Thursday Quotables: The Slade House

Hello, everyone! Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is hosted by 

Bookshelf  Fantasies. Every week we highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! So, after a small absence from this weekly feature, I'm finally back on track. For this week, I'll share with you some quotes from David Mitchell's latest novel The Slade House. It's basically a ghost story, but it's amazing (I couldn't expect anything else from my favourite author).

1.

The clock's really tall. I put my ear against its wooden chest and hear its heart: krunk...kronk...krunk...kronk... It has no hands. It's got words instead, on its old, pale-as-bone clock face, saying TIME IS and under that TIME WAS and under that TIME IS NOT.

2.

If you don't feet into the system, the system makes life hell.

3.

People are masks, with masks under those masks, and masks under those, and down you go.

Have you read The Slade House? Which one was your favourite quote?

Weeckies: The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells

Hello, everybody! This week's short story is The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells. It was first published in 1911 in the collection The Door in the Wall, and Other Stories. But the edition I read is none other than Penguin's Little Black Classics #77, A Slip Under the Microscope. 

I've enjoyed immensely the H.G. Wells' novels that I've read, The War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man. Also, The Door in the Wall wasn't my first attempt to read Wells' short stories, since I've read Empire of the Ants, and Other Stories. So, I had an idea what to expect although this story isn't as hard science fiction as are some of the author's other stories.                                                                                                                                                           Lionel, a promising politician, confides in his friend a secret that he carries almost all of his life. When he was just a little boy, he wandered alone and found a white wall and a green door. His urge to enter this door was so great that in the end he ended up opening it. It turned out that the door led to a different world with a different quality, a warmer, more penetrating and mellower light. After this experience, he tried to find this door again but he couldn't. It only appeared to him at random moments and for one reason or another he didn't open it again. The knowledge of what he was missing was devastating to him.

Only one person is of interest in The Door in the Wall and that is Lionel. For this reason, we learn nothing about the narrator of the story. He is just the one that passes along the story, without judging or offering his own view. Indeed, the reader is the one to ultimately decide whether Lionel's story was real or fantasy. The reactions of the politician are intense, the agony and frustration that this door makes him feel seem real. But this is an extraordinary story, something that cannot be explained with science and the mind can't quite grasp.

   We see our world fair and common, the hoarding and the pit. By our daylight standard he walked out of security into darkness, danger, and death.    But did he see like that? 

Manga Review: Flower in a Storm by Shigeyoshi Takagi

Title: Flower in a Storm

Author: Shigeyoshi Takagi

Publisher: VIZ Media LLC

Date of Publication: 2010

Number of Volumes: 2

Number of Pages: 200 (each volume)

Find it at: Book Depository (Vol.1), Book Depository (Vol. 2)

Summary

Love is like a storm. Riko Sassoku is trying to lead a normal high school life when Ran Tachibana bursts into her classroom carrying a gun and telling her that her life is now his. Ran, the richest, most powerful 17-year-old in Japan wants her as his wife, and he's not taking no for an answer! If Ran can't capture her by five o'clock the next day, he'll give up on her, but he has all that money can buy at his disposal. However, Riko has one trick up her sleeve--she has superpowers!

Review

It is the truth that I enjoy a lot a good shojo manga from time to time. Flower in a Storm was one of the titles that came up almost every time that I was trying to decide which one to read next. So, it was expected that I would pick it up at some point. It also had many other advantages, like an interesting premise and small size (only two volumes). What more could I ask from a light and quick read?

The story of Flower in a Storm wasn't that original. A rich boy came out of the blue and demanded to marry the protagonist. Everything happened so quickly that I was perplexed on how he met her and fell for her. They hadn't met before this incident, there wasn't a family connection, they basically lived in different worlds. Of course, an explanation is offered in the manga, but it wasn't satisfying enough. If there were a better one, the story would have been much more interesting.

The plot then became mostly episodic. In each chapter, something happened, like an assassin attacking Ran or Riko and while the two of them were trying to overcome these dangers they became slightly closer. At least Riko because Ran's feelings were already there. It was so swoon-worthy to watch Riko wonder why she felt so anxious for not seeing Ran! It might not be the first time that I've read a manga with a protagonist with these feelings, but it was certainly well executed.

What troubled me in Flower in a Storm and I couldn't enjoy it as much as I'd like to was the characters and their development. Both Ran and Riko felt more like some sort of archetypes, rather than original characters. Ran was the rich and eccentric kid, who would do anything to show off. Riko, on the other hand, was the one who had always been slightly different from everyone else and that's why she wanted to just be ordinary.

If you read the summary of this manga before this review, then you'd surely expect that Riko had some kind of superpower. Riko was just very athletic, she could run really fast and she could also beat anyone that came in her way. When I was reading Flower in a Storm it didn't bother me at all, but I found it really weird that I was supposed to consider it as something out of the ordinary.

All in all, Flower in a Storm was quite an enjoyable manga, although it was pretty generic. I could predict what was going to happen in the beginning of each chapter and I couldn't really connect with the characters. But, I have to admit that the idea with the clock was amazing. I would recommend it to anyone who would like to read something light and quick.  

So, my advice is...

Get caught up in the storm!

The Reading Book Post, November 23rd

Hello, everyone! The past week was extremely busy. I'm finally beginning to be more familiar with the city and I like it very much. Anyway, let's see what happened in the literary world the previous week.

• The 2015 National Book Awards winners were announced. Among the winners is Adam Johnson for his book Fortune Smiles: Stories and Neal Shusterman for his novel Challenger Deep. Also, the National Book Award lifetime achievement was awarded to Don DeLillo. Moreover, the Costa Book Awards shortlist was revealed earlier this week. Morrissey's book, List of the Lost, has been nominated for an award! To be precise, it's been nominated for the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards.

• Have you heard of The Love that Split the World by Emily Henry? You can now read the fist two chapter, until its upcoming publication on January 26, 2016. Also, you can now see the cover and read an excerpt from Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff, which will be published on May 17, 2016. Lastly, you can read an extract from Drew Barrymore's Wildflower, which is now available.

• Looking for something to watch? There are plenty of interviews and all sort of videos with our favourite authors online. You can watch David Mitchell explain why Darth Vader is interesting while Superman is boring or you can watch Salman Rushdie arguing that ISIS' most dangerous weapon is media. You can also watch a small part of a rare lecture of Kurt Vonnegut on Man-Eating Lampreys. And for all the Lord of the Rings fans there is a 1968 documentary which features an interview with the author, J.R.R. Tolkien.

• The literary magazine, The Strand, has recently published in its holiday issue a rediscovered play by author William Faulkner. The play is called Twixt Cup and Lip and the author wrote it in his early 20s, probably for a college theatre group.

• Which Roald Dahl Character Are You? Take the quiz to find out! It turns out that I am Charlie Bucket from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which one are you?

Confession Saturday: Dear Jane Eyre

Hello, everyone! Confession Saturday is a weekly feature, in which we will have the chance to express our feelings towards certain characters. This time of the week we will choose one character and write to him/her about all the things we would like to say. We can explain why we like or dislike each character, which of his/her actions we don't understand and generally whatever comes to mind. 

This week, my letter will be addressed to none other than Jane Eyre, the beloved protagonist of the novel with the same name by Charlotte Bronte. I've always felt a great admiration for Jane, you might even say that she is one of my role models. 

Dear Jane,

I admire you! From the very beginning, you had a difficult life. Nothing was given to you and the way your aunt and cousins treated you was just awful. But you worked hard and you became a woman of her own mind. You never hesitated to speak out your mind and how beautiful it proved to be!

You got mixed in a really complicated situation with Mr. Rochester. You fell in love and you almost reached happiness, but reality hit you and you had to make an important decision. This is one of the things that I try to adopt in my life. You could stay with Mr. Rochester and become his mistress, but instead you chose to leave him, although he begged you to stay. I love the way that you demanded what was right to you. You were certainly hurt, but you followed your beliefs. 

The strength of your mind wasn't born by your status or your riches. You were determined enough to cultivate yourself. And being a woman in that time was difficult. I love how you had the courage to say to your lover and employer the courage to say that you are "a free human with an independent will". I wish I can be more like you in the future.

Yours,

Aeriko