Wally Nes’ Blog

For those of you that keep a close eye on this blog will notice that the “currently reading” section changes. A lot.
This is due to the fact that I have 2.5-3 hours everyday to read.

The longest entry that I had in that list was Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot, which managed to stay in that list as long as it did because I read it in Japanese.

Recently, the list has been filled with “Soon, I will be Invincable“, “Les Misérables” and I am currently working through “The children of Húrin“.

The first book is a tale told from the two perspectives of 1. The Ultimate SuperVillain and 2. A rooky in a Superteam. This is, purposely, written with a sense of humour and tours along quite a few of the cliches of the Hero vs Villain realm. It was a fun and enjoyable read.

I interrupted Les Miserables for that book as I had the unabridged version spanning some 1500 pages and a book of that size begs for interruption after a while(I did bridge quite a few pages myself though). So returning to this universe of 18xx france after this cliche side-track I come across Marius throwing his life away on the Barricades because Cosette was taken away from him (So badly taken away from him in fact that she sent him her new address). Jean Valjean breaking into the barricades and face certain death to drag this boy out and see him restored to his daughter. Jean Valjean sacrificing himself for things long dead and buried and removing himself from his daughter’s life. A daughter so pretty but so witless she does not notice her own father distancing himself and thinks nothing of him leaving her at the day of her wedding. The story which comes to an end when Marius finds out Jean was indeed not the bad guy, something he could have told him easily had Jean wanted/Marius asked but nooooooo. The revalation is just in time to watch Jean die of a broken heart.

I am now going through the last pages of a story roughly written by J.R.R. Tolkien but edited and published under the name of his son. The main character has so far managed to get 3 big groups of people (humans, elves and assorted) killed due to his good intentions, noble heart but foolhardy stubbornness.
Having a safe haven to return to he does however not do this due to . . . something or other. Really, you would expect the character who remonstrates himself 6 times that he should have listened to the wise elves to return to the wise elves and take his place at the side of the wise elf-king but no. He heads to the last band of humans living in freedom and tries to hang up his sword and live in obsqurity. His mother and sister seek out to find him, his sister falls prey to a dragon who wipes her memory and she ends up falling in love with her brother, marrying him and getting pregnant of his child. When the great dragon comes to finish of this last band of humans in Morgoth’s domain he comes again upon the main character, whom he had let live after the last time he burned/ate his group of friends to go forth and despair. In the epic struggle that consisted of main character lying in wait on the dragon’s path and thrusting a sword upwards (he learns, at least) and then catching an eyefull of hate from a dying brainwashing dragon while he gloats (OK, maybe not). Sisterdear ofcourse cannot contain herself and sets out to find her man. The dragon, on his last breath, tells her who she is and the combination of her seemingly dead lover/husband/brother and the obomination in her womb she throws herself in a raging river and dies.
In what one might expect from how I described things above the main character is not actually dead and I expect that when I read on on the way home I will find him killing himself off out of some sense of honour.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I liked all 3 books. It’s just that . . . . MAN, can we do with a few less horribly simplified characters and some less cliches?

I am not an unread man, and I oversimplify the events taken place in the books somewhat in order to write it in this post (Les mis is 1500 pages, how long do you think an accurate interpretation would be). I am aware of the roles filled by both Cosette and Nienor and why they were painted that way but . . . Damn.

I will shorty return to a work of Neil Gayman. An author I only recently discovered though I read his Manga series “Sandman” 9 years ago and loved it.

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Quote of the day:

10 Spanish and 10 Italians in Vulcanus in Japan 2008. I pity Nakamura-san should she stick around at the centre.

- Wally

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 10:43 am and is filed under Fun and Games, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.