vineri, 30 iulie 2010

The Life as a Prey

Marin Preda's journey into becoming a great romanian writer couldn't be any more vivid that it is presented in this novel. Maybe the author didn't want to write it as a novel, but the way in which the character evolves and grows reminds anyone who reads it of a bildungsroman.

It was a revelation to read of a writer which seemed in his youth more fascinated by the bits of reality heard or lived, than by the radical social and political movements happening in his days. Maybe that's what saved his style, the style of a romanian literary Picasso, that can take bits and pieces of reality to create and explain a purpose for some actions, a mobil for the thoughts of his characters.

"For a young writer life is like a prey and you need to know where to attack it from." Perhaps my translation fails to encompass the meaning but it portrays a reality that not only artists have to encompass(the first bite, attack of life) but we all, anyone who wishes to accomplish something in her/his life.

Setting my sight on my prey, I choose to try and see which attack,or bite, will open the route to my dreams...

miercuri, 28 iulie 2010

The Mammoth Book of Seriously Comic Fantasy

This is a book I read for almost three weeks.

It made me laugh and it made me think much more than before not to stop a thought in its infancy. I think I had a history with killing good thoughts, but this great anthology gave me a hope and a purpose not to do that anymore. Some thoughts are valuable enough just because they make you laugh, because they are so inconsistent with the reality we know that only by laugh we can make them more approachable.

The book made me laugh. The stories I liked the most were: Neander-tale by James P. Hagan; Dances with elves by Cynthia Ward; A slow day in hell by Julia S. Mandala; The Aliens who knew, I mean, everything by George Alec Effinger; The Dragon Doctor's Apprentice by Molly Brown; The Top 50 Things I'd do if I ever became an Evil Overlord by Peter Anspach; Escape from The Planet of Bears by Tom Holt and Quest by Sue Anderson. I enjoyed the whole book and I'm glad that I loaned it. If I ever come across a volume I think I would like to buy it, because I feel like reading it again, especially since it seems more like a book from which to read when you feel like it, unlike a novel that can hold you captive for days.

Laughter is a serious matter and it needs to be payed attention to. I will do just that and hope to treasure my paradoxical thought better from now on.