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.

Break the back of christmas

Howdy,

Well I feel like I'm over the most of Christmas now. I did get to read some. Picked up Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas on Christmas eve for myself and finished it Christmas day . Its a good book. The tag line being something like great trajedy seen through Innocent eyes. I think this will definitely get made into a move. Its not that long and reads really quickly and has an interesting ending. So yeah I could really recommend it but it probably won't change your life. I find so like of art changes my life anymore. Maybe that's because there's now so much of my life that I its takes more to change it. I think we may just get nudged around by circumstances. Perhaps that's why older men need something catastrophic (heart bypass) to change their habits. Anyhow.

Other than that I'm still wading through The Trial by Kafka which is quite short but slow going, but have that aside for A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Brave New World is I guess a futuristic novel written in 1932 about a Utopian society. It is interesting to see how much of everyday life he has gotten right. E.g. one of the female character was disappointed by a hotel on a recent trip to the north pole as it didn't have a telly in every room. You could kinda of tell this was supposed to be tongue in cheek, i.e. that people of the time should baulk at the idea of it, but now it is the case. Also I never knew where the word soma, which is one of the tracks on smashing pumpkins Siamese dream album, came from, now I get it. Soma is the drug they take in the future to ease peoples minds, seems pretty cool drug, you can take 1 gram to cal your nerves and give you a good feeling, take 4 or more and you're off into some cosmic hallucinogenic dream - far out man.

Back into it via Polysyballic spree

Well,

I just made a balls of my previous draft of this post and now I've to write it again so I'll forgo the excellent prose that filled the first version.

Basically I ain't posted in a while because I've been reading dickens Oliver. This is of course part of my trawl through literature. Only problem is once you get past the "please sir can I have some more" its all down hill and that's almost in the second chapter. And theres now "food, glorious fooood" song in the book obviously. Anyhow thats not to say that dickens didn't know what hes at. This was I think his second novel published as a serialised version in a paper. And it does actually read like that. You can just picture some toff getting the horse and carriage to work in the morning droolling over the dry wit of mr dickens. Essentially I've been doing the same on the luas. However this has meant that I have not been cycling and as a result perhaps not running and as a result, in addition to a lot of chrimbo excess have put on 2bls!!!!

Oliver was getting a little laborious and the thoughts of setting in Jane Eyre which is next on my shelf was not very appetising. Well cometh the time.... comeths the book. I was in waterstones trying to buy something for Michael when I noticed a book by Nick Hornby called Polysyllabic Spree. Its basically a compilation of articles he did for a literary magazine where he lists the books he bough and read (never the same) each month and give a rambling review of each. I was just what I needed because the whole point of the book is that certain books suit us at certain times and that we should be spontaneous in our reading and our purchasing of books.

I bought the book on Saturday, started reading it briefly before Tom and Talys and then got up early on Sunday morning and started into it. I had it finished by 10pm. Thats including a horrendous shopping trip to the blanch. (7000 car parking spaces, all full). So I've decided to put Oliver aside for a short while, I've only about 150 pages left and start something else on my list - Best of Sherlock Holmes. It was such a treat to start fresh into the book. Who knew Holmes did cocaine!, very topical.

Any how here's hoping the reading will go much more pleasantly now.

2 down lots to go

Well, I'm proud to say both tonight and Monday night I hoped off the bike and changed my top and went straight into my 2mile run. this was especially good Monday as it as raining, and also it was good as I cycled both days despite the rain.

Lets hope things continue as well

Marathon Man

Yes we in work have decided we are going to attempt the half marathon in Conemara next April. I don't think this will be such a big deal for some of them as it will be for me. Currently I am exactly 15st!!!! and although my cycles to work are good haven't ran in a good while.

I'm also worried that the last time I started running I tried too much too soon and got a really sore hip.

I'll down loaded some good training guides so I'll try to stick to that and obviously watch the diet. I'll keep a record here of how things go.

The first run was today, 2 miles. It was a killer stoped three times but once I got home I was delighted. I need to get a proper list of stretches!!!!

Long time no blog

Well Well,
its been quite a while since my last entry but I'm determined to keep at it.
Since then whats happened. Well on the book front I've read Gullivers Travels by Johnathan Swift. Yes we all know it with the guy who lands of the island first of the little people then the big people then go knows where. The book is very sedate and quite dull and was some what of a pain to read but something kept me going at it. One very interesting point that I gleaned from the book was that the premise of the book seems to be the extrapolation of scientific ideas into extreme circumstances.

Deep within the text the author makes references to large bones that are by times dug up by explorers and the current rational at the time (1700s) is that these must be of giants and that humans must indeed have been much larger in the past as scientist had rationaled b that stage that things buried in rock must be very old. The author therefore suggest that we will all become much smaller with time. In the first island with the small people they are a very civilised race, where the giant are much more barbarous and vicious, although interesting more honest.

The other islands play off the concept of magnetics and the occult and what might happen if these ideas are taken to extremities.
All said I wouldn't recommend it, only for the very hardy.

I then moved on to Tom Jones by Henry Fielding. This book is basically about a foundling, Tom Jones, who is taken in by a very rich guy and essentially raised by him as a son. The young Tom grows up to be a bit of a rascal but devilishly good looking. The story progress about how he grows up and various antics. The book is humours but VERY long ~700 very large pages of very small writing. This was serialised initially into over 20 books. I think you'd need a lot of time on your hands to get trough it. I got to about pg150 and gave up.

I then moved on to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Yeah a girls book. But how and ever I went in with an open mind and was pleased to say I flew through it and thoroughly enjoyed it. The main charm of the book is the main character Lizzy who is a head strong twenty something female in a house of girls all trying desperately to get married. Of course this book has the famous or infamous Mr. Darcy which women seem to go weak at the knees over. So it was nice to find out what was it about this guy that all the fuss is about. And basically it just adds to the argument that women like bastards but I suppose the added attraction with Darcy is that underneath it all hes a big soft and in love with Lizzy. Ah.

So now I've moved on to Oliver Twist. Having read the intro it appears this was Mr Dickens second novel which was first published as a series of newspaper stories. Having read the first few chapters it certainly reads like so but the further I get into it the more I like his sense of humour which is very dry.

So that's us up to date, I'll keep ya posted.