[Literature] Currently Reading (discussion)

[CorporalChaos]

I read Ben H. Winters' "The Last Policeman", and it was pretty damn good. Long story short, the world is going to end in six months. Civilization is slowly falling apart as people either drop out of their jobs to enjoy the world before it ends or turn to drugs to tune out the despair. The main character is a rookie detective investigating what has become a common occurrence - a suicide. But this one feels different from the other suicides he's come across in his short time on the job, and he begins an investigation to find the murderer in a police department that doesn't really care anymore.

It's a great noir story, and despite the kind of gimmicky setting Winters manages to really bring it to life. There's all sorts of little things that make the setting feel more real - the slow degradation of cell networks as towers break and don't get repaired, the increasing inexperience in managerial positions as people leave their jobs and are replaced by people who need the money, and so on.

The story is kind of fatalistic, but that's noir in a nutshell, and I think The Last Policeman does a great job bringing the genre into the 21st century.

[chee]

Crepuscular Dawn confirms something I've suspected for a while, being that Paul Virilio's theoretical obsessions are driven as much by a deliriously perverse fascination as they are by genuine moral outrage. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that this awed love-hate relationship with his subject matter is what gives his writing much of its idiosyncratic literary charge. The man has serious - and I mean fucking serious - childhood trauma issues. Like many other thinkers and artists, the strength of his intellect almost paradoxically comes from how fucked up he is.

[Stryker]

Just finished Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. (I know, the books came in yesterday; I read half of it online, half of it in the books I got. Took me five hours to finish it today) Overall was a solid read, but the farther in you went towards the end of the book, the more you realized how Miyazaki was prepared on how to end the book. Random information that was not eluded to started to appear, and the very end felt like a little nonsense, as well as a mistakenly unhappy ending. Explaining it would spoil it, but I would be open to if you request for one.

[Xard]

well hit me in a pm if you want as I'm rather interested, especially since I have no idea on what you're basing about half of your claims on. Random information not alluded to prior is only sensible claim if the new information blatantly and unintentionally contradicts the earlier settei and it's dropped on viewer in sporadic and senseless fashion and I can't say I've ever found any signs of this through the times I've read the manga. As for ending its happiness is a matter of interpretation a la EoE and thus "mistakenly unhappy" sounds just bizarre.



also, wrong topic yo.

[Stryker]

Random information not alluded to prior is only sensible claim if the new information blatantly and unintentionally contradicts the earlier settei and it's dropped on viewer in sporadic and senseless fashion and I can't say I've ever found any signs of this through the times I've read the manga.

This is an actual  SPOILER: Show

Nausicaa comes to the epiphany that humanity created the Sea of Corruption out of nowhere. The explanation she comes up with for that epiphany is completely bull. It is one of the more glaring ones.

As for ending its happiness is a matter of interpretation a la EoE and thus "mistakenly unhappy" sounds just bizarre.

PM'd. I should also clarify that what I meant was that it was, IMO, an unhappy ending disguised as a happy one.

also, wrong topic yo.

Which one is the right one?

[Final Messenger]

Which one is the right one?

We have a what manga are you reading topic
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/10248/What-manga-are-you-reading-right-now/

[Stryker]

I don't really consider it manga, but that's mostly because it wasn't really made in an episodic fashion, as is most manga (like NGE). I don't think that, just because it's Japanese, it's manga.

[Xard]

This is an actual  SPOILER: Show

Nausicaa comes to the epiphany that humanity created the Sea of Corruption out of nowhere. The explanation she comes up with for that epiphany is completely bull. It is one of the more glaring ones.

Uhhhh yeah, really not seeing any problem with this part (just reread it). Hints about it had been dropped since early volumes and Nausicaa reasons based on information she held at the time in logical, sound fashion within the limits of her (high in terms of capability) mental faculties. There's no mystical illumination out the ass involved with her pulling the premises of her reasoning out of thin air (though given she's extremely intuitive, borderline telepath with unusually strong connection to the world outside her describing her as something of a established mystic isn't off either). The long time spent in the Garden just before gave her the final pieces of puzzle needed. This is detective putting the pieces together in crime novel case, not making shit up on the spot.

I don't really consider it manga, but that's mostly because it wasn't really made in an episodic fashion, as is most manga (like NGE). I don't think that, just because it's Japanese, it's manga.

Manga simply means comic the same way anime means animation. Nausicaa is comic even if you redefine the word manga arbitrarily and heck, Nausicaa is manga even under your redefinition of the word. You're wrong about Nausicaa not being "made in an episodic fashion, as is most manga". It was serialized in Animage from 1982 to 1994 with some long breaks as Miyazaki focused on working on his feature films. It doesn't differ from other manga in this regard at all.

[Stryker]

Uhhhh yeah, really not seeing any problem with this part (just reread it). Hints about it had been dropped since early volumes and Nausicaa reasons based on information she held at the time in logical, sound fashion within the limits of her (high in terms of capability) mental faculties. There's no mystical illumination out the ass involved anymore with her pulling the premises of her reasoning out of thin air (though given she's extremely intuitive, borderline telepath with unusually strong connection to the world outside her describing her as something of a established mystic isn't off either). The long time spent in the Garden just before gave her the final pieces of puzzle needed. This is detective putting the pieces together in crime novel case, not making shit up on the spot.

I will then repent my statement, until I do a reread. It still feels though that the ending was cobbled up and a little rushed.

Manga simply means comic the same way anime means animation. Nausicaa is comic even if you redefine the word manga arbitrarily and heck, Nausicaa is manga even under your redefinition of the word. You're wrong about Nausicaa not being "made in an episodic fashion, as is most manga". It was serialized in Animage from 1982 to 1994 with some long breaks as Miyazaki focused on working on his feature films. It doesn't differ from other manga in this regard at all.

I admit that you are correct. At the same time though, comics are also literature, although through a different narrative format. Manga, in particular, is respected as literature. Therefore I am not wrong in posting this here. Although, this is not what we are here to discuss about.

[Xard]

I will then repent my statement, until I do a reread. It still feels though that the ending was cobbled up and a little rushed.

I don't think the ending is rushed per se but I agree it can't help but feel somewhat sudden, yeah. The story ends at the logical culmination point of narrative and after the debatable answer to central ethical dilemma the manga has studied from the start has been given but there's a definitive degree of arbitrariness of endingNausicaa at the point it ends. Miyazaki acknowledged this and ended it then precisely because of this very reason - had he not quit it then he never could've finished the manga, apparently.

It's the same thing as with EoE's One More Final: it is by necessity arbitrary cutoff point with only other option being Eva continuing forever and ever.

[Rebuild joke goes here]

I admit that you are correct. At the same time though, comics are also literature, although through a different narrative format. Manga, in particular, is respected as literature. Therefore I am not wrong in posting this here. Although, this is not what we are here to discuss about.

Well yeah, and this is not the first time there's been manga posts in this thread and obviously it's no grave OT sin to post about Nausicaa here (especially when we're talking about manga of Nausicaa's stature - especially in Japan it enjoys a pedigree very few of its peer can even hope to approach). It just occured to me since most Nausicaa discussion has taken places in the "proper" topics it might be more fruitful in that context.

Perhaps I put my stance on this issue a bit too strongly by calling this strictly "wrong topic" but I hope this clarifies my intention.

[Stryker]

I don't think the ending is rushed per se but I agree it can't help but feel somewhat sudden, yeah..

It's just that, in comparison to the other volumes, so much stuff felt compacted into the last volume. The pacing is slightly yet noticeably hastened, and I feel as if the ending could've been planned slightly better. It's not a bad one, I should clarify, but I feel Miyazaki could've came up with something better. Something that didn't make me feel a little bitter.

Also, did you read my PM yet?

[Xard]

It's just that, in comparison to the other volumes, so much stuff felt compacted into the last volume. The pacing is slightly yet noticeably hastened, and I feel as if the ending could've been planned slightly better. It's not a bad one, I should clarify, but I feel Miyazaki could've came up with something better. Something that didn't make me feel a little bitter.

I dunno, I think the manga gradually picks up the speed towards the end esp. in the span from volume 5 to 7 in pretty typical fashion for Japanese fiction of this sort (Eva is no different in the way it condences absolutely ridiculous number of events in 25 minute chunks in its last phase).


I did get your pm and I read it but it might take a while till I respond.

[Stryker]

Also, I wish the actual kingdom of The Valley of the Wind was more involved throughout the middle and end of the story. I mean, they only get one scene in the mid-end of the volumes. Also, regarding the home of Nausicaa, I noticed a reoccurring theme; whenever there is a hero involved leaving the home, the ending doesn't ever show the hero returning. I would think that Nausicaa would've benefited from that.

[CorporalChaos]

I read Stephen King's The Long Walk a couple of weeks ago. In comparison, Battle Royale seems like a less-focused and amped-up knock off, since that book goes off into tangents about the backstory of kids killing each other, as well as gives them weapons. I think The Long Walk is a much more intense experience, as it's just one kid, thinking to himself, thinking about what he's gotten into, thinking thinking thinking about life and death as he witnesses it first-hand, happening all around him.

I think The Long Walk also does a much better job with handling some of the backstory. You don't have the author lecturing you about how the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere won WWII, you only get offhand mentions of something different, like commando raids in Germany c.1950. The end result is a much tighter story, since you don't have chapters of text slowing down the story progression.

Can't really say too much about how both of these stories compare to The Hunger Games but from what I gather of the story, it's a different focus completely. Sure it's got exploitative games where kids compete with one another to the death but that series seems like it's exploring the after-effects of such a competition, something The Long Walk never does and Battle Royale only does in the cinema. Eh, that's a whole topic I could continue going off in a tangent with, but if I were to do that I should read The Hunger Games first and I don't have time, dammit.


I read Charles Stross's The Jennifer Morgue this week as well. I'd gotten an introduction to his Laundry universe in his short story collection Wireless, and I kind of wanted more. Basically, in the Laundry universe, the occult is real and based in high-level mathematics, and the main character works for the occult version of MI6, the Laundry Unfortunately I grabbed the wrong book and missed the jumping off point for the series (The Atrocity Archive) but the story was self-contained enough to make sense to a new reader.

Long story short: Back in the 1970s, Americans attempt to raise a Soviet submarine off the seafloor. Unfortunately, treaty obligations with the Deep Ones doom that plot to failure, but the failure inspires the villain to make his own attempt at raising something from the seafloor: a cthulthonic weapon of unimaginable power. To strengthen his plot, he creates a geas circuit that compels all the major world players to act as if the plot were that of a James Bond novel. Thrust into the situation is Bob Howard, a middle-management civil servant with the Laundry. To make things worse for him, to complete his mission he is destiny-entangled with an American CIA operative bound to a succubus to keep her under control.

It's a really absurd story, but the mashup of spy thriller and lovecraftian horror ends up being really fun. Stross can write some weird shit, but I think this novel keeps fairly grounded given the plot elements. My only complaint is that there's quite a bit of extraneous writing in the story, which happens when Bob (Stross) is showing off how clever he is and explaining things that don't really have much bearing on the story. There's also a part about halfway in where the narrative switches from first-person to third-person to explain what's going on halfway across the world that just felt weird. It's a necessary scene to make the ending work and I don't know if it would have been possible to introduce it any other way, but it was still kind of jarring.

The book definitely kept me interested in the Laundry universe, but I'll need to track down a copy of The Atrocity Archives before I can really continue.

[Bomby von Bombsville]

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. My least favorite of his novels so far, but it's starting to pick up a bit of steam. I'm approximately 1/3 through the book right now.

[Oz]

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. My least favorite of his novels so far, but it's starting to pick up a bit of steam. I'm approximately 1/3 through the book right now.

Its beginning pales in comparison to Murakami's other work, but the ending was so fascinating for me that in the end I considered it one of Murakami's best.

[LeoXiao]

Purchased War Trash and Ocean of Words by Ha Jin. I'd read another one of his works, Waiting, in 11th grade and found its romance-based plot a bit uncompelling, even if realistic. The former books, by contrast, seem to be quite an interesting look into the lives of soldiery in post-1949 China, which is where I think this author excels. All of his writing is easy to read, which is a plus.

[Bomby von Bombsville]

Its beginning pales in comparison to Murakami's other work, but the ending was so fascinating for me that in the end I considered it one of Murakami's best.

Good to hear that. I actually did really quite like the very beginning when he was talking about the various women he was sleeping with. That being said, I was feeling extremely hyped sexual and was surrounded by cute girls at Starbucks when I was reading hat part. Perhaps that put me in the mood for reading about such things. Also, I love how he loves ears as much as I love lips, if not even more.

I picked up this book back in April and read a bit of the first part despite the fact hat i was still already in he middle of reading After Dark at the time. Other than that, I can't wait to get to Dance Dance Dance, which sounds like from descriptions would be right up my alley. I picked that and three other Murakamis used last week. Can you tell who my favorite author is?

Once I'm done with that one I think I'm gonna have to start going through all the non-Murakami books I've also been amassing. Perhaps Number 9 Dream or Cloud Atlas since one of my best friends recommended David Mitchell very highly as something I would probably like and since I was in the faction of moviegoers that actually really loved the movie of the latter. Or maybe I should check out that Great Gatsby thing everyone has been yapping out recently for the past few decades.

[Lavinius]

I just now began, read, and finished La Vita Nuova by Dante, in the translation by Dante.
Such beauty.

[Madonna]

Reading A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft at the moment, an essential book to understanding the philosophy of feminism.