3 posts tagged “koji suzuki”
I finished reading Shutting Out the Sun the day before yesterday. It was, in a word, sobering. i never thought of Japan as some magical wonderland; i knew it had problems like any other place. (For example, the thought of being encouraged to stop working in my twenties and go have babies is appalling to me. i'd be screaming "lawsuit" faster than you could imagine.) This book really shines a light on the problems the country is facing, particularly those of its younger generations who have grown increasingly disillusioned and detached from society. Most of the book centers around the hikikomori, young people (mostly men) who find life in society so unbearable that they lock themselves away in their rooms for months, even years, at a time. It's hard not to feel for these people, especially at a point where i'm feeling pretty disillusioned myself. It's an incredibly fascinating book, and I'm very glad i picked it up after hearing about it on NPR one night.
i've also started reading Dark Water again. My first attempt didn't go so well, but after reading Birthday a few weeks ago, i was in the mood for more Suzuki. i finished the first story this evening, which was the basis for the movie Dark Water. He focuses more on the gross factor than they did in the movies - which is something that i was always stuck on. "They drank it.. on man.. ew.."
i'm still having trouble reading. My eyes still jump around a lot, but i'm enjoying myself while i try to focus, at least.
What's on your holiday wish list?
This is a total stretch, but what the hell, it'll be fun.
1. A place with a walk-in closet, an awesome kitchen, a yard for the doggies, and a bathroom that isn't the size of a coffin.
2. A pitbull.
3. A flowbee to groom Thorn.
4. Snow.
5. An RX-8. And also a nice SUV to make moving easier.
6. Focus.
7. A big beautiful TV to watch Star Wars on.
8. All the Star Wars Legos.
9. A tattoo.
10. One of those badass Kitchenaid mixers.
11. A puppet resembling the one from the Saw movies. (With or without tricycle.)
12. A queen- or king-sized bed.
13. A 30" Cinema Display so my 23" has a friend.
14. A super computer to run those monitors with a sexy video card.
15. Updates for all my design programs.
16. FONTS.
17. A nice set of pots and pans and cooking stuffs.
18. Lots and lots of Vicoden for my knee and Xanax for my head.
19. Stormtrooper armor.
20. An array of long, colorful, stripey socks.
21. Vertically striped or pin-striped pants that are exceedingly comfy. Lots of 'em.
i think that's ridiculous enough. Hooray for wishful thinking, heh.
In preparation for the release of Birthday this December (which is already pre-ordered with 2 day express shipping because i'm an impatient motherfucker), i've decided that i'm going to start re-reading the Ring trilogy once again.
This is one case in which i believe the books really ARE better than the movies. Any one who enjoyed the movies at all should read them, because there's simply so much more to the story. None of the movies made have ever gotten the story right - not the two American versions, not the four Japanese movies, not even the Korean version, which came the closest. i'm very excited about Birthday's release because it's a collection of stories in the Ring universe, one of which was the basis for Ring 0, which is my favorite of all the movies. (You get to see her as the troubled, misunderstood character she really was, not the demonic figure the other movies had made her out to be.)
Anyhoo. Even if you didn't like the movies, or didn't see a single one, it's such an interesting story that i'd recommend the books to anyone... especially Loop. Everything you think you know isn't wrong, just... skewed.
