NOVEL - Jasper Jones (Craig Silvey)

This book caught my eye at Kinokuniya one day in 2011 as the guy on the cover reminded me of Lip from Shameless US (ie: Jeremy Allen White) and that was purely the reason why I wanted to read the book.

Then I read the blurb then looked at the price tag of the book and thought 'okay..no," and put the book back down.

To be honest, it didn't sound that interesting. A bunch of kids in an Australian regional outback town. Okay, no thanks.

(interesting fact: the blurb of this book was in the 2010 School Certificate Paper)

Fast forward to one year later and things have changed greatly. The novel isn't extremely long, but it was able to make me laugh, cry and make my heart ache. It deals with prejudice, racism, death and love in a way that isn't too overwhelming and the lessons to be learned from the book aren't shoved down your throat, they subtlety seep into your mind.

It makes you wonder how a book which appears to be another typical teen book can contain so much meaning. I finished the 300+ pages in well under a week and I would gladly read it again. Books like these deserve to be read more than once. There are moments in which you suddenly burst out laughing and with that, I want to acknowledge the flawlessness of the character Jeffrey Lu. Much of my laughter was due to him.

• “He couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.”

Jasper Jones also contains many good, insightful quotes, and I'll end this post with one of them.

• “Life might be easier if you give in a little, but it’s better if you hold onto something so hard you can’t give it up.”

NOVEL - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami)

This is my related text for Ext 1 English. I don't have much to say about the actual plot of this book.

When I finish a book, I look it up on Wikipedia it to see what it has to say about it. Expecting a long synopsis of the book, this is what I get:

"The novel is about a low-key unemployed man, Toru Okada, whose cat runs away. A chain of events follow that prove that his seemingly mundane life is much more complicated than it appears."

When two sentences is all Wikipedia has to say about something, you know the topic at hand either has no substance or is too elaborate for anyone to actually be bothered to write a proper summary of it. In this case, it's the latter.

Nearly everything in this book is a motif. Cats, baseball bats, water, flows, music, clothing, darkness, wells. Everything is symbolic for something and the book not only depicts the life of Toru Okada, it goes into so much detail with the lives of the other characters, you begin to wonder if the book is actually about Toru and his missing cat. With 600+ pages, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is so dense, I had to take breaks now and then because it became too much.

I really liked Lieutenant Mamiya's army storyline. Usually I don't care much when books integrate actual historical events because sometimes it just feels like a history lesson, but what Lieutenant recounted to Toru was so fascinating and graphic, that it ended up being one of my favourite parts of the book.

I also adored Toru and May Kasahara's platonic relationship, slightly similar Toru Watanabe and Midori Kobayashi from Murakimi's earlier novel Norwegian Wood. The irony is that despite her quirky personality and her 'interesting' way of expressing herself (“When I see a dictionary on my desk I feel like I’m looking at some strange dog leaving a twisty piece of poop”), May ends up being the most realistic, normal (in a non-supernatural way) character. Her and Toru's constant rumination over death and human life provides much needed fodder for my Textual Dynamics essay.

One more thing I want to mention is the character Noboru Wataya, of which Toru absolutely despises. An academic and later a politician with much power at his finger tips, he intrigues me, reminding me of Patrick Bateman of American Psycho or John Tuld from Margin Call. When most people stop, he keeps going and what scares you about those types of people is not just what they're capable of, but how much it takes to stop them.

The ending is satisfying and despite not every issue being 100% resolved (eg: the mysterious woman on the phone), this leaves room for you to think about the actual novel and the ideas that it raises. This is the second book that I have read by Murakami and so far, I am far from being disappointed. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is definitely worth a read.

NOVEL - We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lionel Shriver)

This novel truly depicts every mother's worst nightmare. We Need To Talk About Kevin contains a series of letters from Eva Khatchadourian to her husband Franklin, reflecting on her life prior and subsequent to the high school massacre, known as Thursday, committed by her son Kevin.

Since his birth, Eva notices that Kevin's characteristics and actions are almost sociopathic as the two form a loathsome relationship while Kevin appears to be much closer to his father. Although Eva voices her concern for and of Kevin, Franklin disregards this by "rounding up" these warnings as minor incidents which reinforces the notion that 'boys will be boys', thus pushing Eva and Franklin further apart.

In terms of the storyline, we know the gist of what happens at the start, middle and end but what is a surprise to us is the emotional development. As little is known about Kevin's true motives and thoughts, some surprising discoveries are made. In this book, you see various relationships strain, breakdown and flourish as it examines ideas associated with parental responsibility and unconditional love.

One would assume that a book structured through letters is tenuous to read but We Need To Talk About Kevin is beautifully written and effectively builds up suspense. There are several intricate nuances (as my English teacher would say) within the book which requires multiple readings or a very attentive mind to notice, such as Kevin's response to an interviewer paralleling Eva's ideas prior to Thursday on American accountability. The book mainly explores the complicated relationship between Kevin and Eva of which many can unfortunately relate to.

This is as much as I can discuss about the novel before spoiling it, however I whole heartedly recommend you read it as well as watch the film adaptation with Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller and John C. Reilly. I watched the film first then read the novel and I found that while the film is amazing on its own, the novel adds further depth, of which helped to me understand and appreciate the film even more.