BOOK: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Here is a fascinating book about art and language. This is the first Joyce novel I've read - well, I've dipped into Ulysses and Dubliners - and I will definitely be testing his other works in the future! (I'd like to try Finnegan's Wake).
The book's narration develops alongside the age and education of our protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. The book isn't about the story of Stephen, it's about the development of the character as a person - his religions, philosophical ideologies, his intellect, and the ways in which Stephen views the passing of every day life.
The novel begins like it is being told from the eyes of a toddler and quickly zooms through basic memories to Stephen's teenage years. As a teenager, Stephen revels in life, breaking all manner of Catholic moral rules. His sins grow and grow and eventually Stephen cowers under the might of his God and turns to repentance. The last chapter develops his ideals and turns him away from religion.
The novel is an experiment in the development of character, his good and bad sides painted onto the way the novel is written. Written in five acts, it really is like a portrait, only in novel form.

FILM: The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner tells the story of the life of Amir Khan, who is tormented by the guilt of abandoning his best friend, Hassan, to the cruelty of the local bullies - an event that changes the two forever. The last third of the novel tells of Amir's desperate attempt at salvation; trying to redeem his childhood cowardice.
The story is also about the radicalisation of Afghanistan, and the mass exodus from Kabul to Pakistan and the US.

The Kite Runner had A LOT to live up to, for me. The book was one of the most wonderful books I've ever read (in my opinion), and I was very intrigued to see how the film would portray it.

The trouble is, the book is all in the mind of our protagonist, Amir. We see him grow up, we grow through his moral torments bit by bit, we see his wrong doings, his emotions, and fears. The plot very much depends on what is going on in Amir's mind. But the film doesn't quite capture this.

As itself, the film is good. There may come a time when I end up watching it again with a friend (I wouldn't be the one to pick it, though). But in comparison to the book, the film falls short.
The acting and direction and script are great. As a film it ticks all the boxes for me. As an adaptation - it doesn't.

FILM: Into the Wild

Into the Wild...A wonderful true story about a teenage boy, Christopher McCandless, who burns all his money and goes to find freedom, living alone in the wild. He renames himself Alexander Supertramp.
We watch his adventures along the way, and the close bonds he makes with people he meets. We also see the development in his philosophies.
He begins with a vague philosophy against material wealth - why do we have the constant need to own one more thing? I understand this philosophy and I can see where he is coming from.
Throughout the film, he develops philosophies around freedom: he believes he will find ultimate truth when he wholly embraces nature - when he lives alone, surviving in the wild. This philosophy, I find harder to grasp - it ignores human nature.
The film is a great story - though I did feel it went on a bit too long. Our protagonist is a very interesting character with a difficult past (though I felt this 'difficult past' was a bit unnecessary to the film - it wasn't really about his past, it was about his mind and philosophy of life).
Warning: the film does not have a happy ending. It's a gruesome ending, which highlights the problems with Chris'/Alex's final philosophy.
He believes he will find 'truth' in ultimate solace in the wild, but soon discovers abject loneliness - relationships are a part of human nature. We naturally live in communities. Without anyone around to help for hundreds of miles, Alex dies of berry poisoning, having neglected to pay attention to his education of wild plants.

Overall, I thought the film was pretty good. A good adaption of the true story, well acted/directed/scripted.

It's not a story that will make you want to follow in his footsteps - but it is a story that will make you think about human nature, the mind, and the way society has developed.

FILM: Woyzeck

Woyzeck is the story of a soldier who provides for his lover, Marie, and illegitimate child by doing odd jobs around the town. He works as the doctor's experiment subject who puts him on strange diets. As a result, Franz slowly goes mad, while discovering Marie's affair with the local drum major, ending in violence. It is based off an unfinished play by Georg Büchner.


Here is Klaus Kinski in his element - playing a mad man. It is common knowledge that Kinski was considered by many to be mad himself, only a lot louder than the madness of his characters. He brilliantly plays this simple character and the development of his madness is interesting to watch.

The plot is quite simple for a Herzog film, as are the characters.
Kinski began filming this film only days after the filming of Nosferatu had finished, so reached the set in a state of exhaustion which definitely adds to the confused and mad look in the character's face.

Of the Herzog films I have seen so far, this is my least favourite, simply because it is rather simple - there's not much depth in the topics - and because I have already seen Kinski play a mad character in Aguirre, Wrath of God, which he did so magnificently. Having said that, Woyzeck is definitely worth a watch - it may be my least favourite Herzog film but it is, by all means, still a good film. What I mean to say is, Herzog may not out-do himself in this film, but it still is a Herzog film - and Herzog, it seems, cannot go wrong.

BOOK: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

What a roller coaster of madness!

The story of the book is about a soldier in the second world war, Yossarian, who constantly strives to get himself out of the air force. He will do anything to stop being a pilot as he is terrified of flying missions - his role is to drop bombs from a plane (with a team) and try his hardest to get out of the artillery gun fire sent from below without dying, or having any of his men die. You can understand, then, why he wants out. We see many of the horrific situations he has been in during missions, and numerous characters die throughout.

But that makes the book sound simple! Oh no. 

There are about 50 different characters, all with their own eccentricities and bits of madness, all of which are complex, fascinating people, and all of which have aspects to commend and aspects to condemn. They are all normal people who have been put through, and exist in, very abnormal circumstances which slowly drive them insane. 

The plot doesn't follow a structure. After reading it, you could sit down and work out the exact order of events if you wanted, though that wouldn't add much to the book, if I'm honest. The unstructured, chaotic jumping from one memory to another adds to the madness of the whole thing. 

I found it difficult to read, at first, because the style of this book is like nothing you will ever have read before. You get to the middle of the book and it gets good. You get to the end, and it is BRILLIANT and you want to re-read the beginning because now you understand it.

It's confusing, it's intelligent, it's witty, it's horrific, it's nasty, it's sad, it's hilarious, it's mad - and it can do all these things in one paragraph.

Every sentence is there for a reason. 

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If you're interested in the English Language and the way it works, read this book. If you want to look into the English Language and the way it works, read this book.

I don't recommend it to anyone who reads just for the sake of plot and action. This is a deeply intelligent, insightful book about madness and language and, I think, requires a philosophical frame of mind to understand it.

It is framed around the notion of 'catch 22': "a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions."

Example:

Yossarian wishes to stop flying missions.

If you are crazy, you are allowed to stop flying missions.

Yossarian wishes to have it noted that he is crazy so that he can stop flying missions.

However, crazy people are crazy enough to want to fly missions.

If Yossarian is not crazy, he must continue flying missions. 

If Yossarian really is crazy, he would want to fly the missions.

Yossarian does not want to fly the missions, so he must not be crazy, and so, he must fly the missions.

Thus, either way, he must fly the missions.

Catch 22.