That’s exactly how I felt by Kafka on the Shore. I thought it was a really dreamy, surreal journey. Very unique kind of feel. I remember really liking it, to the extent that I thought he might be my new favorite author. But subsequent works I’ve tried to get into haven’t roped me in like that book unfortunately.
I can understand the occasional reference, or encounter with a character who has those qualities. But almost every book with every main or supporting character gets to be ridiculous. “Meet Amami Tutsudo, she’s the owner of the local bakery known for her undying love for Chopin, her mind soars with his transcendent movements, which she plays while baking her acclaimed loaves of bread.”
Zip is the best. Bill Griffith is one of my favorite cartoonists.
Not surprising at all. He has the vibe of a 8 year old telling me,“by the way, did I ever tell you about how much I love MINECRAFT!,” over and over again. I suppose the thing that gets me is that I’ve never seen an author inject a personal interest in something in their work to this degree. I’ve read a few authors where you can kind of get a feel for certain things they like, but they usually aren’t so obvious and overt about putting those interests on blast. It’s just jarring to me.
Yes, yes! Embrace the power of the dark side!
After the past twenty years, coming of age during the Bush W years, I’ve tried hard to resist becoming a misanthrope. But good, goddamn is it harder than ever before. I thought it was bad (and it was) when W. was the president growing up, but the amount of insane and woefully misinformed and hateful people in this country has reached a fever pitch I never could have imagined back then. It’s truly awesome in the most negative sense of that word.
Right on. The small snippet I read was intriguing. I look forward to it.
Ooo, sweet. I enjoyed The Plague. I’ll take a look. Thanks ;)
Haha, thanks. I’m surprised there’s someone out there that isn’t even familiar with Rent in passing. My ex was a theater major and she looooved Rent, but even I had heard of it before that. I’m not sure I could survive watching the movie again. I think seeing a stage production of Rent would have been awesome though, especially if I knew someone in the play. I DO dig the overall perspective of it, from what I do remember of watching it years ago.
Thanks! Those all look pretty interesting. I’ll probably watch Vast of Night over the weekend.
Interesting, however sitcoms in general really aren’t my cup of tea as well. It was mentioned in other places that Roseanne was one of the few shows to depict working class life somewhat accurately, and with some dignity. A lot of the time the working class is shown in a shallow, stereotypical depiction of what upper-class people imagine it’s like.
Yes! Kids shows are particularly egregious about this. All the kids shows are about rich kids and their rich parents. That’s not to say that kids shows need to explicitly put the problems of class society front and center (although, some small discussion of class and social relations would be nice) but consistently showing kids living out these hyper-capitalist consumerist fantasies is pretty cringe-worthy.
Exactly. The thing that repulses me the most is the fake-y, artificial looking life that is so often represented in entertainment, and then that is what is spun as “normal”. Which I imagine is why these upper-class people even in real life look like the shallow Stepford Wives aesthetic that the movies and tv depict them as, life depicting art it seems.
In my initial short searches I did earlier, Antonio Gramsci comes up as addressing the issue of “cultural hegemony”, where art and entertainment tends to represent the dominant bourgeois culture, which makes a lot of sense. I’ve heard of Gramsci in passing, but haven’t read anything by him yet. I think it’s a good place to begin regarding a critical analysis.
Although, even without a thorough critical analysis, it’s pretty straightforward to realize that the economic barrier for art, entertainment and creating media in general leads to an over-representation of the wealthy since they have the money and means to create and distribute media to the masses, which in turn consolidates their dominance of the popular narrative.
What’s particularly sad about this, is that people that grow up working-class are absorbing messages from media that marginalize their narrative, and cause them to internalize a narrative that leads them to being oblivious towards their class standing and even hostile towards it. The whole “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” concept that causes people to denigrate the poor and working class, even if they themselves are a part of it.
What?! Doesn’t everybody do that?