huh? And with that quick wit of his, I was quite excited to read Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night . But let me tell you, I have never before been more frustrated with a play in my entire life. No no no, not in a, “oh, sweet young thing doesn’t understand Shakespeare,” kind of way. In a, “wow, these characters are really grinding my gears” kind of way. And more than anything else, I was frustrated by the fact that this comedy of errors is not funny. Don’t get me wrong, it does follow the typical “comic” path of the plot being driven by mistaken identities and people playing tricks on others for sport with unforeseeable consequence until the ultimate, tidy end, with many a loving union. But you don’t read Shakespeare for a unique story (in fact, they are often consi...