The Godfather

Another good book,

very easy to read, a real page turner. Perhaps the most interesting thing is the differences between the book and the film,. for instance there is a whole story line revolving around Johnny Fontane, the Frank Sinatra type character, which is completely omitted from the film. In addition there is a whole chunk of the story about Connie which we don't hear.

The book is in many way more violent and darker to some degree. However it has to be said that the Godfather character does not come across quite as charismatic as Brando. I suppose this is testament to the great actor. Although the author tells us of the respect and the awe people hold him in, theres something about his dialogue of its delivery thats missing.

The ending is also different, I suppose they didn't need to set it up for a sequel.

I've now moved on to satanic verses.

Great Expectations

Howdy,

Well, another Dickens novel. This is one of his latter novels. Whereas the earlier one I read (Oliver) was one of his earlier. This was also initially serialised in a newspaper and you can still see that in it.

The book start off great, with one of my favorite lines. The book is set in three parts. The inital part is pip growing up and highlights a turblent part of his life where he comes across many wierd and wonderful characters. I like this part of the book the best because Dickens is soo good at creating characters. The second part out lines his education in london and the third part ties up the loose ends.

As it turns out many of the chacaters double up, and this means that there is a lack of new characters. hard to explain unless you read it. I have to say I found the book very hard to follow in places and quite labour intensive in others, much like Oliver. Pip isn't a particulaly likable guy, he doesn't learn many lessons, he seems niave.

The strong characters suffer and the weak characters prosper. but maybe thats life.

So long, on to the Godfather, light stuff alltogether.

Til then

g

The God Delusion

Well


there I was reading Great Expectations, and hey what a book, but I'm still ploughing through it, and I downloaded some audio books of bittorrent. These were the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and How to Know yourself by the Dalai Lama. In some ways it seems our future informed societies could be based on these two books.


I started into the Dalai Lama book but the guy reading it really wrecked my buzz so I gave up on it and started listening to the God Delusion.








It is actually read by Dawakins and (I Think) his wife. This works really well as it breaks up the monotony of a single persons voice. And one person will to the quotes while the other does the narrative.




The books itself is enlightening. From the outset it makes no apologies for saying the purpose of the book is to convert you to atheism!!! An outlandish claim. Why would anyone want to be an atheist. Someone who believes in nothing. Some one whose life is empty. Some one too weak to pray or lacks the conviction to live by the lords laws.


However when you think about it - atheism is a brave stance. It means I need no crutch. I need no compensation. This life is it, so live it well, get on with it and rejoice in simple things.


Am I an atheist? I think some part of me is since becoming an adult. And this isn't just a disillusionment with the church, I think all Irish people have taken a step back in recent years. I personally I no problem with the church at a local level. But I suppose my problem is that I am a devout scientist, but that sounds so stale, perhaps what I mean is that I am an enlightened person and I refuse to believe that the world is flat, that the sun revolves around the sun, that the earth is 6,000 years old, that we all originated from adam and eve and more recently from moses.


To think that we are expected to believe that every single living object on the planet was on that ark, never mind that all the animals, but think it means we all originate, whites, blacks, Chinese, aboriginal, from Moses. I think its funny when some racists say blacks aren't as evolved. Surely if you believe in the Moses story you would have to say they are more evolved because they had to evolve black skin since the time of Moses where as we westerners still looks the same. And in fairness who believes that Moses looked like Charlton Heston. Isn't that just the was the church of old and subsequently Hollywood wants us to think of them, to feel some association. Surely moses must have looked a lot darker than us. Lets not even get on to Jesus.





At any it I can't stand here and say yes I agree with creationism. How do I balance the two? I see the religious right in America as the inevitable conclusion of christian faith in the western world. America sneezes..... We are typically about 2 decades or may 15 years behind them in our culture, e.g. bottled water (everyone remembers the guy from ballygowan being laughed off the late late) obesity, technology.


I think the label of atheist carries such heavy connotations with it. I think what I would like is to keep trundling along with popping into church every now and then, the alacart christian, which I think so many of the irish are, but stay true to my inner beliefs. Do I get my morals from the church. I don't think so. Will I be happy when I am close to death to have a priest stand over me and say hey don't worry I'll make sure you get in, when really I can imagine looking up at him and saying, yeah but come on, I don't really believe in heaven.


The question is what am I clinging on to here. I think part of it could be that its all too awkard now to back out of. Am I trapped? Imagine if I was come out! I would have to call off the church wedding, could I swear what I have to swear? Is there too much at stake?


Part of me says just tag along and keep your head down, it'll be all ok. But is that good enough. Is that what I want my life to be???

The Outsider

Well this was a small book (120pgs) that took quite a while to read. It just seems to be hard to get any reading done lately. Always something on e.g. Joes Weedin.

Anyhow the book. The book, by Alexander Camus who as wiki tells us was a French-Algerian author, philosopher, and journalist who won the Nobel prize in 1957. He is often associated with existentialism, but Camus refused this label. On the other hand, as he wrote in his essay The Rebel, his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism. On the subject of his belief or not in God, he writes in the third volume of his notebooks: "I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist." Quite the character

Existentialism is the belief that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them.

The story tells of a guy, in Algeria, who become trapped in a chain of events which eventually lead to his execution. The main character of the protagonist is his detachment from all events, a ride on the bus seems to hold the same level of interest to him as his mother dying or sex. We only see real emotion in the rejection of god near his death.

This detachment had, for me the effect of not making the book all so interesting and a little hard to read. I found it hard to interest myself when the main character wasn't even interested.

At any rate its hard to find a classic novel with so few pages so give it a go. I probably will give it a go again.

Now for something completely different - Great Expectations

Mrs Dalloway

So here I am the day before paddys day. waiting to go out march.

this week I finished Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I remember seeing another book on the list called "Whos afraid of Virginia Woolf" and the impression lasted with me that this was a book men couldn't read or something. And it is truly a unique book so far. Its basically set in early 20th century london, which is interesting because she was talking about the various places we were visitng that weekend in london, but anyhow its a truly interesting.

The whole story is set during one day as Mrs Dalloway, a well to do 50 something, is preparing for a party. The narative basically flits in and out of various peoples minds and half the time your not quite sure who is talking or who they are talking about because its all in pronouns (he, she, I). So it needs to be read carefully to be understood, not the best book for commuting but one I'd like to go back to simply because the language is so poetic. You really feel at times your are reading poetry.

Also intersting is the change in pace from the internal dialogue of the women to the men. The women much more flightly and selfconscious the men much more structured and reverent.

Good book but be carefull

Below is a picture of the walk mrs dalloway completed in her preparation for her party.

Goodbye to Berlin

This Novel by Isherwood. A funny old thing, a series of short stories set around the early thirties in Germany. just as the Nazis were coming into power. There are a wide variety of characters and settings, read a little like Fiesta (Hemmingway) in places, people out on the lash all the time, wild characters, poverty behind the cloak of prosperity.

Can't concentrte now, neck too sore.

In Cold Blood

Been busy lately. The last few weekends have been Yorkshire (for "our" birthday), London (for my birthday) and then Joes Stag/first MKSP. What a run, I'm knackered!! But I have to say it were all great.

Anyhow getting back to it - In Cold Blod.
Famous in its own right but given a new lease of light after the movie Capote. This is definitely one of the best books so far on the journey of literature. It started a new genre True Crime

Heart of Darkness

Howdy,

the latest read was the Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This is a stunning book. Popularised now by the adaption by FFCoppolla in Apocalypse Now. Its a really short book ~ 110pages but very dense and a slow read. It is, according to the cover notes, considered the first modern novel of the 20th century, published in 1902.

Its basically a narrative told by a charismatic sailor, hes telling the story to other sailors as they wait to set off on a long journey from London. He tells of a trip up the Congo to find an ivory merchant who has run off the rails. The merchant, Kurtz, is analogous to Brandos character in the the movie and the book does a great job of evoking a kind of mysticism around the character.

I'd love to read it again because the prose is so good but at times I found myself a little lost and having to skip back to check what happened.

This would be a perfect book for a day of solitude, you could actually finish it in one day.

Fiesta: The Sun Also Shines

The latest read is as the titles says "Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises" by Hemmingway. This is a really great book. Basically follows a group of writers and artists in Paris in around the 1920s. They decide to go down to Spain, to Pampalona, for the Bullfighting and week long festival called the fiesta. The book is very evocative of the times and the locations. You really just want to get on a plane and hang out in rural Spain. Away from the resorts. Even though during the course of the festival the town is over run by tourists the narrator is an aficionadoo, there is a great explanation in the book of this term. The general sentiment of the book is that although we may think our generation parties the hardest and makes new breakthroughs in debauchery, basically its all been done before, and when drink too much they become drunks which is a particularly sobering thing in any age.

Of course Pamplona is famous for the tradition of allowing the bulls run through the streets to teh bullring, as seen in the pictures.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Well, I've just finished Verne' Journey to the centre of the Earth. What a great, pleasant, enthralling and exhilarating read. I find the recommendation from Authur C. Clark on the sleeve particularly apt. Clark was the master of science-fiction and in a strange way this book is also science fiction. We have come used to the idea that sci-fi is related to something up there in the stars. But really its someone wondering what if... its the little piece of knowledge that opens up possibilities to the imaginative mind. That precisely what Verne do here, except he does it primarily with geology. The book was written in 1864 an interesting time when people were on the verge of understanding yet still steep in religion. It was a time when naturalists were finding strange bones in quarries and developing the extent of geological time.













Verne takes pieces of information that geologists then accepted as fact, large prehistoric animals, the alteration of rock type with depth and age. But perhaps before the full impact of darwins evolution (published 1854) were appreciate, before continental drift, while there was still discussion on whether the centre of the was hot molten mass or a deep cavernous sea.













Its seems from the text that Verne doesn't really agree with the then aging concept of the hallow earth but it makes for a much better story, as opposed to the other option....

In this way the book is similar to Gulliver's Travels which, as you might recall from a previous post, Swift uses a little bit of knowledge to imagine what if. And despite the fact this information in now proved incorrect, it still makes for a good read.

So yeah its a good book, I flew through it, I could well recommend it. The two main characters are very endearing.

Other things this weekend included a trip to the BT young scientist exhibition.http://www.btyoungscientist.ie/f_version/mediacentre_winner2008.html Which was interesting, saw duncan cleary giving a not so interesting talk about cfl bulbs. Sick of hearing about it now.

Also went to see the exhibition of Polish Art in the National Gallery - Very Good.

Kite Flyer

Howdy,

Well I finished the Kite Runner, and I can say its a very good book. The over arching theme to me seems not to judge a book by its cover, or the danger of assumptions. The first short chapter sets your mind ticking about what is going to happen at the end. Basically the main character, Amir, an Afghan living in America in June 2001, is contacted by someone from home and told there is a way to be good again, to atone for his sins. And its left at that and the story jumps back in time to his childhood in Kabul. Reading the book I was thinking ok this is how this guy turns out to be a suicide bomber, one of the 911 guys. But its only my own prejudices that are shown up as the source of his redemption is entirely good.

The book is the story of a family and a country. The depiction of Afghanistan is beautiful during the start of the novel but once the Taliban move in the imagery is shocking and devastating.

So yeah go out and get this one. Also I really like the "Points for Discussion" at the end and the authors top ten novels.

Now back to Kafka 8(

Also I have started on the crusade to work my way through the American Film Institutes (AFI) top 100 moves. I bought Citizen Kane for €9 during the weekend. I'm keeping to the rule that I'm only going to buy a dvd if it costs less than €10. I don't think there is much to say about Citizen Kane, its a brilliant movie, Welles is brilliant in it, the story line is gripping and the photography is still evocative.

Next on the list is the Godfather. Think I'll buy the box set as part two is also on the list.

Here is the list for your perusal

1 CITIZEN KANE

2 GODFATHER, THE

3 CASABLANCA

4 RAGING BULL

5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN

6 GONE WITH THE WIND

7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

8 SCHINDLER'S LIST

9 VERTIGO

10 WIZARD OF OZ, THE

11 CITY LIGHTS12 SEARCHERS, THE13 STAR WARS14 PSYCHO15 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY16 SUNSET BLVD.17 GRADUATE, THE18 GENERAL, THE19 ON THE WATERFRONT20 IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE21 CHINATOWN22 SOME LIKE IT HOT23 GRAPES OF WRATH, THE24 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL25 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON27 HIGH NOON28 ALL ABOUT EVE29 DOUBLE INDEMNITY30 APOCALYPSE NOW31 MALTESE FALCON, THE32 GODFATHER PART II, THE33 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST34 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS35 ANNIE HALL36 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE37 BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE38 TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE39 DR. STRANGELOVE40 SOUND OF MUSIC, THE41 KING KONG42 BONNIE AND CLYDE43 MIDNIGHT COWBOY44 PHILADELPHIA STORY, THE45 SHANE46 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT47 STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, A48 REAR WINDOW 49 INTOLERANCE 50 LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE51 WEST SIDE STORY52 TAXI DRIVER 53 DEER HUNTER, THE54 M*A*S*H55 NORTH BY NORTHWEST 56 JAWS 57 ROCKY58 GOLD RUSH, THE 59 NASHVILLE60 DUCK SOUP61 SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS62 AMERICAN GRAFFITI 63 CABARET 64 NETWORK 65 AFRICAN QUEEN, THE 66 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK67 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?68 UNFORGIVEN69 TOOTSIE70 CLOCKWORK ORANGE, A71 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN72 SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID74 SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT76 FORREST GUMP77 ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN78 MODERN TIMES79 WILD BUNCH, THE80 APARTMENT, THE81 SPARTACUS82 SUNRISE83 TITANIC84 EASY RIDER85 NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A86 PLATOON87 12 ANGRY MEN88 BRINGING UP BABY89 SIXTH SENSE, THE90 SWING TIME91 SOPHIE'S CHOICE92 GOODFELLAS93 FRENCH CONNECTION, THE94 PULP FICTION95 LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE96 DO THE RIGHT THING97 BLADE RUNNER98 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY99 TOY STORY100 BEN-HUR

start fresh

Well here I am still alive after Christmas. New years eve in Manchester. Lovely city lots to see and do. Annoying flight - the pain of ryanair.

Finished Brave New World. Turned out to be very good and I particularly liked the discussion near the end between the savage and the world controller. I can recommend it.

Have now moved on to the Kite Runner which I bought in Waterstones in Manchester. I got about 60 pages through it on the way back. Looks to be a really interesting look at Islam and a strange culture from the inside.

Very happy that I went for a run today and cycled and practiced trumpet and piano and was terrible at everything but it feels good to be back on track.