"The Dark Side of the Sun" by Terry Pratchett

Reading "The Dark Side of the Sun" (shortened to "DSS") reminded me of why I sworn off sci-fi in the first place. I have no patience following plotlines that revolve around different species of life form, some whose intelligence is off the charts and some who are rated sub-par.

Add a bumbling hero whose destiny was determined by p-maths (read: probability maths) but actually bucked the trend by not dying on the anointed day as calculated by his dear father, and you have a convoluted mess that's terribly hard to follow (or maybe I just refused to follow because as G likes to point out, after all I am the one who said I liked TH's Snow White & the 7 Dwarves, whose convoluteness is off the charts!), even when the book is actually not thick to begin with.

Still, it was a Terry Pratchett book, so for the parts that I managed to understand, I did find myself chuckling at Isaac, Dom (the hero)'s super-intelligent robot's smart mouth.

I checked out the book thinking that it was one of the DiscWorld series, but finished it just because it was there. For that, it comes as no surprise that my rating for this book is only 2.5 out of 5 stars.

The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King, featuring the 7 volumes:

I. The Gunslinger
II. The Drawing of the Three
III. The Waste Lands
IV. Wizard and Glass
V. Wolves of the Calla
VI. Song of Susannah
VII. The Dark Tower

As reading durations go, finishing King's series was a long time coming. I make it about 2 years since I picked up Gunslinger to the day I finished The Dark Tower, being a couple of days ago.

I won't go too much into the plot; excellent synopsis and information about the series are available here and here.

Widely recognised by the majority as King's epic series, what's less known about it is that King started this magnum opus at the age of 19 and finished it 22 years later -- almost the length of the entire writing career!

Personally, I think the entire series is a reflection of how his writing style and capabilities as a skilled writer has evolved. When I first started on (I), the storyline was simple enough, focusing on Roland Deschain and the pursuit of his enemy. Roland's ultimate quest is to see the Dark Tower (what he actually wants to do when he gets there, he doesn't know).

Along the way, "ka", the concept of destiny is introduced, and "ka-tet" - the band of gunslingers that Roland plucks from different points in history and is in a way the apotheosis of all the gunslingers that have died before them in Roland's quest for the Dark Tower - is formed. The "ka-tet" in its current manifestation comprises: Jake, Susannah, Eddie and Oy.

The concept of parallel worlds, and the one true world is also introduced further in the series. King's skill in pulling together the threads of this various worlds, and interweaving real-life instances of history into the account adds verisimilitude to a fantasy world that is gritty and takes no survivors (leastwise the faint-hearted). The many parallel worlds become battlegrounds for these gunslingers to take on the enemies that the Crimson King has sent, in his bid to stop Roland from reaching the Dark Tower and putting a stop to his destruction of the world.

By the time I got to (VII), I couldn't wait to get to the ending to see if Roland eventually fulfils his quest, that was how hooked I was on this series.

Complex, absorbing and totally satisfying, those are the few words I have to describe the book.

Geek rating: 4 out of 5.

"On Photography" by Susan Sontag

At 20, when I was told to read one of the essays in this book as reading material for visual communications class, I never fully understood Sontag's erudite essay on photography and surrealism. Notwithstanding, it left enough of an indelible impression for me to think about it from time to time over the years, mentally categorised as one of the "books I will (remember to) read" in future.

Now, years later, having read the entire book, I must confess that I still do not entirely grasp Sontag's panoramic and thought-provoking discourse on photography. Though, for the things that I do understand, I must say that Sontag's views put forth in this volume carry a remarkable lucidity on the topic, making me "see" photography in many different lights.

"On Photography" (henceforth shortened to "OP") is not a book teaching you how to take better pictures, improve your technical knowledge of what goes into your camera etc. For that, numerous volumes abound today in the market, and they have the advantage of currency over OP to boot.

Written in 1977, OP offered a different view of photography in the modern world that to a large extent still holds true today. Below are some that I remember (& understand).

Photography as an art

In one of OP's essays, Sontag discussed photography's claims as an art form vis-à-vis painting, how whether the word "art" should be applied to a product -- the "photograph". Painting, as the yardstick for this comparison, is most definitely reckoned "art", because each artist interprets the surroundings and renders them on canvas in a vision that is entirely his. Hence the question: a photograph, can it be considered art, if 2 different cameras apply the same setting in the same light condition, with identical range, shutter speed (etc) to capture the same landscape will give you almost-identical pictures? Sontag argues that it is art, because the choice of the object (when one presses the shutter) is in fact an interpretation, even if the interpretation is rendered into image form by virtue of a mechanical device, the camera.

Photography's uses: as a ritualistic activity, as an emotional shield

The advent of the camera and its subsequent accessibility gave rise to many observations about modern society. One pertained to the ritualistic act of taking photos. For the American family, photo taking became a regular "to-do" at family gatherings, weddings to mark the occasion, the resultant photographs occupying an important place in the recounting of family history with the passage of time. This may sound obvious, but then once has to reckon with the fact that before the ubiquity of cameras, each adult probably only has one or two images of himself in his lifetime!

Sontag also mentioned that for more regimented (???) societies such as Japan (if I remember correctly), the camera became an obsession during travel, a way of mechanically clicking at the world without having to juggle or manage one's reactions of the new sights/culture/people. The mantra literally becomes: take picture. Click. Move on to next object.

Inherent in photography's commoditisation is also the phenomenon of desensitisation/ trivialisation. Photography allowed one to view, at a distance, the unusual and the suffering. The full gamut of emotions is mediated, bringing to mind, McLuhan's famous dictum "The medium is the message". The reaction to images is therefore vicarious, lived second hand, and therefore muted.

Photography as representation of truth; photography in context

Does a photograph speak true? Always? Many would think so, but stop and think, Sontag cautions. Remember the same photo that accompany news articles in the different newspapers, how different captions give a completely different take to the story?

Therein lies photography's paradox. While it can be used as a representation of truth -- think x-rays, photographic evidence at a crime scene -- it also dissembles, because a photograph can never capture the whole essence of the scene's ongoings at the exact moment the shutter was pressed. That unrecallable moment passed into history the instant the image was captured on film (or memory card as we are more accustomed these days).

Further, precisely because the act of photography focuses on an object, photographing it necessarily takes it out of context, thereby providing the occasion to ascribe whole new worlds of meaning to the photograph. The same photograph in a museum and in your photo album mean different things to you.

Paraphasing that famous phrase of Clinton, "it's the context, stupid".

If I have set down any of the above wrongly, pls correct me. I read the essays on public transport and must confess that it is not exactly the best place to read such heavy material!

For the breathtaking insights it gave me, I rate OP 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Real World by Natsuo Kirino

If you frequent bookstores, the distinct covers of Natsuo Kirino's books would surely have caught your eye by now. Out, Grotesque and her latest Real World each have an opera-white face on the cover. The faces are a little creepy, all of them seem to possess a piercing stare that would make me feel like putting the book in a place where it would stop looking at me!

Creepy covers aside, I'm a fan of Kirino. She reveals the colder and darker side of Japan in her stories, quite different from the high-tech kawaii impression we have from the media.

In Real World, Worm, a teenage boy given the unfortunate nickname due to his demeanour, murders his mother and runs away. Toshi, who lives next door, and her three friends all get involved somehow, drawn to Worm for different reasons. The story is told from the individual perspectives of the four girls and Worm. In each chapter, you learn of their frustrations with society, and how they try to cope or shut themselves off from the pressures of the world around them.

The magic of Real World was how it drew me in as well - I could empathise with the characters, however distanced or unfamiliar I was to their troubles. There were also times I wanted them to grow up and stop feeling like the world should revolve around them, a projection of how I feel about the youth in Singapore today.
Oh well, till the next creepy faced book then. I give Real World 7 out of 10 ninja darts.

Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Moist Von Lipwig, a former conman, wants to make some money.
This Discworld tale of the Royal Mint and bank really is quite funny.
The bank chairman is a pug and someone wants Moist dead.
The problem is that people rather keep their money under the bed.

So Moist replaces coins and stamps with paper notes, money you can fold.
meanwhile his fiancée unearths an army of golems made of solid gold.
The plot is great, the jokes are plenty, Pratchett is a genius with a pen.
I enjoyed it lots, the pug is called Mr Fusspots, I score the book eight upon ten!

Not a review

I have 2 lame things to say to my fellow bookwormsupergeeks bloggers, namely:

• Gary, is my memory failing me or were the 2 birds in the mast head originally white in colour?
  

• The last time Don wrote a post was in July! (Hint, hint). Haha. Just kidding. Own time own target ok? I just couldn't finish this post without addressing something to you. Just in case you felt slighted :P

"Coraline" (Graphical Adaptation) by Neil Gaiman

I bought this book sometime back when I realised that the "Absolute Sandman" series would be absolutely beyond my budget (not to mention space!) to have.

There Coraline sat in my office cupboard until last week when I had to take time off to see the doctor. From prior experience I knew that it would be a wait at the doc's, so I decided to take a book along.

I opened my cupboard to evaluate the book stash: Coraline, The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Reasoning that in my current state I was probably in no frame of mind to read the latter 2, I took Coraline with me, thinking that the graphics could occupy me even if the words couldn't make sense in my current sick frame of mind.

All in all I liked the book very much, writing, storyline and graphics.

Coraline is this young and feisty girl who fancies herself an explorer. An only child, she is sometimes lonely and feels unloved and unattended in the company of adults (which child doesn't?).

One day she opens a door in her house. Previously, the door had opened to a wall, but now it led to another world.

A world which is eerily like her own only now, her other parents are very much more attentive and she is given food which she very much likes to eat.

But something is not quite right -- a veneer of falseness tinges this new world, (this is also the part that made me avert my eyes away on seeing the graphic because Coraline's other parents have buttons for eyes. Black opaque ones where the light is reflected in them) and soon she wants to return home. To her real home. Her Other Mother refuses.

Somehow Coraline manages to return, but she soon discovers that she has to go back to the other world to save her parents, who have been trapped. Against her fears, the brave child goes back in, and eventually saves the day. Seeing past the make-believe world that her Other Mother creates, she manages to get her parents back as well as save other children whose souls were trapped in marbles by the Other Mother, with the help of a mysterious black cat. (The Other Father is but a pawn created by the Other Mother.) Returning to her own world, she eventually traps her Other Mother in a well.

Like many of Gaiman's books, the story is easy enough to understand, yet the writing is compelling to read. Graphics are lovely too, kudos to PCR. [I couldn't put down the book even after I came out from the doc's; as I walked back to my office tower I was still furiously devouring the book. I finished the last 2 pages in the office, unwilling to put it down until I had seen the ending.]

One sentence that Coraline said, when in a typical Devil's Bargain, the Other Mother offered her the world (and then some), if Coraline would but love her and renounce her world, struck me. I don't have the book with me right now, so I can't recall the exact words, but it ran something like "Who wants to live in a world where you can everything? Nobody!". Which struck me as quite true. Wants are but wishes, and if you have all of them fulfilled simply by asking for it, it's never gonna be quite as fun. It was not exactly a sudden epiphany, but it came close. Sometimes wishful thinking, has its fun bits too!

Geek rating: 4 out of 5