The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

Genre: (Translated) Adult General Fiction

There is no shortage of stories and literature about amnesiacs. For some reason, memory fascinates authors and readers alike. Perhaps, they think it remarkable that the mind can hold—like files in a cabinet—all the events and faces and facts that make one’s identity so dear and unique. Yet, with something as singular as an accident or a knock to the head, all these memories may disappear—and the files burst their box and fly loose.

Ogawa blends this fragility of memory with the subtlety of building relationships, describing the decay of the mind and the budding of communication in the precise and beautiful language of mathematics.

The ornery Professor lives in eighty-minute chunks, his brain a tape recorder erasing itself after every hour and twenty minutes passes. For him, mathematics is a lifeline, a way to claim some semblance of constancy and familiarity in a world that wildly renews itself eighteen times a day. In fact, numbers are all that’s left for the Professor to trust until the Housekeeper becomes his newest caretaker and brings her son along to keep him company.

In simple language, Ogawa teaches some nifty things about math and illuminates the differences and similarities—and the growing closeless—among these three unlikely characters. You will grow attached to one or all of them.

Rating: Leaves a Lasting Impression

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Genre: Young Adult Dystopian Fiction (series, #2)

Usually sequels are lackluster compared to their wildly fast-paced and fresh predecessors. But, Catching Fire proves to be one of the few that defies the sophomore slump effect.

Although the beginning dragged on and on—and I raise my same complaints about Collins’ excessive fixation on minor details again—, the narrative quickly picks up as flickers of subversion and rebellion ripple throughout the Districts. For 75 years, the Capitol has used each District as a mere cogwheel, a tool only useful enough to produce a sheaf of paper here, a basket of fish there, a stack of robes over there. Under the regime of the Capitol, each District traditionally never interacts with another District, except for participation in the annual Games. Now, as they brew with revolt, I was reminded of a principle of Gestalt psychology: that the whole must be greater than the sum of its parts. I am looking forward to reading the final book about what becomes of this new unity.

But, before that, let’s talk about our heroine, Katniss, shall we? In a rather predictable turn of events, she enjoys merely a short-lived victory lifestyle. Thrown into another inferno, Katniss comes across as more vulnerable in Catching Fire, and, for some reason, that endears her to me more and makes her stronger than any of her displays of tough callousness in the first book. I hope to see her character mature more, because Katniss as a 17-year-old is still not only headstrong and defiant but so dumb at times too. She seems so decisive in the Games arena, yet she cannot resolve her love triangle, ultimately dragging both boys into an emotional and life-endangering mess. (However, this surely must be Collins’ aim—to elongate our pain and to preserve the interaction for the final book). I expect more development of Gale’s character and some surprises coming from Peeta, too. As for Finnick—joy! another key male character thrown into the mix. I can see why many of friends gush over this bronzed, athletic, selfless Adonis-Achilles-Hercules heman. If Katniss is not careful, life could get a lot more complicated later. For even in the midst of dangerous uprisings and the prospects of death by the hands of brutes, sweet, sweet adolescence is still marked by dilemmas over boys.

Rating: Exceeded expectations; I want the third book NOW

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Genre: Young Adult General Fiction

Actually, bits and pieces prelude this novel. For some reason, hipsters love to quote “So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” It is certainly a lovely quote, but I’m not sure if many actually read the book in its entirety.

For me, Looking for Alaska was equal parts frustrating and provocative. For most of it, I hated the characters. I hated the main character Miles, who went from a friendless loner in tenth grade all of a sudden to a horny, smoking, boozing and vaguely awkward douche in junior year. I hated the drunken and puking mess they all were. I hated these high schoolers’ imaginary invincibility and their constant masturbation of their self-righteous egos and pseudointellects (seriously, who memorizes every country’s population?).

No, I am too harsh. Maybe, I’m the one who doesn’t understand. Maybe, underneath all that carefree, happy-go-lucky, who-gives-a-shit attitude, there is a glint of something more. Do I envy them?—maybe, this is the high school life and childhood I could’ve led had I wanted to and been able to.

In the end, Green’s snappy dialogue and eloquent prose is powerful enough to overcome the dregs of teenage angst and hormones. There are well-written parts, but the reader may need to wait patiently.

Rating: A Drunken, Blindsiding Dark Horse

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Genre: Adult Surreal Fiction

If writing styles could be cataloged into a pantry of aromas and tastes, there would certainly be a 'Rushdie' flavor. It would be dried plum. At once salty, sour, sweet with a little punch to add to its vaguely Old World exoticness. Rushdie's command of the lyricism of language is impeccable (and, at times, overwhelming). There are select metaphors and images that are astounding. I've only read his East, West collection of short stories, and I was fooled into thinking that Rushdie wrote in surreal yet simple parable form. No, no, he can certainly spin a tale, able to sustain a yarn (or two or twelve) for over 500 pages.

Not quite total magic realism, Midnight's Children contains undertones of meta-historical fiction. After all, the main character Saleem Sinai is one of the lucky (?) midnight children, born on the cusp of India's independence, and his life reflects the changes in the country. The reader will be introduced to a myriad of colorful characters, locales and tales. The only thing that detracts from this novel could be the double-edged literary style. When I was patient enough to focus, the story was exhilarating and unearthed hidden gems. When I wasn't, the book became a bog of quotation-less dialogue, hashes, dashes, Indian colloquialisms and strangeness.

Rating: Leaves a Lasting Impression

Jun 6th, 2011 4:43pm

One Day by David Nicholls

One Day by David Nicholls

Genre: Adult General Fiction

The premise of this book is intriguing. Beyond the cliche of yet another love story, One Day follows two people's journeys through twenty years with plain yet plaintive language and humor. Nicholls chooses to paint this couple's saga in a series of vignettes about one particularly important day in each of their lives--July 15th. From foolish college days to woes of middle age, readers grow with Emma and Dexter, both who never seem to lose their individual character along the way. At times, I was frustrated and angry at Dexter's arrogance and fickleness and Emma's poutiness and lovelorn demeanor, and I rooted for their relationship's success in a perverse manner...'surely, two such stupid people deserve to be together'. But, such is life and such are human beings--no one is without flaws. In the course of 400-or-so pages and twenty book-years, I met and bid farewell to many people in Emma and Dexter's respective lives before they realize that they are both better off together. 

Oops, that could be a spoiler. But, I think anyone who reads One Day suspects from the very beginning that Em and Dex will end up in a relationship. Twenty years are a long time, and I think One Day spans two decades to show that little coincidences and general mundaneness make up every person's life and interactions with others. July 15th could be totally arbitrary, but, under the lens of Nicholls's One Day, July 15th becomes immensely significant. 

Rating: Leaves a Lasting Impression