Paolo - aNobii

Books (395)

2011 Added (Newest) Title (A to Z) Title (Z to A) Rating (Highest) Rating (Lowest) Finished (Newest) Finished (Oldest) Published (Newest) Published (Oldest) Added (Newest) Added (Oldest)

- L'arabe (3)
- By Antoine Audouard
- Reading
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- Planesrunner (4)
- Everness, Book One
- By Ian McDonald
- Finished
  
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Planesrunner

Let's call it a homage...

An homage to Philip Pullman, of course, ad his Dark Materials. The comparison is unavoidable., the similarities too many to ignore, down to the dress style of the evil female protagonist, Charlotte Villiers (will we discover she has a heart of gold in later books?). Planesrunner is lighter, more tec ... (continue)

An homage to Philip Pullman, of course, ad his Dark Materials. The comparison is unavoidable., the similarities too many to ignore, down to the dress style of the evil female protagonist, Charlotte Villiers (will we discover she has a heart of gold in later books?). Planesrunner is lighter, more techno-oriented: the main character sports an iPad which becomes an object of desire across multiple dimensions, the science of anything, from an Heiseberg gate to the airships sounds like it makes sense. Electropunk at its best, in any case, very enjoyable.

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— Dec 15, 2011 | Add your feedback
- Bakuman, Vol. 8 (4)
- By Tsugumi Ohba
- Finished
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- Ender's Game (792)
- By Orson Scott Card
- Finished
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- Shadowmagic (4)
- By John Lenahan
- Abandoned
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- Phoenix Rising (7)
- By Pip Ballantine
- Finished
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- Bleach, Volume 10 (24)
- By Tite Kubo
- Finished
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- 1Q84 (531)
- Books 1, 2 & 3
- By Haruki Murakami
- Finished
  
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1Q84

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***
Notes in progress

# I miss the enigmatic characters of Dance Dance Dance or The Windup Bird Chronicles. I find the stream of consciousness italics redundant, as I had found them in Kafka on the Beach. Why is Murakumi dumbing down his work?
# Maybe it's the high school retrospectives that come up at one point ... (continue)

# I miss the enigmatic characters of Dance Dance Dance or The Windup Bird Chronicles. I find the stream of consciousness italics redundant, as I had found them in Kafka on the Beach. Why is Murakumi dumbing down his work?
# Maybe it's the high school retrospectives that come up at one point, but it almost looks like the author is writing one of those encyclopedic manga. A good one nonetheless. No end will be left loose.
# Two moons: Things are starting to get interesting, still in a manga sort of way.
# I suspect the translators keep rendering futon (布団) as "sofa" rather than as bedroll, or simply futon. Very annoying, if nothing else because they "adapt" and/or equivocate plenty of other things
# The frequent repetitions in the text are puzzling. I keep watching them like minimalist musing, hoping to see inconsistencies that might resonate with the unstable reality at the basis of the novel. But so far they are just repetitions
# Tengo Shrimp instant recipe, book 4, chapter 7: He put the sliced celery and mushrooms into the frying pan. Turning the gas flame up to high and lightly jogging the pan, he carefully stirred the contents with a bamboo spatula, adding a sprinkle of salt and pepper. When the vegetables were just beginning to cook, he tossed the drained shrimp into the pan. After adding another dose of salt and pepper to the whole thing, he poured in a small glass of sake. Then a dash of soy sauce and finally a scattering of Chinese parsley.
# bold characters in narrative should be abolished. If the text itself does not lend emphasis to the story, graphic tricks won't help.
In the end, was it worth it? I'm undecided. There are signs of greatness, but diluted in a bloated, repetitive narrative. Unless the translation was wildly off the mark and missed ambiguities and (self) deception, I found the stream-of-consciousness parts completely useless and redundant, explaining over and over what had no need to be explained. There are great tragic figures, like Ushikawa. I loved the idea, just hinted to, that Tengo Kanawa is actually writing the novel in which he is co-protagonist, the very one I had in my hands. Were three volumes necessary? Do the literary qualities of the end result surpass similar "genre" literature? I would not be so sure about that.

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— Oct 30, 2011 | Add your feedback
- Jane Eyre (4371)
- [kindle edition]
- By Charlotte Brontë
- Finished
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- Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 1 (35)
- By Hiromu Arakawa
- Finished
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